A while back, I wrote a blog post about how difficult Sunshine Walkingstick (Celia Roman) can be to write. At the time, I was completely burned out on Sunshine from pushing myself to write and release three books in the series back to back (common advice in self-publishing circles). I was certain I would never work on Sunny again.

And yet again, I proved myself wrong.

I ended up adding a third short story and a fourth book to the series, then backtracked and released an omnibus (bundle) of the first three books. Those are doing surprisingly well, considering the intervals between releases.

I've even started a fan group on Facebook, precisely because Sunny has inspired such avid and loyal fans. I wanted to reward readers and listeners' support of the series with behind the scenes and other in-depth peeks at the stories. Some amazing people have contacted me because of Sunny. I still find that level of reader interaction so amazing and encouraging, even after nearly six years as a published writer.

In fact, it's because of that support that I've decided to continue writing under the Celia Roman name, even as I slowly drop some of my other pen names. Once I'd had a good, long break from writing the last novel I released (under another pen name), I began toying with, among other things, a spinoff series of the Sunshine Walkingstick books. Sunny was happy with the way things ended in Book 4 and wasn't pushing for a fifth novel-sized story, so I thought it was safe to turn my attention to another series for a while.

Nope.

The one thing I've learned about Sunny is that when she has something to say, she's very straightforward about it. There's no beating around the bush, no hemming or hawing, just a straight up, "Hey, over here!" So I let her have her say and mulled it over for a while. As it happens, there's about a two-month gap, timeline wise, between Book 4 in her series and the start of the spinoff series. That's more than enough room for another Sunny novel, or possibly even two.

And Sunny is just fine with that.

To be honest, so am I. After the (incredibly stressful) push to get that other novel written and published, I needed something fun to write. Sunny fits the bill perfectly, now that some of her issues have been laid to rest (in some cases, quite literally). It's one of the things that I love about the series: No matter what's going on, no matter how difficult Sunny can be to work with, the stories are a lot of fun.

No promises on a release date or even a title at this point (though the working title for Book 5 is Devil's Branch). I'm concentrating on having fun with the ideas Sunny and I have discussed, and am splitting my writing time between her and darker stories intended for release under my own name. We'll see where the next few months take all that writing.

In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving to those of you living in the States!