Ghost Horse at Oak Lane Stable (Book 4) is Done!

I’m happy to say that after an intense week of writing last week (over 4,000 words in two days) Ghost Horse at Oak Lane Stable (Book 4) is done! Now, that doesn’t mean it’s ready for publishing yet. I still have to go back through it to clean it up, add details where they are needed, and make it presentable to the editor. Then, when she is finished marking up her copy, I’ll go back through the manuscript again and make the necessary changes. It will make a wonderful read after all of that work is done.

I’ve already changed the ending I originally had, changed a chapter’s scenes, and added a chapter where I felt there was too long of a time span between reading about the interactions between the main character, Cassie, and Logan, the new, young cowboy she’s introduced to. Sometimes I don’t know these things until the novel is down, and I go back through it to get a sense of how the story flows.

What I hadn’t realized before, until maybe this novel and finishing Dark Horse (Book 3), is that I start to slow down toward the end. This is usually when the scenes start to speed up and escalate in a novel, but I often find myself wanting to slow down and savor writing those last few chapters. I don’t know if other writers do this or if this is something that’s a quirk of mine.

I have to remember that I’ve spent nearly 12 years with these same main characters and letting them go after this series isn’t easy. I cannot move forward in time with another novel because Cassie is already 14 - a tough age in a middle grade series. Usually, characters are 13 at best. I can go back in time to when she’s in grade school and learning to ride George, the school horse, (which would be Book 5), but moving her forward to sophomore year in high school isn’t going to work. She would start to experience more adult situations, which would not work in a middle grade series. I always have to consider the young readers who start with Cassie when she’s 12 in Mystery Horse (Book 1).

I had an idea (and was prompted to do so by a wonderful writing friend) for Christmas Horse at Oak Lane Stable, A Novella, something shorter that would continue Logan’s and Cassie’s story briefly (I have a feeling readers will not want to stop at just one Logan story), but that will have to come after all of the editing and proofing of Ghost Horse happens first. Still, a quick 20,000 word Christmas story . . . fun . . . doable . . .

I’m looking forward to Ghost Horse’s release this October. It was a wonderful story to tell. There are a lot of challenges ahead for Cassie and her friends - heartaches and new loves, horses won and lost, but then, isn’t that what growing up entails? Change? I hope you will enjoy the story when you have the chance to read it.