Joseph Nassise

A few months ago, I ran into some difficulty while neck deep in a particular writing project. My deadline was looming and I was going nowhere fast. Day after day I would sit down at the computer and beat my head against the wall, trying but repeatedly failing to drag forth the requisite pages that needed to be written that day.

It wasn’t due to a lack of organization. I had a detailed outline in front of me. The action and emotional impact in each chapter was scripted out and I even knew from which character’s viewpoint the scene would be written. I was excited about what was to come; the scenes were well constructed and drove the story forward at a decent pace, the characters were interesting and unusual. I was perhaps better prepared to write that book than any other I had written previously.

And I had long since passed the point where I could write only when “inspired” to do so. My muse had long ago been hunted down, captured, and chained to the demands of a professional writer’s schedule – you write when you need to write, not when you “feel” like writing. Writing when inspired was for sissies. I was a professional, damn it!

But it was not to be. Day after day I struggled, producing, on a GOOD day, about one fifth of my usual output and that only after hours of painful effort. The bad days weren’t even worth talking about.

As the time passed and the lines through the days on the calendar made it increasingly obvious to me that I either needed to do something drastic or shoot myself, I made a decision.

It was time for a change.

For years I have written in the quiet confines of my office, my trusty desktop with its 20 inch monitor my only companion. Music was a big no-no; too often I would find myself typing the lyrics to the songs I was listening to rather than the words of my tale and even purely instrumental numbers were a problem as I could get lost in the notes as easily as the lyrics.

To shake things up, I purposely changed everything I could think to change. Rather than work at my desktop, I would use the laptop. Rather than sit in my comfortable leather chair, I would use one made of hardwood without a seat cushion. Rather than work in the privacy of my office, I would go to the library or the deli or the local Starbucks. immerse myself in noise and people. Rather than create in silence, I would graft headphones to my ears and submerge myself in pulse-pounding and bass-cranking music if necessary.

Imagine my surprise when it worked.

The words that I had struggled so hard to find poured effortlessly from my fingertips in the midst of that Starbucks, an iced vente mocha frappuccino at my side. The action sequences that had seemed so scripted and flat previously now jumped to life while the words and music of Nickelback pounded in my ears. My output shot up to my usual levels and then kept going, until I discovered that I could write faster and with better results than I ever had before – all because I took a chance and changed the usual way I did things.

Is something in your life stuck? Are you getting frustrated by your inability to make a change?

Then step outside the problem. Come at it from a totally different direction. Take your usual process and turn it 180 degrees in the other direction.

Change your perspective – you might be surprised at the results.

I know I was.

In this month’s installment to my continuing series, A Writer’s Toolbox, I want to talk about what I use to backup, sync, and share my files across multiple computers. (Post #1 in the series – A Writer’s Toolbox: Evernote – can be found here.)

When I am working on a project, I tend to write on multiple machines. If I’m working in my office at home, I write on my desktop. If I’m working at the library or local coffee shop, I use my personal laptop. If I’m on the road in my role as consultant for my day job, I’m usually carrying my company laptop. Not wanting to keep personal files on a company computer, I usually store everything on a flash drive and then mix and match files when I get home.

As you can imagine, trying to keep all of my files organized and up-to-date can be a real pain in the neck as a result. Enter Dropbox – a free online service that lets me handle all of this and more. I’ve been using Dropbox for several month as part of their invite-only beta launch and just this past week they opened up to the public, so the time is write to share with you what I’ve learned.

Dropbox is an online service that lets you store, synch and share information from one computer to another. It will also serve as an automatic backup service for your files, should something go wrong on your end. Once you install it, Dropbox creates a folder on your hard drive. Any file you put inside that folder will automatically be synched and monitored for changes. Each time the file is saved anew, it backs up and syncs the file again. Even better, it keeps a running list of revisions, so you can always go back to an earlier version should you need to do so. You can even undelete any file that you might accidentally have trashed.

Any file you sync with Dropbox is available on any computer you sync it to or through the Dropbox web interface. Each time you sync, Dropbox only syncs the parts of the file that have changed, which saves bandwidth and storage space. The service comes with 2 gigs of storage, which is more than enough for any of the several projects I’m working on at any one time, but additional storage is also available for a small fee. And by the way, your data is safe too, for it is sent using SSL and encrypted with AES-256 before storage.

One aspect of Dropbox I haven’t used yet is its ability to share files with other people, be they fellow Dropbox users or not. I can see this being extremely useful for group projects, collaborations, and the like.

And before you ask – yes, the product is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, so no matter what major operating system you are using, you should be able to give it a try for yourself.

