Friday, July 14, 2017

I Hate it When...

I hate it when I'm halfway through writing a novel and another story DEMANDS my attention and then TOYS with me after I start writing it and it says, well, maybe it would be better this way, so I start again and it turns out it's not the same story at all, so where did THAT come from? Why does my brain jump track in the middle of something and then lead me on a merry romp on two different yet similar lines?

I am plodding (or should that be plotting) my way toward my next goal of 30 books self-published which is way excessive by anyone's standards except mine. The Fairlawn Investigation and The Victoria Wayfarer Investigation just got their final tweaking, and in the case of Fairlawn, another cover image change to avoid copyright infringement, and a credit and info for the photo used on the cover of Victoria Wayfarer after diligently tracking it down via several searches to make sure I was getting it right. There was no copyright info available, so the URL and info I found will have to suffice as photo credit. And then Out needed a final cover other than just black with the word Out in red- so deep purple roses now grace its cover with purple font on black. It's a vampire romance but it's also different in that while some horrific things occur in the book it's more about self discovery and tolerance than anything else.

I touched upon that theme, tolerance, in Black King Takes White Queen and Black Knight, White Rook- where vastly different witchcraft and magic practitioners had to set aside their differences and work together to defeat a truly evil black witch. The work Romney and Ivy started in Black King Takes White Queen continues in Black Knight, White Rook even as they deal with more evil doers who seek to tear them apart and destroy them. It is still about learning to live together and to respect one another's differences while finding unity in individual strengths.

So, while I sit at my kitchen table feeling guilty because the book Kelly wants me to write, The Lakeside Manor Investigation, (it will include several characters from her novel Parapsychology) simmers on the back burner while Archer Mills and Cherry Forbes allow me to tease out their true story from a hundred miles of knotted plot- I can't help but think that this was how my 2015 NaNo novel, Life Skills, started- with a binder full of short stories that explored Remy Bryce and Lissa Beresford's relationship- all of them scraped once NaNo rolled around and their real story emerged- which turned out to be a surprise even to me since I had no idea what the book was going to be about- I just wrote and wrote and wrote for 23 days (weekdays after work and more or less all day and into the night on weekends), then spent the rest of the month editing and revising the novel.

I suppose this happens to every writer- stories leap frogging over stories being written. It's like having a hundred young children all vying for your attention, but it's the quiet child in the corner you really ought to notice, that's the one who really has the best story to tell. Just getting to that child can be a struggle though...so, back to Archer and Cherry for now, while keeping an eye on that shadowy child holding her story close to the vest...one day I will reach her!

1 comment: