Well, everyone might be wondering why I decided to suddenly begin reading other paranormal romance authors. Normally I don’t pay much heed to what they’re writing. In fact, until I picked up a lot of the books, I only knew rough things about them – like J R Ward wrote vampires, Kresley Cole wrote a mixture of species, Lynsay Sands wrote vampires. That was pretty much the extent of my knowledge. I hadn’t even read excerpts or reviews.
Since the series idea I had was one that I was going to write for pitching to publishers, I decided it was important to check out the competition and see what got them published. I always begin with the first book in a series, the one that they had to pitch and hope it would be picked up.
I’d been planning my new paranormal romance series for about 2 weeks before I decided to do this. I’ve read a few stories now and have mixed feelings about them. I don’t think any of them write better than I do and I think the stories I have planned are just as strong, if not stronger, than the ones I’ve just read. I’m not being conceited. I just think that I’ve reached a point with my writing where I need to give it a shot. A while back I read a Feehan and a L K Hamilton story. Neither blew me away, but I knew my writing wasn’t at a level where I could compete. Now I’ve had a taste of writing series and I’ve found that I’m really good at world building, and that’s very important with series. I’ve also embraced the darker side of paranormal, the side I love to write, by writing some stories in my Vampires Realm series. All in all, I feel I’ve reached a point of “now or never” and if I don’t give it a shot with this new series, I’ll never know whether or not I’m good enough.
Of course, there’s a lot more world building to be done yet. Over the past 2 months, I’ve clocked up around 40+ hours of world building time. That’s basically me mulling over the series, the flaws and the strengths, the powers and the weaknesses, and everything else besides. I’ve got my heroes mapped out to a basic degree, enough that I know them, and my heroines almost figured out. I haven’t touched much on the enemy but I know roughly in my mind what they’ll be like. I have the world and the background pegged, and I’m very happy with how it’s evolving. I can’t really say much more.
I’m going to write all these stories together, back to back, and then edit them. Once the first book is in a polished state, I’ll send it out into the big wide world. I have a belief that having all of the books in the series completed is an advantage and it means that you’re serious about the series. I’m very serious about it. I only wish I could talk about it more!!!
Better go… before I say too much!
🙂
