Soul searching: What do I want? #ION

I have been meaning to write this blog post for a couple weeks now, but I wasn't sure where to start. Currently, I have two series that I'm working on wrapping up. 

The Valespian Pact and I.O.N.

In some circles, I.O.N. has been slow to catch on. Ruby Red Booty Shorts and a Louisville Slugger was a story that I wrote by the seat of my pants, and then later extensively revised it. Then it was followed by Werewolf's Tale and a Druid's Sword, which again I pantsed. I knew where I wanted the series plot arc to go, and I knew the day would be won by a group of friends. But how they would get there kept fluctuating. Then my inspiration got derailed. Some of it came from a personal nature, some of it came from the lack of series sales--which is so unlike me. I don't normally track sales because I'm simply grateful someone bought a book. But I felt like I was treading water and not getting anywhere quick, so I put together and spreadsheet and I wished I hadn't.

I thought some changes were in order. I took a look at my world notes (and honestly, they were really slim, which just goes to show how much I pantsed the stories) and reassessed what needed to happen to complete the plot arc. I'd originally planned for I.O.N. to be six books--four to set up the characters and plot, one to wrap up ,and one to give a certain someone a HEA. I moved the last one to be written as a standalone-- if people were interested in that person's HEA. Then I moved puzzle pieces around and shaved off things that didn't deal with the plot arc. (I was going to show Beck and Diego working cases for I.O.N. and such.) Then I.O.N. was only four books and two of them were already published so that left two to write.

Even though I knew the plot arc and pinpointed things that needed to happen in book three, the romance element was... Stephen was flipflopping on who he liked and didn't like. I personally wanted to stab Grant in the eye so I was looking for a different love interest and eventually landed on a solution. I figured that if the idea didn't work out as I wrote the story, then I would let it work itself out organically (pansting, LOL).

Then I put I.O.N. aside to wrap up Sumeria's Sons and get somethings off my desktop that were finished and just needed some expert advice. Then things got messy, depressing, and last year I temporarily shelved everything I attempted to work on because I wanted to set fire to all of it.

October came around and I was a little excited about writing again, bringing out Bespoken and then writing a couple of Valespian Pact flash fictions that turned into the 3rd book of the series, Constant. To replace the flash fictions, I thought I would write a short blog series called Gentleman's Holiday. I took the assassin for Keeping Faith and thought I'd give a cute fluffy romance and retirement in the I.O.N. world. I thought it would be cool to pants a chapter every week and post it. Well the "fluffy" romance took all kinds of fun turns and I retitled it Assassin's Retirement. This "little" fun blog story rekindled my love for the I.O.N. world. It's really strange because it's like I had forgotten everything I loved about I.O.N. I had all these plans for different standalones that explored the different aspects of this paranormal/urban fantasy world and then it was like they fell off the face of the earth for a couple of years. 

The last few weeks,  I've been taking another look at the series and what I wanted to do with it. I am so in love with the characters from Assassin's Retirement that I looked at I.O.N. with new eyes. I dusted off the notes for standalone stories in the I.O.N. world and got excited about them again. I got a story for an I.O.N. profiler, for a man who was accidentally changed into a shifter, and exploring the lore of the Americas... well, you get the point. I had--have--big plans for books that are set in this world and I am chomping at the bit to do some serious world and character building.  

I pulled all my notes together over the last couple of weeks and will be making sure all these books will connect, even though they can be read by themselves (all but those in the main I.O.N. series). I will be plotting the books and planning some crossover characters here and there. I'm at the point where I want to share my notes so badly!! There is no one around except my dogs and they sleep through everything I say.

This is what I wanted to write. Something a little different from the norm but still in the same genres that I love. I'd forgotten my own personal "motto" (I can't think of a different word at the moment) Write what I want to read, write what speaks to me, and everything will fall into line. 

Now. I just need to write faster... LOL!

Thank you for stopping by and reading!!

Gentleman's Holiday On Pause

Hey guys! So I wanted to leave a quick note (that turned out to be not so quick) about the blog story, Gentleman's Holiday, I've been posting on Tuesdays. It is temporarily going on pause. It will be back on January 2nd but I wanted to give a reason why. 

As you know, I've been writing this by-the-seat-of-my-pants and it has evolved into something a bit different than I envisioned when I first started. I didn't do any character development or world building, just seeing where it would go. I start working on it in my spare time on Thursdays and by the next Tuesday it is posted. Even when I do have the characters developed and the world built, sometimes the first 10-15k of the story is an exercise in getting to know the characters, figuring what works and what doesn't and then altering things to support what's best. When pantsing that first part of the story is 100x worse.

Right now, I have a good idea what the plot is settling into being. With there being so many characters, it is going to take a few chapters to get them down. BUT while this is all happening 'organically', when I finally get a hang of the characters, their backstory, and what makes them tick, I have to go back to insert things that support that character... And those chapters have already been posted and shared, which leads me to the current issue.

While writing chapter six from Zane's POV, I was mulling over some options I'd read in some reference materials earlier in the week. I was rolling the plot ideas around while Zane is stalking a couple of creatures in a dark and cold forest when pieces of his background with both his relationship with his father and his assassin mentor fell into place. Which is GREAT but... the supporting material needs to be added to the prose PRIOR to this chapter. I think the best place to add this would be all the way back to chapter three.

Other authors with blogs stories who I've spoken to always recommended I have the story completed before splitting it up and sharing it. (Obviously, I ignored the advice otherwise I wouldn't have this conundrum. :-D) I acknowledge that having the characters mapped out before hand would have been key to keeping something like this from happening. Pantsing is fun. But this is the first time I've done it with the intention of posting the results days later. I thought I had a pretty good idea who Zane was and what his background entailed. If I had kept it contemporary and a short holiday erotic romance, what I had on Zane would've been more than sufficient. But since it evolved into a supernatural world, his background had holes. New questions popped up. Things like, had he encountered things before that boggled the mind? As observant as he is, had he ever seen hints of a otherworld? How would he react to a mythical being? Is there a figure in his past that would help anchor him as the changes to his perception of the world rocks his? 

So what I'm going to do is get ahead by having several chapters under my belt before I post more chapters on the blog again. It won't be too long. I figure I'll start putting them up again on January 2nd under the new title my Facebook group helped me to pick. Assassin's Retirement: Scion of Beowulf. The whole holiday wasn't working anymore. :-D I apologize for the inconvenience!

In the meantime, I'll have other posts ready to fill the slot. I've yet to do my, "What's on the writing schedule for 2018", and I have been compiling my list of, "Favorite reads of 2017". Also! Oh, I can't forget to tell you that on December 22nd I'll be at Rhys Ford's Coffee, Cats & Murder getting up to all kinds of shenanigans. Don't miss it!

Thank you for stopping by and reading!!