First an announcement, and maybe a drumroll. No Return, the first in the Maine Lodge series is finished. I’m not going to lie. Writing this book has been an eighteen-month slog. There were times it felt as long as a Maine winter, with no possibility of spring in sight.

Why did I keep at it? It’s hard to explain. The first third of the first draft flowed. Characters and settings required research, but the story had a clear trajectory and the characters fell in with my plans. All good, right? No. My characters had their own stories to tell, and they were different to the one I thought I knew. As the middle third of the story unfolded, the characters staged a coup. They won, and it meant a return to that formerly fast flowing first third. Trust developed over time, as we all learned more about each other. At the end of eighteen months, the story was done, edited, and ready for beta readers. As I write this, I’m waiting for their comments.

Photo from Maine.gov

So, what’s next? It’s summer in Maine. The horse flies are in full flight, but the black flies have abated. My plan was to take a month and do some exploration. Hike the Allagash and find the ghost train. See if it works as the setting for a future Maine Lodge book. Enjoy the riotous peony bloom, harvest this year’s vegetable crop, and read all the books I’ve squirreled away on my Kindle. Too late. The three-day rain took out the peonies, and this year’s veggie crop is on track to rival last year’s. Finding the ghost train is on the list, but that won’t fill a summer.

Plans to write a short story had been on my agenda for the past six months. An attempt to scratch that itch led me to my ideas journal. Story snippets fill the pages, some more cryptic than others, and since it’s handwritten, some I cannot decipher. One stood out. An idea for the fourth book of the Hayden Kent series.

Scan of a Scan, Marathon, FL

When I wrote Death Dive, the third of the series, it was intended as the final book. The original story arc was complete. Turns out the characters weren’t finished with me. They had at least one more story to tell, and it’s titled Death by Deception. Returning to Marathon in the Florida Keys is like coming home. I hadn’t realized how much I had missed this setting and these characters. The story ideas are flowing. Diving will be involved, and all is well in my fictional world.

Funny thing. Now that I’m immersed in a Florida story, I can feel Sassy Romano, the proprietor of the Maine Lodge, tapping me on the shoulder. I wonder what adventures she’s cooking up.

Kait Carson writes the Hayden Kent Mysteries set in the Fabulous Florida Keys and is at work on a new mystery set in her adopted state of Maine. She is a former President of the Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime and a member of Sisters in Crime, Guppies, and Sisters in Crime New England. Visit her website at www.kaitcarson.com. While you’re there, sign up for her newsletter.