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This week’s theme: Name three writing projects we've been
planning to work on for a long while and haven't yet touched.
First would be the second book in my Magic of Claddare
series. I definitely have sequels planned and even have the cover for book 2, The Shifter’s Witch, but fantasy romance
isn’t my main genre and so I keep bypassing this one to work on science fiction
romance novels, which is where my readers are to be found for the most part. In
the meantime, I have all kinds of other plots in mind to set in this world.
Time is always my issue!
Second would be the sequel to Dancer of the Nile. I
have the plot in my head and a cover already purchased
but in this case other ancient Egyptian plots have been shinier and I’ve
written them instead of continuing the story of Nima the dancer and her noble
Egyptian general. I feel like I might be sneaking up on this one though and
might even slot it into my writing schedule for this year. We’ll see.
Third would be the sequel to Escape from Zulaire, which readers do keep asking for. I have a
plot – or as much of a plot as I ever have prior to sitting down and writing a
book. I usually know the beginning, the ending and a few major scenes in
between, and of course who the hero and heroine are. In this case it’ll be
Mitch the sergeant who gets his own story. And surprise, surprise, I don’t have a cover already bought for
this one! Which is probably a good indicator of how far off I am from deciding
to write the book.
If we’re supposed to discuss entirely new projects,
unconnected to previous books or specific series…this week’s topic caused me to
remember a proposal I’d sent to Carina Press in 2013 when they and I were
exploring what else I might write for them since they were no longer doing
Ancient World (at that time. For all I know, they’ve since gone back to that
genre. Things change in Romancelandia!). I dug through my old files and found
the document – here were some of my suggestions to them for a new series from
me:
1. DAUGHTERS OF FATE
Chloe, Allie and Maureen are modern day descendants of the
Three Fates from Greek mythology….
(Apparently I’d even found a way to work a Navy SEAL into
the plot somewhere…hmmm.)
2. TALES OF THE EPIC SAGA MOVIE STUDIOS
Rosalie Drake is an aspiring young actress with a classical
theater background and one commercial to her name, who supports herself with
temping…
(I remember now part of my inspiration for this was an
actress who worked for me at NASA/JPL as a temporary secretary off and on for a
couple of years. It was always so cool when she’d go off to be in a movie for a
few days and then return to us…eventually she dropped out of sight…)
3. ZOO OF HOLLYWOOD
Taryn has been out of college for over a year, unable to
find a good job with her newly minted Liberal Arts degree, living at home. Her older sister is a Head Keeper at the Zoo
of Hollywood and gets Taryn hired as assistant publicist…
(I’d probably just paid my LA Zoo membership that week and
felt inspired…)
Interestingly to me now, #2 and #3 were apparently
envisioned as straight forward contemporary romances, which is so
not what I actually write. I probably would have put a scifi or paranormal
twist on the actual books when I sat down to write them…thank you, Carina Press
for not biting on any of them!
I think I’m much happier the way the world
turned out, with me going on to a full time career writing scifi romance and self-publishing,
and continuing to write my ancient Egyptian paranormal romances and self-publishing
those. I learned a lot from Carina and my wonderful editors there, but I really
prefer to run my own author business and set my own deadlines as it all turns
out.
