Several years ago when I wrote Darkest Days, I was already thinking sequel even before I finished it.  Mostly because I had ideas I wanted to explore, but just didn't have any way of including them into the DD story arc.  I also had more elaborate ideas on the Rats of Nimh I wanted to deal with outside of a story that directly tied to to the movie.  Those ideas eventually led to Between the Hammer and the Anvil.

As with DD, I first wrote out an outline and then wrote extensive notes and character arcs based on that outline.  I had a hard time constructing the plot in the first place because of the complexity of the story I wanted to tell.  BTHATA was to be more of a dark drama than a fast paced action piece like DD.  Along the way I figured I could make it more of a creepy thriller as well.  So with over two doezen principle characters and twenty-eight plot points, I set out to write the mother of all fan fiction stories.

At first I was having a good time.  The writing came back to me immediatly.  I felt just as I did before when I was pounding away on Darkest Days.  But then things started to get shakey.  After a few chapters and what felt like quite a bit of writing, I hadn't made a dent into my plot outline.  I suddenly realized I had created a monster of a story.  A story that, if the average number of pages per plot point stayed consistent as my notes were set up, would exceed 400 pages.  That thought hit me like a mack truck.  I wasn't ready to commit to something that huge.  So I started to look for ways to trim down the story by cutting loose or extranious threads.

This became difficult because I had tied so many characters and individual plot threads together that it became nearly impossible to cut the story down without significant revisions to the whole thing.  As I was doing this, I also began to question my plot itself, and tried to find different ways to accieve the voice I was looking for.  In the end, my notebook became a jumble of lines and arrows redirecting a massive, intricate plot into a giant knot.  I tried to force myself to continue, but as soon as I finished writing chapter 3, I knew deep down I was finished.  The will to continue just wasn't there.  My plot was in shambles and I had no drive to try and fix it.  If you read the notes I wrote at the time in the Anvil Journal, you can see myself loosing strength with each passing month.

In the end, Between the Hammer and the Anvil was aborted.  It didn't help that the initial reception to the story seemed cold anyway.  But I don't think it's fair to leave anyone hanging.  So I've written a special chapter to sum up the events in BTHATA as they would have continued in my original draft.

I've also left the original page introduction intact to keep everything in context.

The long awaited sequel to Darkest Days has arrived.  Between the Hammer and the Anvil takes place ten months after the events of Darkest Days, during the first cold winter for the rats in Thorn Valley.  Confined to their Lair by the snow and freezing weather, the rats must deal with their growing population, claustrophobia and whatever other dangers may exist in the unpredictable cold months that wait for them.

Like its predecessor, Between the Hammer and the Anvil is a dark, mature tale for the Secret of Nimh fans who aren't light of heart.  I've given this story a hard R rating for its mature content, including language, violence, and sexual content.  Viewer discretion is not just advised, it's insisted.

You can download the text as RTF for all word processors (recommended), or view as html.

Read the Anvil Journal to see the creative process unfold each month.

*I have now started to add a quote at the begining of each chapter, including the first chapters.