So there you have it – one solution out of many that are available for synching and backing up your data across multiple computers. I’d love to hear other unique ways people are using Dropbox or what other applications you might use instead, so feel free to leave a comment and let’s talk!

Photo by Hryckowian

I’m in the midst of teaching an online workshop called Jump Start Your Novel, which focuses on the methods I use to organize a project so that I can write the most powerful novel possible in a reasonable time frame. In the workshop we’ve been talking a bit about characters, so I thought I’d share some thoughts on that subject today.

Characters are the heart of any story. A reader wants to be transported out of their daily existence to another place entirely, to be someone else, even if only for a little while. Think about the books you’ve enjoyed and ask yourself why you liked them. You’ll quickly see that it is the way that you identified with the main character and how you reacted to the ups and downs that character experienced that had an impact on you. As a writer, you need to be able to produce the same effect and give the reader the emotional experience they desire.

So how do we do that?

Read more…

Like many writers I know, I’m a pack rat when it comes to information. Anything I see or read or hear that I think might be useful for a story at some point or another gets clipped or bookmarked or jotted down for safekeeping.

The trouble with this is that until recently I didn’t have a useful way of storing this information for future use. My magazine or newspaper clippings went into one big file folder, making it near impossible to find anything quickly. My internet bookmarks were more organized, but there were so many of them that even that system became clunky after only a short time. And I won’t even mention what happened to all those notes jotted down on napkins or the nearest scrap of paper.

Clearly I needed a better system.

And I found one in Evernote.

Evernote bills itself as allowing you to “easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at anytime, from anywhere.”

So far it has lived up to its hype.

Evernote is now my way of capturing information that I might want to use at some point in one of my books. Maybe it is a web full page or a snippet of text from one. Maybe it is a photo, be it from my digital camera, my cell phone, or someplace like Flickr. Maybe it is an email or a portion of a chat log. Scanned information. To do lists. You name it and Evernote can capture it.

Evernote has a desktop application (for both Windows and Mac) and a web application. Anything you add to it can be synchronized across all your devices, from your desktop to your laptop to your mobile phone. I have it set up so it provides links from both my email application (Outlook) and my web browser (Firefox) so all I have to do is highlight and click on the link to capture the information I want to save.

Once the information is in Evernote, you can file it using a variety of methods and this is where the true versatility of the app comes into play for me. Multiple notebooks allow me to file information for different books projects together in one place regardless of the type of data I’m saving. Or I can choose to file similar data together – all my photos in one notebook, all my web clippings in another, etc. Either way, a robust tagging system lets me search for similar clippings across multiple notebooks.

The Search feature is particularly cool, as it searches not only the text in your notes, but also the text in any pictures you might have saved. I use Bloglines as my news reader and tend to save a lot of articles in their built in Clippings service, but the additional ability to search through images for text provided by Evernote has caused me to begin saving my latest clippings direct to Evernote instead. As time goes on I’ll probably move my older clippings there as well, since I can find things easier that way. There is nothing more annoying that knowing you’ve saved something and not being able to find it!

 

Evernote is in beta right now and you need an invitation to try it out. You can go to their website and sign up (it didn’t take me long to get an invite this way) or, you can leave a comment on this post and I’ll pick five random winners to receive an invitation direct from me.

(All images taken from the Evernote homepage and Copyright 2008 Evernote.)

Last month I began a short series on Beginnings. We identified the six key things a good novel beginning should accomplish and covered the first, hooking the reader, in a bit more depth. This month I want to tackle two more of the six – establishing a bond between the lead and the reader and presenting the story world.

Establishing a bond between the Lead and the Reader

The second thing a beginning should do is establish a bond between the Lead character and the reader. This can be done in a variety of ways, the most common being identification, sympathy, likeability, and inner conflict.

Identification, or empathy, is when we can relate to the character because of who they are or the experience they find themselves in. The more the reader can identify with the lead, the more real the experience feels and the greater the intensity of the story. A story about a man who has lost his job would generate identification and empathy in anyone who has ever been in the same position.

Sympathy goes beyond empathy and focuses on the emotional bond the reader has with the character. Awful things have happened and the reader genuinely feels sorry for the character. You can establish sympathy by putting the character in jeopardy, by having them face some grand hardship, by making them the underdog, or by giving them some sense of vulnerability. Take Rocky, for instance. We cheer for him and want him to win the big fight against Apollo Creed because we see him as the underdog, the guy who can’t possibly win. I use the issue of facing some grand hardship to introduce my character Knight Commander Cade Williams in HERETIC, book one of the Templar Chronicles. Cade has lost his wife to a supernatural event and has to deal with his loss and his burning need for revenge daily.

