Progress Report

Your comments, thoughts, suggestions, remarks, and insight are always welcome. Please feel free to reply to any and all of my posts.

Well, sales of my latest release, Love Over Time, are nice, so thank you to everyone who purchased!

Reviews of my first publication, Sing to Me, are still on the nice/friendly/supportive side as well. Much obliged for the kindness shown!

I won't say I'm in a slump or suffering with writer's block right now, but I also haven't written a single word of my 3rd novel yet, either.

To be fair (to myself), this series has been in the works now for a few years. I have 3 stories that tie together, and two of them are through the rough-draft stage, so I'm not being a slacker or too worried about progress. Right now it is a mind game thing, with me recollecting, revising, and supplementing what I've already started, and there are quite a few changes going on inside my head, too.

Namely, names.

I don't know about other authors, but when it comes to choosing the right names for characters, I start out thinking I've got it, but then I begin to doubt my choices -- most often with the women and not so much with the men.

When I re-read one of the 3 stories, I was like, "Eew! You chose that for a name?"

I have another one in mind, and I hope it sticks.

I might have mentioned it before, but this 'series' of works is fantasy/paranormal more so than contemporary, but that start out as contemporary before moving over to the fantasy realm.

I have 3 leads so 3 separate stories (as of now) about men from another world who are sent to earth in search of knowledge that will help aid their ailing planet from ecological destruction. These men reside on a smaller version of earth in 3 separate realms but know each other through their respective kingdoms.

At this point, the women they meet on earth are indirectly related as well as being indirectly responsible for the destruction of this smaller earth-like planet.

Two of the women aren't aware of their other-world status while the third woman (whom I introduced in Sing to Me) is well-aware of her ability to planet hop and does so on a regular basis.

My thinking at this point is to start one of the stories at the beginning, ending with the two being sent back to their respective homes. In the second story, I will begin by having the second couple meet right away but be suddenly transported back - which has everything to do with their original meeting. In this story, I will delve much deeper into the root of the ailing planet, the inhabitants, and their ways of life. The third story will center around the two I introduced in Sing to Me. She's a princess and he's one of the leaders on the ailing planet.

Right now, I only see the possibility of there being one strong female lead while the other two will have to struggle, deal with, and then come to terms with their respective realities while not coming off as heedless children in desperate need of a man. What I like to do is make my female leads as realistic as possible while enabling them through some personality power or other and not turn them into mighty warriors.

A friend suggested I take the leap and attempt shape-shifting. She adores those types of stories. I don't mind the possibility of it occurring, but I do mind that there are so many of them out on the market now, and that they tend to follow a set pattern and some rigid rules.

I'll save the shape-shifting for another contemporary.