Thanks to a fair amount of Sculpey, a bit of paint, a lot of patience, and one tiny gourd, I was able to finish Gourd Fish. I don't want to sound immodest but it is the finest gourd fish I have personally ever seen.
 
This is possibly the finest gourd fish you've ever seen, too, because how many gourd fishes are there in the world? This might be the only one.
 
Even the Good Witch provided a begrudging, "That looks cute." Which would have been a lovely conversation, had it ended there, but then she had to ask if Glynn and I had FINALLY started on The Fifth Brother (sequel to The Sixth Brother, sequel to One Bride for Seven Brothers). I had to tell her we hadn't. So then she gave Gourd Fish one of those looks, as if G.F. was somehow responsible for the delay in our writing production. Then she left the room.
 
The Good Witch left the room, that is. Not Gourd Fish.
 
Oh, G.W. didn't go far. Not with her mother, the Bad Witch, lurking in the guest room back at her place. G.W. might have been a tad disappointed by my response but she wasn't crazy. She went into my kitchen, grabbed an organic apple, then returned to ask, "What's taking so long?"
  
The problem was, I didn't know how to start the next novella. Glynn and I had talked the bones of The Fifth Brother, we knew where we wanted things to go -- and, most importantly, what was going to happen romantically -- but we hadn't figured out the actual beginning scene. This usually falls on me and it's rarely an issue. Glynn encourages me to go wherever I'd like, since I enjoy starting stories. It's usually great fun but, this time, I'd drawn a blank. When I told my partner in word processing, he didn't know what to say. Neither one of us had a clue on what to do.
 
Gnawing on her (my) apple, G.W. shooed us out the door. (I loved that G.W. was chewing on a piece of fruit. In the past, she'd have gone for a high calorie/chemical-dense Little Debbie stomach grenade. She's doing great.) My friend knew that Glynn and I always walk and talk when we're plotting a tale...if the time comes that we can't walk, that's it, the writing career is over...and it worked again this time, too. Slowly an idea began to form.
 
The idea we had went something like this: Flora, our heroine, had always wanted a pet but her father, a man-shaped bag of evil, refused to consider the idea. He'd always admonished her, whenever she'd shown affection toward an animal. Now that she lived in Washington, away from his poison, she finds herself drawn to animals again. Maybe the story starts with her feeding one of the beasties on their property. Maybe she's feeding birds. Yes, we decided to use birds. Then Brody, her husband, comes outside as she's tossing a handful of crumbs to the ground....
 
Enthused, I returned home to start the story. Almost instantly, the words started flowing. The next day, the writing went even more smoothly. I wasn't surprised to discover that none of the finished pages involved Flora's father, birds, or any of the ideas we'd discussed. Somehow "Brody comes outside" was all that was needed to launch Brother #5.
 
I think our first ever sequel-to-a-sequel is going to move along quickly now. I'm excited.

Bearing treats, the Good Witch let herself inside my Woman Cave. In the center of the platter she carried, there was a cup of avocado goo but she'd surrounded it with enough actual goodies that I felt my mouth water. (I detest the green goo, as G.W. knows. I agree with the Mongolian nomads, who referred to an uncut avocado as "the Devil's Testicle", and declared this least palatable fruit as unfit for man, child, or beast. The ancient peoples had great wisdom.)

Seeing what I was doing as she entered, G.W. actually pulled the platter aside, as if I wasn't deserving of her munchies. Belatedly, I realized she'd expected to find me in mid-story. She was used to seeing me with my butt planted in its swivel chair, my pale and sunken face illuminated by the blue-white color of my computer screen. When she came through the door, the computer screen was dark. For the first day this summer, I hadn't even turned the machine on. Instead, G.W. saw me playing with a small dried gourd, a hunk of Sculpey, and some acrylic paints.

So G.W. cried out what she cried out (see above), I felt guilty...but let's pause there for a moment. If I truly was a slacker, would I have felt badly about abandoning my keyboard for a day?
 
I don't think so, either. So I told her, "I'm having fun."
 
"This is no time for fun," she said.
 
In that, she was absolutely wrong. Whenever Glynn and I finish a writing project, we take a week off to recharge our emotional batteries, refresh the little gray cells, and pump ourselves up for life's next challenge. Usually, we only have a vague idea of what we're doing next but that's not the case now. Even as puzzle over the plotline for our first ever sequel-to-a-sequel, we know our next story is The 5th Brother.
 
The 6th Brother was a lengthy project for Team Anne Glynn. G.W. and Tegan, our two beta readers, had shared their notes with us, we'd made some corrections, and all involved seemed pleased with the final project. In every way except for the actual publication of the novella, we're finished. At this point, I was ready for a little R & R.
 
The Good Witch didn't care. An insatiably curious reader, she wanted to know what happens next in our bride tale...and, for that to happen, I needed to put words on paper. I love that she feels that way.
 
Realizing she wouldn't win this battle, G.W. placed her snack platter on the corner of my work table. "So what is this thing?" she asked.
 
"It's a gourd fish."
 
"Does it have a name?"
 
"I call it, Gourd Fish," I admitted, "because I'm creative that way."
 