Likeable characters are those that we might like to be around, whose company we might enjoy. A witty character. An amusing character. A character who cares for others. Frodo in the Lord of the Rings. John Maclean from the Die Hard films. Even the serial killer Dexter, from Jeff Lindsay’s excellent series, might fall into this category.

Characters who are absolutely sure about themselves, who plunge ahead without any doubts or fears are boring. No one goes through life that way. Give a character a sense of inner conflict, of doubts and emotions, and you’re almost sure to engage the reader.

Presenting the Story World

This aspect of a good beginning goes beyond just establishing the time and place of the novel. Yes, it should tell the reader those things, but it should also focus on showing the reader what life is like for the lead character.

Showing the reality of the character’s situation not only helps present the story world, but also provides support for the establishing that bond we just talked about, as well as presenting certain elements that might assist in hooking the reader.

John Ridley’s excellent pair of novels, THOSE WHO WALK IN DARKNESS and WHAT FIRE CANNOT BURN feature a future LA where super powered humans are listed as illegals and hunted by special tactical squads from the LAPD. In the very first chapter, Ridley has the hero, Soledad “Bullet” O’Roark, face off with her team against a pyrokinetic who can toss fire around like a beach ball. The action immediately sets the stage and lets the reader know just what kind of world O’Roark is forced to deal with day by day. We see that reality for the lead character is harsh, unforgiving, and very deadly.

I do something similar with the opening of HERETIC, letting the reader know very quickly that the Templar Order still exists operating in secret as a combat arm of the Vatican, charged with defending mankind from supernatural threats and enemies. Without establishing that right up front, the reader would be lost by the events that quickly follow.

Next month we’ll continue our look at beginnings by examining how to introduce the opposition and some common mistakes writers make with their beginnings.

Face it. The first five pages (sometimes the first five sentences) are going to make or break your book. They will be the first pages that a prospective agent or editor will read. Later, once the book gets picked up, they will be the first pages that a prospective book buyer will read.

So how do you make those five pages, and the rest of the beginning of the book, so good that the editor, agent, or prospective reader wants to keep reading?

A good beginning must do six things:

1) Hook the reader

2) Establish a bond with the Lead and the reader

3) Present the story world

4) Establish the general tone of the novel

5) Introduce the opposition

6) Get the reader to keep reading

Let’s take them one at a time.

Read more…

I wanted to talk this month about Middles and offer some advice on how to keep yours from sagging.

No, I’m not talking about belly fat. That’s a different blog. I’m talking about the middle of your book, the place where you have the greatest chance of screwing up and losing your reader.

Nine times out of ten, if you are going to lose a reader, it will be in the middle of the book, in that long, seemingly endless stretch that ties your terrific beginning to your fabulous ending. Think about it – how often do you put down a book in the first ten pages? How about with only ten pages to go? Not often, I’d wager. But think about all those books that you got a third, or even halfway, through, only to lose interest. You put it down and move on to something else. Why is that? And how do you keep it from happening with one of your own works?

The middle of the book is essentially a series of scenes that ties the set-up you created in the beginning with the result you’ve devised for the ending. It must be designed specifically to keep the reader moving forward inexorably toward that ending. If it bogs down, loses cohesiveness, or otherwise fails to achieve its objective, you run the risk of losing the reader. And that’s a cardinal sin.

What keeps a reader reading, what keeps them invested in your story, is their desire to see the Lead outwit/outfight/outthink the opposition and reach their goal What gives them the emotional experience they crave is the conflict between the opposition and the lead in pursuit of that goal.

The Opposition

The opposition does not have to be a person. It can be an organization, a group, a force of nature, whatever. Nor does it have to be evil. It simply needs a compelling reason to stop the Lead. The more compelling the reason, the harder the opposition will work. The harder the opposition works, the more difficult it gets for the Lead to succeed, which in turn produces more drama.

The Glue

Along with the opposition, the other crucial ingredient is the reason the Lead sticks around, the glue so to speak. If the Lead can simply walk away from the conflict, the reader will wonder why he doesn’t do so. And at that point you’ve already lost the battle. You have to figure out why the Lead (and the opposition for that matter) can’t simply withdraw from the conflict. And you have to make that reason believable.

Writing the middle of your novel will then simply be an exercise in writing various scenes of confrontation, most of which will end up with some kind of setback for the Lead, forcing them to analyze the situation anew and try something else.

But Joe, I hear you ask, how do I keep that from getting boring?

That’s easy. You can stretch the tension, raise the stakes, or do both at the same time.

