Solitude Two: Electric Boogaloo
I use Grammarly’s plagiarism checker because in horror, the reboots are never as good as the original.
Reboots and sequels…
Back in the 1990s, we had a running joke about Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogalo. The movie sucked, and we used to tag “Electric Boogalo” to the end of any really crappy second addition to a movie franchise. For example, “Highlander II: Electric Boogalo.” Every horror, dark fantasy or sci-fi writer, I think, would live in deep and eternal shame if his or her second entry was as terrible as “Highlander II: The Quickening,” a movie so bad that even Sean Connery couldn’t save it.
I am feeling that kind of fear as a I fret and worry over “Disillusionment,” the second installment in the “Solitude” series. The last thing I want is to churn out “Solitude Two: Electric Boogaloo”
As I try to complete my work on “Disillusionment,” the second book in the Solitude Saga, I am finding that there are challenges in writing a sequel that are not present in writing the first book in the series. For one thing, plot consistency has become more challenging since there has been a two year gap between the completion of the first work and, well, today.
I also find I am a little intimidated because like any sequel, “Disillusionment,” part two of the Solitude Saga, lives in the long shadow cast by the first novel. “Solitude” was not only the first book of this series, it was my first completed novel length work, which gives it a special place in my heart.
So the feeling that I need to top it somehow gives me a mildly intimidated feeling which occasionally leads to a kind of writer’s block. I’m half way through the novel, but still and yet, things are going slow.
I had intended to complete it before I went to Convolution in November, but I can see at this rate, that is not going to happen.
Most likely, I will be working on “Disillusionment” during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in November. I hope to complete the first draft at the end of NaNoWriMo… I made a great progress at Camp NaNoWriMo in July, even winning an award for completing the first 50K + words!
I have decided that it will take as much time as it takes to finish Disillusionment, and I sincerely and deeply hope that when it is completed, it will be worth the wait for all of the fans of “Solitude” who asked for a sequel…
All three of them.
Sumiko Saulson 