Back to Victoria Frankenstein?

It was more than four years ago when I published--via Kindle Direct--the second of a projected three-volume YA narrative called The Papers of Victoria Frankenstein.

Victoria, whom we meet as an 8th grader in the early and mid-1990s, is a direct descendant of the Frankenstein family (yes, that Frankenstein), a fact she discovers in the first book.

She has a talent for science (surprise!), and she finds herself caught up in some dark adventures. I ended the second volume at Niagara Falls, where ... ain't tellin' you.

Victoria tells her own story--but her "papers" are edited and arranged by her 8th grade English teacher, Mr. Bob Walton, to whom she has entrusted her tale. (And you know how trustworthy 8th grade English teachers are!)

After I finished that second volume (subtitled: Her Homework Ate My Dog), I put myself on Pause with the story and decided I wanted to complete my memoir Frankenstein Sundae, a volume about my long pursuit of Mary Shelley and her works.

I thought I could do that work quickly. I couldn't. I had to go back and re-read things; I had to read many volumes that had come out about Mary and her circle since I'd published (via Kindle Direct) my YA bio of Mary--The Mother of the Monster (2012).

So ... some years passed, and it wasn't until just recently (August) that I finally uploaded Frankenstein Sundae to Kindle Direct. I wasn't crazy about the condition it was in, but I didn't have any more energy to devote to it. I figured something was better than nothing--a calculation that's not always--to be generous--accurate.

As you have no doubt inferred, health and personal issues have complicated all. Within the last year, my mother died, one of my greatest friends and colleagues (Andy Kmetz) died, a couple of my fine former students died. Since January 2018, I've undergone (for my metastatic prostate cancer) immunotherapy and my second round of radiation treatments. I suffer--all day, every day--from a mild vertigo. And I'm on some related meds that sap my energy, that increase my vulnerability to depression. Not the best of working conditions.

So ... Victoria has had to wait. But--lately--I've heard her calling. Time to finish my story, isn't it? she asks.

I suppose it is.

I have a bunch of notes I compiled a few years ago about this final volume, but I'm going to have to quickly re-read the first two to remind myself what-in-the-hell went on in them. And it will take some time to get back Victoria's "voice."

But I'm going to give it a whirl. And--as I did with the previous volumes--I will serialize the first draft of vol. 3 on this site, 2-3 days/week.

It will probably be a few weeks from now when I start, but I'm beginning to look forward to it. I'll keep you ... posted!