On the first day of their honeymoon, a couple takes a thrill ride up the world’s tallest building. It’s an all glass elevator that hugs the exterior rising over a mile into the sky. What starts out as an adrenaline kick quickly turns into something more deadly.

The Plunge is an awesome short story loosely set in the Recovering Eden world. I say loosely because the characters involved aren’t featured in Sole Prey or Sole Survivor. It’s different people with different lives and different problems, but existing in the same world. It’s one of the very cool things I love about writing. As a writer, you lift the magnifying glass from one area and move it over to another area. Lo and behold! A new story is born!

That said, now that I have peeked at this other corner of the world, perhaps the stories will somehow intertwine down the road. Who knows? I’m guessing my brain does but it doesn’t want to tell me yet.

So, how did it come together?

Whilst going through editing passes for Sole Survivor, an idea surfaced that I first thought of years ago. Way back when, it arrived in a nebulous, ill-formed state (as ideas often do). So, I wrote it down and knew I’d get back to it when the missing pieces came together. Well, a few days ago the parts I felt fuzzy about became crystal clear.

It’s like a Rubik’s cube with a few squares out of place. You stare at it until your eyes bleed, turning it over and over trying to map out the last few impossible moves that will complete the puzzle. You can’t figure it out. Then one day, you pick it up and your fingers twist the rows and columns this way and that without the brain being involved for the most part. Rather, the brain already did all the work and now it’s letting the body implement the solution. Hey, the brain is an idea person! That’s what happened with this story. Once I put the seed idea into this story world, the missing pieces solved themselves.

More or less. Haha! You know, there’s always work to massage it into being. Anyhow, it’s a super cool story that provides another angle on the same story world as Sole Survivor.

And best of all, it’ll be out soon!