Stretching the Tension

Simply put, this means to never let a thrilling moment escape with just a whisper. Play it for all its worth. This is one skill Alfred Hitchcock had in spades and is what makes him a master of suspense even now, so many years after this death.

When it comes to stretching the tension, I first ask myself one question – What problem has the potential to lay some serious hurt on my Lead? That forms the raw material of the scene as it gives us something to be tense about. Once I’ve determined that, I can go about stretching it.

James Bell suggests two ways to stretch the tension in his book Plot & Structure – stretch the physical or stretch the emotional.

Physical peril or uncertainty is always a sure fire way to hold a reader’s interest and you can make that bond even stronger by slowing down. Go through the scene beat by beat in your head, as if you are watching a movie. Then write it down, alternating between action, thoughts, dialogue, and description. Milk it for all its worth.

Bell suggests three key questions to ask yourself as you do this:

1. What is the worst thing from the outside that can happen to my character?
2. What is the worst trouble my character can get into in this scene?
3. Have I sufficiently set up the danger for the reader before the scene?

Of course trouble doesn’t always have to be physical. It can be emotional as well. When your character is in the throws of some emotional turmoil, don’t let them down easy! Ratchet things up as much as possible.

To stretch inner tension, ask yourself these questions:

1. What is the worst thing from the inside that can happen to my character?

2. What is the worst information my character can receive?

3. Have I sufficiently set up the depth of emotion for the reader before the scene?

Raising the Stakes

One question any good novelist should constantly be asking themselves is Who cares? In other words – Is this scene I’m writing going to make the reader care about what happens? Is there enough going on to capture the reader’s interest? What does the lead stand to lose if they don’t solve the central problem of the novel? Is that enough? If not, what can I do to change it?

There are three common ways to raise the stakes in your novel. You can raise the physical stakes, raise the inner stakes, or raise the societal stakes.

Raising the physical stakes is probably the easiest. What physical harm can come to my lead? What new threat can be raised against him? What other character can I introduce to make things more difficult? How will this person operate? What will they do to make things difficult for my lead?

Raising the character stakes involves looking at the inner conflict of the lead. This has the added effect of adding more dimension to your novel as well, deepening the story while at the same time raising the intensity. Ask yourself how things can get more emotionally wrenching for my lead? Is there someone the lead cares about that can be brought in and tied into the trouble? What dark secrets from the lead’s past can be revealed here?

The third way of raising the stakes is to examine the social aspects at play. Is there some major issue my lead is involved in? How can I bring that to the forefront? What complications does that issue add to the mix?

Easy Fixes

If you find that your middle is lagging, here are some suggested ways to help you re-energize it:

1. Analyze the stakes – what can I do to ratchet up the tension?

2. Strengthen the glue – what can make the conflict more compelling?

3. Add another layer of complication – how do I make things more difficult?

4. Add another character – who else might have a role to play here?

5. Add another subplot – what other plot thread might shore things up?

6. Push through it – is it the writing or just me?

While suggestions 1-5 are self-explanatory, I did want to say something about #6. There is often a point in writing the novel when you think everything you’ve done to date is just utter crap. For me, that usually happens around page 200 (or 2/3 of the way through the work.) Suddenly the characters suck, the writing sucks, everything sucks. At that point it is time to step away from things and get some perspective – before changing anything!

I’ll usually take 24 to 48 hours off from writing. I won’t work on the book. I won’t look at the book. I’ll even try not to think about the book. I’ll go do something I really enjoy, doing all I can to relax and take it easy. Then, and only then, will I come back and give it another look. Usually by then I’ve gained some perspective. If I still think it sucks, I’ll try to find ways to fix it and at that point my subconscious usually has had enough time to figure out just what needs to be done.

So there you have it, some tips and techniques for helping you deal with a sagging middle.

Good luck and keep writing!

I was involved in a message board discussion the other day about how I set up a series bible. For those who aren’t familiar with the term, a series bible is a summary of all the information you need to write multiple books (or television shows or films or what-have-you) in the same setting/story world. Since I do the same thing for my stand alone novels as I do for series work, I thought I’d share that process with you all.

The first thing I do is assemble all of my organizational materials into a three ring binder. I use tabbed dividers so that I can find things easily once the project has begun. I usually use the same set of tags on every project – Characters, Setting, Plot, Timeline, Research, Unanswered Questions, and Reminders.

– The Characters section contains all of my character summaries, my back-story notes, and a physical description sheet that allows me to easily reference things like eye color, height, weight, etc. I also make a habit of cutting pictures out of magazines or off the web to remind me of what certain characters might look like and I keep these with my notes for visual cues when it comes time to develop descriptive passages.

