Yesterday I posted to here, to LiveJournal, to Facebook, Google Plus, and to Twitter the question, “What should I write next?”, and I offered three choices:

• Code Monkey! Wherein a computer programmer embarks on strange and exciting adventures when he finally gets up the nerve to ask the pretty receptionist out on a date;
• Padma Wherein a medical student has continuing visions of the end of the world (the research required for this one is daunting); and
• Iron Horse Apocalypse Wherein dark wizardry and other shenanigans run amok aboard a runaway train.

And the results were… A tie. Yep, each one received the same number of votes. So I’m going to go with my gut and work on Iron Horse Apocalypse (hereinafter referred to as IHA). It currently exists as a zeroth-level draft, full of anachronisms and cliches, but with some judicious cutting and revising I think this one will be a lot of fun to write and to read.

Code Monkey! (the exclamation point is part of the title) needs a rest. I wrote the zeroth-level draft a couple of years ago, and while I’ve enjoyed working on it, I need to take a break to get some perspective on it. It will return, though.

And, finally, I plan to continue the research I’m working on for Padma. I currently know very little about Hindu mysticism, Indian mythology and folklore, cosmology, or what life is like as a medical student; and since all these topics play a role in this novel, I need to know at least a little bit about them.

Others “in the know” might point out that I’ve got another novel in the works, The Winds of Patwin County. But since that one is comprised of interlinked stories, of which “The X of Doom” (my pirate story, the one I’m working on now) is one, I feel just fine and guilt-free about excluding it from my list.

Thanks for your input, all who inputted. And now, off to the keyboard!