Following that same thought process, I’ve decided to take a few weeks to step back and regroup so that I can complete this story the way it needs to be completed.

There are people who outline and people who don’t.  I fall squarely into the second category.  My first drafts are my outline.  It was ambitious  and quite stupid of me to attempt this without first having a rough draft.  As I tried to write Chapter 10, I realized I was a little lost.

And that’s part of the process.  Stories go through drafts.  They evolve and change.  My task is to make sure that I put out the best story I can. And if I don’t take the time to plot out the ending, I won’t be holding up my end of the bargain.

So I’m going to take the time to finish the story. I’m going to write the rest of it out so that when I return in a few weeks, I’ll have a clearer idea of where Charlie Hudson and Theo Jackson are going.

Just think of this as a a split season of television.  The show isn’t going off the air, it’s just taking a break.

Thank you all for your support and patience.

Chapter 9 will be out on May 1.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy.

As you’ll see in this chapter, the cracks in Charlie’s life are starting to appear, and it’s only the beginning.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions, comments.  Fire away.

Chapter 8 will be out on April 15th.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy.

The one thing I’m afraid of, and I think a writer trying to pull this off should be, is that readers won’t feel invested in Charlie and Theo’s relationship because they already know he’s dead.  And, honestly, I was tempted in the planning to withhold his death for a long time to keep the reader invested, but I decided that doing so would come across as a dirty trick.  Instead, I decided that I needed to get people invested in their relationship by having them get invested in Charlie’s future.  We have to want to care about Theo and Charlie because the power of their relationship is the engine that powers the story in the present.

Also, I may have one other trick up my sleeve in regards to Theo, but I’m keeping that one close to my chest for now.

Because Theo is dead and Charlie is essentially recalling him from death with his guitar, I want to play with the language of spirituality, the words of religion.  And not just Christian religion, but all of them.  So, if you read with a sharp eye, you’ll see a lot of religious stuff going on.  Also, there is a lot of underlying water and choking/drowning stuff going on.

I also wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has taken the time to read and comment and support this odd endeavor.  You rock

Chapter 7 will be live on April 1!

At the same time, Charlie is still unsure of his goal.  He wants to bring back Charlie, but doesn’t know how.  Introducing Audrey and outing him to the school is the first big step toward empowering my protagonist to kick his efforts into overdrive.

We also met Charlie’s enemy…one of them, anyway.

Chapter 6 will be up March 15th, so stay tuned.

Writing this chapter was a lot of fun.  After so much darkness, we finally got to see some of the sweeter bits between Charlie and Theo, and even a little humor.

The PDF is below, so read on.  And I’d love to hear any thoughts, so leave some comment love below!

If you haven’t read the first 3 chapters, now is a great time to catch up.  You can start with Chapter 1.