The Book of Masks Homepage

But It's Not the One I Was Hinting About Yesterday

I guess you all noticed that there was no chapter last night, either in sequence or as a one-off. Well, sometimes these things happen.

It was a confusing weekend on this end of things. I had previously finished the revisions I needed to do to set up the commission I'm working on. But there were details to the commission that hadn't been settled yet, so I had to miss two days of writing while waiting for them to be finalized. They are still not completely settled, but enough got nailed down that I could resume writing, and the sequel to "Schools of Fishiness"  is now written and sitting on the launching pad.

Today, though, brings part one of a two-part one-off (so to speak): "Guilty Consciences All Around" 

That link goes to the interactive, and there is no equivalent public page, because even though I wrote it, I wrote it for someone else.

By sheerest coincidence, you see, a reader/author slid into my Inbox yesterday with technical questions for a storyline he wanted to write. It turned out that his idea wouldn't work, but after a quick back-and-forth I offered to launch a spin-off chapter that would let him publish a reworked version of his original idea. That is today's publication. And because it sets up a branch that I will not be writing, I've not included it in the public pages.

The background to bring you up to speed: Will has been trying to get rid of the Libra, but it keeps yo-yo-ing back into his possession. First, he lost it in a scrum with some bullies; then after telling a teacher about it and getting it back, he tried burying it in the school time capsule. (That involved sneaking onto school grounds at night, digging up the already buried capsule, and putting the book into it.) But then the time capsule gets dug up by perpetrators unknown, and its contents scattered. Will has gone to Mr. Walberg to ask if a book had been recovered from the capsule, and learns that the perpetrators left a piece of evidence behind—a piece of evidence linking the theft to those same bullies who had taken the book from him in the first place.

As today's chapter opens, Will has decided not to tell Mr. Walberg what he knows, and to again try putting the whole business behind him.

I have to write one more sequel to finish setting things up for the other author, and then I'll resume with the commission on Wednesday.