SWOON: the Series…?

Many thanks, Sarah Rees Brennan, for your biting guest blog! But I interrupt these “My First SWOON” essays with a blargh of my own. Many curious readers have written lately wondering if SWOON the novel will become SWOON the series or at least SWOON the sequel. Readers, you’re not the only ones to so inquire….


It is very early morning. AKA the middle of the night. I am abed when someone comes calling inside my head…

Sinclair Youngblood Powers: Dearest lady?
Nina Osa Malkin: Sin?
Sin: It is I. Are you awake?
Me: I am now.
Sin: I’ve disturbed your slumber. Forgive me.
Me: It’s okay. There’s a sixteen-pound cat on my head, Sin—I don’t sleep well in general. So what’s up?
Sin: Nothing. Which is the problem, precisely. I miss our chats…our collaborations. I miss you, dear lady.
Me: Oh, Sin, me too. I love you so much. But your story’s told. SWOON is officially out. You ought to be excited.
Sin: I am! Of course I am. Millions of readers shall thrill to the tale.
Me: Millions, huh? Here’s hoping.
Sin: Except now…I feel so...adrift. What has become of me? Am I truly gone, never to return in print?
Me: Sin, your ego knows no bounds.
Sin: Cruel mistress! You have no notion what it’s like. To be brought to life so vividly, so exquisitely, have your story told so eloquently, and then to…to…to what?
Me: That’s part of the pact, babe, the author-character agreement. The last two words of every tale must be “the end.”
Sin: But it’s unfair.
Me: Oh, come on. You don’t see Dice complaining.
Sin: No. But as narrator she got to tell the story—she had a voice.
Me: You harboring a grudge about that? It’s Dice’s story as much as yours. Besides, the synopsis on the website is in your voice.
Sin: A paltry paragraph! Small favor.
Me: Sin, what do you want from me?
Sin: Can it not continue? The further adventures? I assure you, there are plenty. Especially now that I’m here, in New York…
Me: A sequel. You wake me up in the middle of the night to badger me about a sequel.
Sin: Is it not possible? I can’t imagine you resting on your laurels.
Me: Well, I have been getting emails from readers on the website, wondering about a sequel. And I have been wondering myself—I’m sure the further adventures are intriguing. But here’s the thing, the state of the economy, the recession we’re in right now: My publisher didn’t do me a deal for a series, and the book business is stanko right now, so they probably wouldn’t want a SWOON sequel unless they could bank on a slam dunk—
Sin: Ah, if SWOON were an enormous bestseller…
Me: The book’s only out a couple of weeks and they tell me it’s doing really well. But if it went mega; if readers wrote Simon & Schuster demanding more SWOON; if there were fan clubs…
Sin: Fan clubs! I like the sound of that! So how do we make it happen? Perhaps if I paid a visit to our readers, I could convince them to—
Me: Convince them, huh? You are funny, Sin. Look, I feel like we’ve done our job. We’ve told the story; Simon Pulse is promoting the book. Now it really is up to readers. I mean, I’d love to do more SWOON, but at the moment….I’m a little distracted
Sin: (somewhat indignant) Indeed you are. Because you have another!
Me: What? Oh...you mean Leo.
Sin: Yes. Leo.
Me: You know about him.
Sin: I know about him. And the young lady; I know about her as well. Ha! People think I’m trouble!
Me: I know, I know, but…well, they’re talking to me, Sin. They’re in me.
Sin: I see. So where does that leave us?
Me: I don’t know, Sin. You go off and make literary history. You’ve got millions of readers to seduce — sorry, convince. And me…
Sin: You, dear lady?
Me: I gotta pee. So I might as well get up, turn on the computer. You know, do what I do.
Sin: Which is?
Me: Find out what happens…