"I'm going to the kitchen to get a butter knife," G.W. told me. "I'm putting avocado on everything."
 

If you're wondering, I blame Ronda V. for this whole thing. While she was busy writing an email to us, Glynn and I were buried in the world of Quincy Fix and our next mail order bride novel. Then Ronda's message hit our inbox, and our plans took a sharp left.
 
Ronda wondered when we were going to write a follow-up story to One Bride for Seven Brothers. She wasn't the first person to ask, I'm happy to say, but her request was apparently one too many. The tipping point, so to speak. Because Glynn looked up from the computer screen and asked, "Why haven't we written a sequel to One Bride?"
 
As if he didn't know. When we wrote the novella, we kind of felt it was complete in and of itself. It was only the readers who thought there was more to be shared.
 
Since Glynn already knew this, I didn't go into the conversation again. Instead, I simply reminded him, "We're currently working on something else. Our novel."
 
We weren't just writing the novel, we were fully engaged in the process. We'd just finished the book's latest chapter the day before. The. Day. Before. At 30,000 words in, we were officially halfway done.
 
"It could be fun to write a sequel," he said. "Our first ever. Another tale in Flora's saga."
 
"What saga? When did we ever talk about writing a saga? Besides, the new novel is a sequel, kind of."
 
"It's a long sequel, with weeks and weeks to go before we're finished. Another novella would be a short sequel. It would take us a month, tops. Even if we did one brother at a time, we'd be done will the entire clan by the end of summer."
 
I believed what he was saying, too, which only goes to show that ignorance truly is bliss. A homemade cranberry muffin later, I agreed to set aside our work in progress (sorry, Quincy), and start working on the plot. And then....
 
If you've glanced outside a window lately, you've probably noticed that summer is fading. I've noticed that we're far from done with this "short" project. Somehow, we've ended up spending more time on this novella than we had on half a novel. As the days flew past, the story began to grow in size and is now almost twice as long as we'd anticipated. It's markedly longer than the original.
 
Not complaining, just explaining.
 
How did this happen? I don't know; I've never written a sequel before. It's been a joy, returning to Flora and the Victorian era, but we were foolish to think everything would go smoothly. I should have known better. Even when we're in the groove, Glynn and I create pages slowly. My writer friend, Sue, once told me she'd completed 8,000+ pretty, polished words over a long weekend. I pretended not to hear her.
 
But I heard you, Sue. Oh, yes, I did.
 
The terrific news is, One Bride for Seven Brothers: The Sixth Brother is finished, complete, done, and we're happy with it. We like it as much as the original and we believe it can be read as a complete story all by itself. (Not that anyone will, but still.) For the next three months, it's an Amazon exclusive but it will escape into the rest of the world in time. We already have someone working on converting the tale into other formats.
 
First sequel done, five brothers to go. This is on you, Ronda.

Have you ever heard of Babelcube? The website claims their crack team of Babelers provide, "the easiest way to sell a book in new languages", and that appears to be true...but only if you're the author of the original story, and not one of the translators. Once an agreement is signed, the translators have to work a lot, whereas the original author(s) are required to do very little, not that their book has been written.
 
At least, that's how Glynn explained it to me. As I remember the conversation, he said something like, "Wouldn't it be great to have some of our stories available in other languages?" and -- when that didn't sway me -- he went with, "It's easy money, babe. We list a few of our stories on their site, someone asks us if they can translate 'em, and we just enjoy the sweet, sweet royalties" and -- when that didn't sway me, either -- he tried, "I'll set everything up. I'll do it. Please?"
 
He had me. I'm a sucker for "please", especially when the request is accompanied by someone else volunteering to do all of the legwork.
 
(If you're wondering, the header to this post is intended to read: Glad you stopped by today. Being a bit behind in my Portuguese language studies, I don't know if it actually does read this way. If someone has been messing with Google Translations, it may actually read, Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.)
 
Once I'd given my approval, Glynn got to work. He did whatever it was he needed to do, then expressed vague disappointment a few days later when we weren't messaged by a flood of French, Japanese, Dutch and Afrikaans translators. Since vague disappointment isn't an unusual state in any household, especially this one, we continued on with our other writing challenges.
 
Then, one fine day, Babelcube told us that Karla Marques V. was interested in translating our words. She wasn't the first to make such a request; Glynn had already turned down a Spanish translation of One Bride for Seven Brothers and a different Spanish translator for World War Zelda. Those folks seemed nice, he told me, but they didn't have the chops for the gig.
 
KMV, though, wanted to do a Portuguese take on WWZelda, and her sample page was impressive. We signed up, Karla was professional throughout, and the translation rocks. (Or so we're told. We know people who know people, and they've said she did a sweet job.) Once everything was finished, Babelcube began contacting the different sales channels. As of two weeks ago, there were twelve different sites featuring Guerra Mundial Zelda, including Apple and Amazon.
 
I don't know if anyone's bought a copy yet, but you'd best believe I haven't forgotten Glynn's promise of easy money. One way (via Karla's translation) or another (meet Glynn, your new Wal-Mart greeter), I expect to see some green.