The Return of Messages from Mâvarin

After all my Wiki-distraction, worrying about Tor and messing around with Sherlock's illustrations, I'm happy to announce that I've finally gotten a bit of fiction writing in, the first fiction I've written in months that was more than a few sentences long. You can see it in Messages from Mâvarin, which I've finally posted to for the first time since October. Shocking, ain't it? Actually I wrote this bit intermittently over a period of months, at least. I can't swear to you that I didn't start the scene a year ago or longer. But no matter. It's moving forward now. I even have the beginning of an inkling of a clue where it might be going. Huzzah!

Mind you, it's not a continuation of the thing I was writing last October before I got stuck and distracted. I was trying to get the prequel to Heirs of Mâvarin moving, past the bits I wrote years ago. But it doesn't look as though I have the inspiration or interest right now to write about the main antagonist of the Mages trilogy in her teenage years.

So instead I posted the bit that I've been writing intermittently at lunch in the mall. It's from a much later book, The Mâvarin Revolutions. In theory it takes place a year or two or three after the end of Return to Mâvarin, which is volume 3 of Mages of Mâvarin. Unless you're one of my faithful beta readers you're going to be lost, but just go with it. All I'll tell you for now is that the scene I posted doesn't take place in the same universe/timeline/reality as Heirs of Mâvarin. Cathma Masha is not Crel.

Now that I've got you thoroughly confused, here's the line-up of Mâvarin-related fiction as it stands now:

Canonical works:

1. To Rule Mâvarin - the prequel, about how Lore becomes Lormarte, and Queen Genva's deadly enemy. I just hope it doesn't turn out to be as bad as Star Wars Episode III.
2. "What About the Children?" - Crel and Del, age 10, brush up against their future destinies in this novelette - if only I can reconstruct what the plot was going to be!
   
3. Heirs of Mâvarin - the introductory book in the series, the one I started in high school a million years (and as many drafts) ago, the one that will have been at Tor for eleven months in another week.
   
4. Mages of Mâvarin - the original sequel, which grew into a trilogy:
1. An Adept in Mâvarin - Darsuma comes to Mâvarin, bringing trouble with her.
2. Another Mâvarin - Rani is stranded on a remote island, and Cathma is stranded in another world.
3. Return to Mâvarin - Cathma and Rani try to get home - but issues of identity get in the way.
   
5. The Mâvarin Revolutions - Cathma and Carli find their rule threatened by their respective love lives. Meanwhile, in the other Mâvarin, the time is ripe for revolution - if only the revolutionaries can get their preferred ruler to cooperate.

Apocrypha:

• Missives from Mâvarin - all that short stuff - letters and diary entries, mostly - that I've posted in Messages from Mâvarin. Might end up being canonical, but they're not part of the existing books.
• Mall of Mâvarin - that slightly silly serial I posted in 2005.
  

Should keep me busy for a while, don't you think? Mages is mostly done and Heirs is entirely done, but the prequel and the other sequel are each just a few pages long, so far. If I can just get the first book sold, that will go a long way toward motivating me to write the rest.

Karen