A few years ago, I had (what I thought) was a really neat idea for a novel starring the daughter of John Watson from the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes series. I named this fictional daughter Enola Watson, after Sherlock’s sister, and mapped out the entire first novel, complete with marketing ideas, transmedia bullet points, the works. I wrote roughly a third of this book when I saw that the young actress from “Stranger Things” Millie Bobby Brown, was starring as Enola Holmes in a blockbuster Hollywood movie. This saddened me because my initial thought was that the market for this sort of story was going to be saturated, and that I had missed my window to show off this character and the world I had built around her. So, I put the book away and figured I was done.
Recently, I was speaking with a friend on the phone, and he had asked why I never finished that story, and he said it was too bad, because he was looking forward to reading it, and really loved the characters and my ideas for it. That phone call reignited my passion not only for that story, but for several others that I think I kept bottled up because I was under the impression that there was no point. I allowed my fear of being labeled a ‘copycat’ or looked upon as derivative to hold me and my creativity at bay.
I’m using my newfound momentum to re-launch this property and start working on these characters again. Honestly, after watching the Enola Holmes movie, which I really enjoyed, I found was nothing much like the characters or world that I was writing about other than the fact that both Enola’s kick butt. Once a couple other projects are finished and out into the world, I’m going to finish this book and I look forward to sharing this story with you as it moves forward.