It’s my third week of what I’ve been calling the “Pioneer Sessions”: a planned two-month project of notetaking and research in which I’m charting the course through the rest of the Pioneers series.

One of the first things I learned about writing is to expect the unexpected. If you’re writing a novel and everything is going exactly as you plotted it out, something is wrong. Stories take twists and turns, and sometimes you just have to roll with it and see where it takes you. That is, after all, the whole reason I’m doing this. But last week, something truly unexpected happened: I realized I was already writing the next novel in the Pioneers series.

Week 3: Roll with the Changes

Over the years, one of the songs that’s become a sort of theme to my writing (especially when I’m between projects) is Roll with the Changes by REO Speedwagon. And while I hadn’t expected it, that song came to define last week in the Pioneer Sessions.

Another thing I’ve learned over the years is that you must keep writing. Doesn’t matter what, doesn’t matter if you’re deep in research on a project. You have to write something. And with The Ursa Frontier still fresh in my mind, it’s no surprise that I began writing about the characters of the novel. As I’ve said before, I’ve come to realize that the biggest impediment to me moving on with the series after writing The Ursa Frontier was the simple fact that I didn’t know where everything was going next. I needed to understand how the characters’ lives had changed between the first novel and the next.

Inspired by The Expanse, from the start I’ve intended to write a series of tie-in novellas to go with each of my novels. Originally, the plan was for these works to delve deeper into the rich fictional future I’d created. They’d follow one-off characters going about their daily lives, giving readers a clearer picture of what was going on everywhere else. I’d actually started several of the planned novellas to accompany the next novel, which were collectively titled Other Earths.

But a lot has changed over the past six months. My growing shift to interiority has left me more interested in focusing on the core characters of the Pioneers series. So, I began writing more about Randall Holmes. I started exploring the changes he goes through between the two novels. Then I figured it would be good to check in with William Ford. And as I sat back, looking over what I’d written and had planned, I noticed something. I had plans for a series of self-contained pieces, but which followed the same group of characters. They occurred chronologically, and were tied together by an overarching plot.

Without meaning to, I’d begun writing a novel.

Since the beginning, I’d planned a major time jump between The Ursa Frontier and the subsequent novel: a leap forward of over thirty years. At the time, it seemed to make sense. And over the past few years, that notion grew so hardened in my mind I just couldn’t see past it. But one of the most recent things I’ve learned about writing is to open myself up to new directions. To challenge what I think I know. And to roll with the changes.

Reluctantly, I’ve paused writing this new novel, which is now titled Children of Other Earths. I’m doing so not because I’ve hit a wall, but because as this project has changed dramatically, I don’t feel comfortable moving forward until I’ve ironed some things out. I’m still working on the timeline; I know what I want to include in the novel, but I’m having a hard time deciding exactly what should happen when. I have research to do, and even more research already done that I need to review and revisit. But I have a clear overall direction. I finally know where I’m going.

Inadvertently, I’ve made my first major breakthrough in the Pioneer Sessions. The next novel will not take place over thirty years after the events of The Ursa Frontier. Rather, it will begin roughly five years after, and will jump around through a story that will take place across half a dozen planets and span roughly three decades. It will still have the scope I’d planned for the now-aborted second installment. It will still be a tremendous challenge. But there’s one huge, key difference:

I know I can do it. Because, as it turns out, I’m doing it already. – MK