What's Next?

So I've published the novella, Flutes of Paradise. What's next? I'm not sure how many writers would give a direct answer regarding their next project. I will say I've been getting interested in stories with a conventional story structure. More readers read them. In the past I've been interested in writing those, but didn't feel I could do it. Instead I published offbeat, imaginative fiction, happy to do things quirkily and experimentally. Truth be told, I haven't analyzed my stories, so I have no idea what the deal may be with them structure-wise. I just wrote a beginning, middle, and end, and then stopped. Of course, not every famous fiction has the old and familiar matrix that is so nice. Some story arcs chronicle an imaginative transformational journey (a gradual alchemical change) from beginning to end, rather than a hero's quest or the like. That's what you get in The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino: an unfolding revelation. Nonetheless, I feel I could manage something built with a rise-and-fall curve. And that is different. It feels similar to a time in the past when I thought I couldn't write a story in serial format, publishing the story as I went along, as it was written, until I successfully executed Excalibur Unum in Figure Eights, which I published daily online (I later published it as the second of two novellas in Two Novellas). Whatever comes next, I just like it when you enjoy reading my stories as much as I do.

Pete O'Brien