Refresh

It's been a long time since I've focused on writing any fiction.

I was so gung-ho when I finished writing the second draft of Dark Water that I immediately began thinking of the sequel. While I let Dark Water simmer, and while friends and family were reading the rough draft, I started work on The Watcher.

Image: ChatGPT

I knew right away that I wanted this story to be set in Ottawa's ByWard Market, and I wanted a serial killer. But that's pretty much all I knew. Not that that was a bad thing: when I had my initial idea for Dark Water, I had a victim and the location of where that victim would be found. I didn't have the killer or a motive.

I wanted to have a First Nations element to the story. Ottawa is seated on unceded territory of the Algonquin people and I wanted to recognize that. All of the victims would be found with an item that could be linked to the Algonquin First Nation.

But I wanted to be careful. I didn't want the killer to be First Nation. As DW and I have discussed, neither of us could see such a crime attributed to an indigenous person. And in a climate of missing and murdered indigenous women, I thought this was a topic that didn't feel right.

Sadly, I had been ignorant to the horrors committed against First Nations in our country's history. Though I'm slowly learning.

I've started again, taking a different turn, though keeping many of the elements that I had created. I've written five chapters and would like to salvage whatever I can.

This week, I've written some ideas and have come up with what I hope is a good story line. I've written a synopsis for The Watcher—at least, a solid outline.

I have some red herrings and I've come up with the killer, though I haven't fleshed him or her out. I know why the killer committed these crimes but I haven't created a persona.

That'll come as I start writing.

In between spending an hour or so, each day, attending to household chores, and training for the Camino Portugués, I'm back to writing. And who knows? Maybe I'll have enough of The Watcher written to compel whoever decides to publish Dark Water that I'm not just a one-trick pony?

Stay tuned.