Why my protagonist has to suffer tonight.

Some who have been following me for a while will know I rewrote Blood Toy from the ground up three times.  One of those times I wrote my protagonist (who has been widely admired, even by reviewers who didn’t particularly care for the book, for her strength and endurance in the face of torment) as clinically depressed–and depressing!  Seriously, I might as well have named her ‘Vampire Hunter Eeyore’.  My best friend asked me when I was nearly done with that draft, “How is Diane ever going to beat Desollador?”  Turned out to be a good question.  One I couldn’t answer.  So I had to rewrite the damn thing.

You’ve heard, I’m sure, all artists are crazy.  You’ve also heard that writers write what they know. And maybe that all characters are reflections of their author’s own personality.  So it figures that I wrote Diane in that depressive state when I was battling depression myself and using writing as a sort of therapy.  It’s frankly easier to write when I’m about half a bubble off plumb.  That does not mean I write well in that state.  In fact, I can almost guarantee I produce nothing befitting more than a diary entry when I’m feeling under the emotional weather.

I found myself going down that path in Book 2 briefly when the days got shorter last fall. But instead of having Diane succumb to despair, I made her circumstances more despairing.  Ok, maybe she succumbs briefly, but you won’t blame her; I promise.  Now approximately three quarters into the book, it’s time for her to start clawing her way back out.  But first…maybe just a few more rounds of fire.

 

 

Where to begin?

I’ve been gone so long, WordPress doesn’t even look the same. Damn.

So I missed my self-imposed deadline for the release of Book 2 (Fall 2015) by a minute. Let’s get that out of the way.  I was overly ambitious establishing that timeline in the first place, but I am writing it.  There will be a Book 2 this year.  And if Book 1 made you think about using your safe word, the next one’s going to hurt.  Even I think this thing is dark. And I was really perplexed when reviews starting warning readers that Blood Toy was an especially twisted read.

Not going to make excuses about why I’ve been gone…. Ok, maybe a few explanations are in order.  Well, two at least.

1. Indie publishing sucks.  I got my first royalty check from Amazon; it did not even cover the cost of cover art!  While this did not discourage me from writing, it did inspire me to reevaluate my priorities.  Maybe blogging every single day is not as important as…say…writing the next book.
2. Dictation sucks.  I took the holiday ‘break’ a little too literally and fractured my wrist. While I had the use of my fingers, my cast had a nasty habit of hitting ‘caps lock’ every few letters.  I used talk-to-text functionality for every email, instant message and proposal I sent for the first two months of the year.  I thought it was a miraculous invention those first few days, better than typing in random shouts at least.  But I swear the voice recognition got more stupid with each passing day.