Pop quiz! What could be worse than having five never-to-be-finished novels in the works? Answer: six never-to-be-finished novels in the works. That's right, I now have six of 'em hanging over my head for (presumably) the rest of my days. You might think things couldn't get worse for this frustrated wannabe author, but fret not. I'm about to spin this into a good thing.

I can do that, you know. I'm a frustrated wannabe author after all.

The reason I believe this to be a good thing is that the sixth novel is actually going to take two of the other never-to-be-finished novels and tie them into a trilogy. Even stranger is that until very recently, these two novels had absolutely nothing to do with one another.

"Wait just a darned a second!" you cry. "How can anyone just out of the blue take two stories with nothing in common and suddenly add roll them into a trilogy? Everyone knows that a trilogy is a hit book, followed by all of the characters coming back for a second book, followed by all of the characters returning for a third. Everyone knows that a trilogy is a book plus two sequels that get turned into four films. This is crazy talk."

"That may be the popular definition of a trilogy," I respond. "But not all trilogies follow that pattern."

"True," you say, after a moment of brow-furrowing. "The Lord of the Rings isn't four films."

"The Lord of the Rings isn't a trilogy either."

"Yes it is."

"No, it isn't. It's a single story, divided into six books, and published in three volumes for economic reasons."

"Whut?"

"Never mind. Can we get back to this blog post?"

"Oh. Oh, sure. Sorry, do continue."

A trilogy in its most general sense is a set of three related works. That's it. It's not a book or movie and its two sequels. It's what your literature professors deem as being thematically or otherwise related. And it's what two of my previously unrelated works-in-progress have suddenly become, giving rise to a third which (chronologically) lands smack in between them.

I feel pretty good about it too: better than I have in a long while.

"That's great," you interrupt again. "So what's it going to be about?"

"I'm sorry, I was driving through a tunnel and you broke up."

"I said, what's this new story going to be about? How does it tie the other two together?"

"Um. Well, it's. Uhhh. Oh my word, look at the time. Gotta run."