I started writing The Shadows of Sicily around 5 years ago. It began as the backstory for my LARP character, Phaedra, and progressed into a 45 page novella. Sadly, all that stuff is in the middle and I am working up to it very slowly - so nope, I don't have it all done ahead of time.

When writing Phaedra's story I knew Decentius would be important, after all he was my sire and loads of fun to play with. Claudia Antonia, who was theoretically part of the LARP but never actually showed up, become important.

And then there was Antonius. He showed to lug Phaedra's bags into Decentius' home, and proceeded to make her life miserable - though almost completely offstage. A character sprung out of the ether and into my story. A character I don't really like, but realized would be one of my four main characters in the longer version of the story.

For that reason his bits seem to take longer to write. I have no sympathy for him. I don't want to be in his head. Yet he is important to the story, so I don't have much choice.

I'm not out of his head yet. Although Chapter 3: Antonius Introduced - Part 2 is up, and I think it's the last part of Chapter 3, I will still be in his head for at least part and perhaps all of Chapter 4. And then there's the rest of the story.

Why am I whining? Well, it's just that you'd think my own brain would be nicer to me. But you would be wrong.

Hey, at least he's making things move right along. That's the good news.

- April