Bringing the Characters into 2017
This was the series that made me fall in love with writing.
Before I had a baby back when I used to teach high school
English, I’d rush home from school and open my document. I’d add words and play
with my characters. I missed them when we were apart. I thought about them like
they were real.
When I decided to actually start publishing books, I didn’t want
to start with this series.
I couldn’t.
It meant too much to me. THEY
meant too much to me. I was too scared to unleash them into the world, to
allow other people to meet them. I was too shy to share my writing with people,
and to start with these characters who I held so dear to my heart... I was
terrified people would tear them apart or wouldn’t love them the way I do.
So I started with Julianne, Nick, and Travis. It was a single
book. I decided on a title for it while we walked our dog: How He Really Feels.
I published it and somehow someone found it. I still don’t know how because I
was so new back in early 2013 that I didn’t even know what Goodreads was. I
didn’t know a single blogger. But then a review came in, and it was a five
star. Someone liked my book. They more than liked
it. They loved it.
So I turned it into a trilogy.
And then I wrote a series of
connected standalone books, The Love Sick Series.
I wanted to write rock stars,
so then I published Vintage. I took a chance at a rom com with Not Just Another
Romance Novel, then a cheating book with Conflicted, then another series of
standalone novels (Clickbait, Stalemate, and Outwait).
And then...
It seemed like every time I finished writing a book, I’d open this
series back up, start reading, and get overwhelmed with how much editing I needed
to do since it sat at about 305,000 words. I’d shut it down and start something
new instead.
But this time...
After I finished writing Outwait, probably around the start of
April, I sent the series to my Kindle and started reading. Suddenly the book I started writing in
March got pushed to the back burner.
It was rough... like really
rough... but the story was there, and this time I decided I was going to do
something completely different. Check out some excerpts from the original
series here.
I began to outline as I read, and
I planned to take the frame of the story and rewrite it from scratch rather
than editing the daunting 305,000 words that still sit on my Kindle.
I LOVE these characters. I’ve
always loved them. They feel like old friends I haven't seen in a while. They
make some really bad decisions, but they're also a big part of the reason why I
fell in love with writing. I don't even know WHEN I actually started writing
this series (more on that here),
but the story needed updates. Reese had a flip phone, after all. I couldn’t
bring her into 2017 with a flip phone.
I’m happy to report that Reese
got herself a new phone. The story is incredibly different from the original (click here for more on that), but
at the heart of it, the characters are the same. If anything, I love them even
more in this version than I did in the original, and I hope you love them, too.
XOXO
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