'The Dubious Commode': Done!

All I need to do is point at the post subject and squeal. And grieve. This marks the end of the journey for Prue, Freddy, Brody, Jonathan, Felicity, Linford, and everyone else involved in the wild workings of this special universe that's been part of my writerly world for a few years. 

Writing epistolary fiction was a great exercise -- mentally and creatively -- and now that the genie's out of the bottle, you bet I'm going to take advantage of this narrative form again in future books. And epistolary fiction is my favorite method of storytelling because of the way letters and journal entries force readers to make mental connections given the limitations of the form. 

I tried as much as I could to avoid falling into the same trap as I've seen in classic works like Dracula (which was my primary inspiration source for this series), where letters end up reading like standard narratives complete with impossibly exhaustive dialogues. No one writes letters like that in the real world, but for the sake of the story, some dialogue needs to find its way in the text. So I tried to limit it as much as I could, using the journal entries more like standard narratives in this case -- though still with strict limits. 

But, yeah -- I've always wanted to try my hand at writing epistolary fiction, particularly novel-length fiction, and I managed it somehow. And proved to myself I can also do it in long novella form, too, which opens the floodgates for future books -- as long as the narrative form fits the story, obvs. I'm not keen on shoehorning an epistolary in every book I work on. 

Anyway, the book's done, and now it's a matter of revisions and edits and all the good stuff. I'll write an afterword, naturally. Be assured Prue and Freddy's ghostly adventures will carry on well beyond the final journal entry. I'll be taking a break from this book for the rest of the month so I can clear my head in readiness for the revisions and polishing up, which I plan to do in May. 

And for the time being, I can get started on Voices in the Briars. I'd post a celebratory disco video, but I'm going to lose myself in videos and some reading instead. But yay! Another book under my belt!