In The Beginning, There Was Frustration!
I started writing Twin Flames Because I was angry. I loved shifters and werewolves and had a running streak where I read some infuriating
"mates" in both Het and M/M romance books. One of the mates would do
or say something(s) asinine but because the "mate bond" the situation would get
swept under the rug or have some lame apology and then they'd jump into the sack and have make-up
sex. Now don't get me wrong, I love reading make-up sex but when I don't believe
the resolution then it does nothing for me.
Internal conflict and personalities that occasionally bump can
be enjoyable to read. But if certain issues or behavior were to happen to me
in real life, my immediate response would be, "Hit the road Jack." I
also enjoy reading about "mates" and "bonding" and I do love
a good growly, "Mine!" even though I use them sparingly when I write
because I feel if they occur too many times then I'm beating the reader over the head with repetitive behavior,
and really, it can quickly become old when overdone.
So I was sitting there fuming because the asshat mate swept
bad behavior under the rug and the two reconciled when I would've been tickled
if they had broken up. I whipped out a piece of paper and started scribbling.
After I wrote the first chapter of what I'd begun calling "Clean
Break" I felt cleansed, as if I had exercised all the demons of reader
frustration. Reading it over, an idea formed and I emailed the chapter to a friend.
.jpg)
"What do you think?"
"OMG, you have to finish it!"
In all honesty, I had packed up my pen and paper when I was
twenty because I couldn't see a way where I could make a living writing. I have
two file drawers packed full of stories I wrote before I stopped creative writing. Two years ago, almost 18 years later I desperately wanted to give it a try. I completed Clean
Break with it coming in at about 96k and I submitted it to a publisher fully
expecting to being rejected, but hoping for some critique because I knew it was
a god-awful mess.
The craziest thing happened. The manuscript was accepted
under the condition that I break the story into two parts. Clean Break gave
birth to Twin Flames and Songs of the Earth.
As you can imagine the first time through editing was
grueling. The manuscript was a complete mess but I swallowed my pride, shed
some tears, made fun of myself, and learned a ton. Now Twin Flames will be
re-released on October 1st. Re-editing the manuscript I could
clearly see how much my writing had improved over the last two years. I was
pleased as well as a little distressed. ^_^ Happy to have a
chance to clean up Twin Flames, I polished it as well as correcting some
continuity problems. Tristan was a total queen and my editor helped me to tone
him down a bit so that he didn't come off as a teenager. *cackles* I was
feeling pretty frustrated when I wrote that first chapter.
The blog tour posts will flow into each other, like a
continuing conversation. Since this a re-release I was trying to keep from
giving away spoilers to those who haven't read the series yet, which was harder
than I thought it would be.
Another
great thing that came out of re-editing Twin Flames was the final word count
met Less Than Three's minimum for printing. I will be giving a couple away for
the blog tour along with a really nice canvas tote bag, coffee cup, and some
other pieces of swag. I've attached the list of blog tour stops. You can enter
every day by identifying that day's Twin Flames Fact.
I
hope to see you there!!
Blog Tour Stops
9/28 – GGR Reviews (http://www.ggr-review.com/)
9/29 – The Novel Approach (http://thenovelapproachreviews.com/)
9/30 – Prism Alliance (http://www.prismbookalliance.com/)
10/1 – MM Good Book Reviews (http://mmgoodbookreviews.wordpress.com/)
10/2 – World of Diversity Fiction (http://www.wodfreview.com/)
10/3 – Piper Vaughn (http://pipervaughn.com/)
10/4 – L. Dean Pace-Frech (http://deanpacefrech.blogspot.com/p/home.html)
Thank you for stopping by and reading!!
No comments:
Post a Comment