Author's Cut: Golden Dreams and Unsettled Things

This post was written a while ago. Back in May, if you can believe it. I can't. Honestly though, there has been a whirlwind of activity since then and now. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to write about it then. My feelings and reasoning about how this story came about still stand tall so I've copied and pasted it here, rather than writing something new tonight.

"Every story has their own “in the making” era. This one was set up to be far different with its original plot… and I have a feeling that writing longer stories with Dreame and GoodNovel kicked me in the shins for having to stay within a fifteen thousand word bubble. At first I was like, “Yeah, 15k before the end of the month? Not a problem,” but as the month dwindled on and life kept popping up with other issues like being “mommed” at for attention, the initiative faded and a new directive formed.

This does happen a lot in story writing, for me at least, because my initial interests for telling these particular scenes change based on the development of the characters and the constant reminders of how long they’ve known each other for. In this story, I found myself leaning back on our main female role, Sonia Cirillo. She has a particularly painful background that she does not want to remember. She feels like the only way out is through the occult, and screws herself over by misusing the power she claimed.

As I wrote about her and how our main male, Mateo Katopodis’, role remembers her, Sonia’s arc began to build. The roots of her character strengthened, and no matter how much I wanted to redirect her into an outline that would have been an easier story to put out, Sonia wasn’t having it. I sound nuts when I say it like that but other authors have agreed about this very phenomenon.

Both Sonia and Mateo’s characters deeply cared about each other at one point, before she shot off the spell, which was worth uncovering. Afterwards, she has to come to terms with being in some sort of spell induced amnesia, and the trials of her life that weighed heavily on all of her decision making has to wear off. As unrealistic as it is to do in a day, Sonia’s future depends on it. Moving forward with Mateo, her prince charming that had searched for her over the years through his own magical usage, isn’t able to comprehend her behaviors which forces her decisions as well.

These and other character placements throughout the story, like the blonde, overtired woman being berated on the phone, as well as Ria and Kieran, will show up in more installments down the line. This also allows for finding out more about Sonia’s life before Mateo finds her, as well as his double life and parents as well. We’ll be able to link up to when Sonia “pulls the rug out” from under Mateo and when they meet in the veil the first time. I plan to go back to get deeper into his wants, his magical uses as a Fairy Godfather and how different others were in comparison to Sonia. There is really a lot more to explore, and if I don’t say so myself, that grand log cabin is certainly one I could, for days.

The real challenge for this piece, however, was how I started it. Originally, I started it as another Reylo, thinking it would be easier to write, but I’m assuming it was just too soon to jump in like that. I’d just finished, “Howl at the Moon, Love,” and I was still sort of brainstorming the follow up book, and should have just gone with my gut with original characters from the get-go, but I forced this one along, which made it harder to get into. That being said, there were a couple other factors that built up on this one too.

The second sounds like I’m pulling at straws, but when I started it, I did the initial writing on my phone. I’m sure you’re wondering why that’s a problem. Usually, I can’t do the same output as I can on the computer, but I did start writing on my phone several years ago and it can be done! This, however, wasn’t that issue. This one shoved me into a box where only typing this story on my phone would do. Don’t ask me how, it just did. Dragging myself to the computer to work wasn’t working, and driving me nuts to do so. Those of you without kids may not think that’s a big deal. The rest of life may think differently. There’s no way to neutralize the audio when the kids are up, so working on the fly wasn’t happening, and blocking them out during the day is a big no. Writing at night had its perks until my head hit the pillow and then all bets were off. What is it about that twenty degree angle that puts me to bed? I don’t know but it’s fired.

The third issue is probably a non issue for other writers, but after something as deep and audibly diverse as “Howl at the Moon, Love,” I had to turn to my favorite white noise, rain (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mirqViyITY&list=RDLVAzeN3eZo7n4&index=4), to listen to throughout the making of this story which included editing, and the writing of this post. This is a usual practice for me to listen to something less intrusive when writing an in between piece that will essentially become more. I have to say it is weird to finally turn it off and focus on the next piece for The New Romance Cafe.

With that, the final notes I have are as follows. This journey has been enlightening. I’ve never really thought about retelling a fairytale or digging deeper for my own to come through. The Fairy Godmother in Cinderella had to have had a story, and what if that story wrapped around Cinderella’s in some way? What if she knew what it was like to be in Cinderella’s shoes? And as the questions started swirling around in my head, more came to be, begging to be answered. If this project wasn’t shared with me, I can promise neither Sonia or Mateo would have been created and the complexity of their love story would never have had an opportunity to grow, so thank you to my friend who turned me on to the project and the lovely members of TNRC who allowed this to happen.

For any of you that are interested in purchasing this anthology, it can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09QLNWY1Y."

***

For anyone who hasn't written a collective work with other authors before, there are rules. The word count, for starters, is sort of a sticker shock. As mentioned before, I thought I could sneeze out 15k words in three weeks since I was doing 50k or more monthly as it was. As it turned out, the number crunching is frustrating and can pick at even the best authors. While I have no intention to say that I sit among them, the numbers game took a huge chunk of my focus away from me. I got stuck on the little things and the move forward to the next scene and how it happened seemed too far away to reach. It was such a wild transition to being free to discover the marathon of my own worlds at their own natural paces.

I have to take a moment to nod at all of these outstanding authors that this story is being offered with. Go you! This task was no easy one.

But... if you think 15k is a challenge, imagine the challenge I faced as I took on the next challenge. The Dark Mafia inspired anthology was only half that, of which, I'm so thankful The New Romance Cafe gave me wiggle room for.

Said wiggle room will be discussed in the next Author's Cut: Darkest Desires: A Dark Mafia Romance Collection for Charity (Romance Café Collection Book 15).

Until then, happy reading!