– The Setting section contains all of my setting sketches (one page summaries of everything I know about a particular place or setting) as well as any miscellaneous notes I might have lying around discussing how those setting relate to each other. As with my characters, if I have any images that I’ve saved, I put these in the binder as well.

– The Plot section contains my one paragraph, my four paragraph, and my four page plot summaries, as well as my individual scene breakdowns. I think I’ll talk more about these in my next essay.

– The Timeline section contains my spreadsheet mapping out exactly when things happen in the storyline. If I need to keep track of more detailed events (such as the exact timing of some of the events during the murders in my forthcoming novel THE WITCHES’ HAMMER,) I’ll also draw up one page sheets that outline these as well.

– The Research section contains not only my original list of research topics, but also the research itself. When writing my Templar Chronicles trilogy, I wanted my modern extrapolation of the Templar order to be as close to the original as possible, so this section actually grew so large as to necessitate its own binder. Do whatever feels right to you but remember, you shouldn’t be spending so much time researching that you never get around to actually writing!

– The Unanswered Questions is, appropriately enough, full of unanswered questions. These can be specific research issues (also filed in the Research section) or they can be character and/or plot issues that I haven’t yet worked out. Putting them in their own section and making a point to review it every few days keeps me from forgetting to answer them in the manuscript.

– The Reminders section is particularly important. The last thing I want to do is stifle my creativity and forward momentum by constantly going back and fixing things in my first draft. Instead, I keep notes of anything I need to fix, add, delete or otherwise adjust on a legal pad while I write each day and then transfer those pages into my binder when I’m finished each session. That way I know I won’t forget to come back and do them, which in turn allows my creative side to just get on with finishing the rough draft.

Once I’ve got my binder in order, I’m ready to get to work.

Since I write my chapters entirely out of order, this level of detail ahead of time is necessary for me to achieve my goals. I map out each and every book this way, taking one or two months to get it all squared away. The benefit, however, is that the actual writing time is greatly reduced as I’m not trying to figure out where I’m going while in the process of getting there.

So, how do you organize your books?

This past weekend I said goodbye to four friends that I’ve known for some time. We’ve gone through a lot together; the deaths of loved ones, work-related problems, outside influences that tried to hurt us, that didn’t have our best interests at heart. Sometimes I loved them like brothers. At other times, I wanted to kill them and I spent many an evening developing the most deliciously cruel and bizarre ways to do so.

The thing is, we’d just grown apart. Distant. Our lives no longer intersected at some many points on the dial. Dare I say that maybe we’d even grown a bit bored with each other? We parted as friends, and will probably visit each other now and again, but I think it was plain for all of us that a phase of our lives had come to an end.

And that was okay.

Really.

I can hear you all now. Leave the Dr. Phil stuff to the co-called professionals and get back to talking about writing, right?

But you see, I am talking about writing. This weekend I finally completed A TEAR IN THE SKY, the third and final book in my Templar Chronicles trilogy.

I came up with the idea of a series about modern Templar knights defending mankind from the supernatural on behalf of the Vatican a few years ago. Book one, HERETIC, was published by Pocket Books in October of 2005. The plan to write four books was scaled back to a trilogy at my foreign publisher’s request in late 2006. Book two, A SCREAM OF ANGELS, was written between September 2006 and January 2007. I dove into book three immediately thereafter (namely because I had been late turning in SCREAM and I needed to meet my deadline for TEAR.)

So for the last nine months straight, and off and on for some time before that, my focus has been almost entirely on the exploits of this group of warriors.

It can be comforting writing about the same characters. You know who they are. You know what they want. You know their motivations and their fears and their idiosyncrasies. But it can also be creatively stifling, for when you sit down to write you realize that you are going to be writing about them again. Your very familiarity with them can become problematic, as it no longer seems to stretch you creatively. It no longer holds the same challenges or the same feeling of discovery that working on a new project with new characters often can.

I’ve greatly enjoyed telling the story of Knight Commander Cade Williams and his rough-and-tumble group of warriors known as the Echo Team. But I’m not going to complain as I put them away on the back shelf of my mind for awhile and move onto to something new.

It’s time to tell the story of Special Agent Mitchell Sloane and the serial killer known as the Inquisitor.

Time to journey alongside Joshua Gideon as he struggles to stop the apocalypse he started by reading the forbidden Book of Coming Sorrows.

Time to walk in the shoes of Jeremiah Hunt, the man who gave up his eyes in order to see more clearly, as he searches for his missing daughter, Elizabeth.

These are the stories that interest me now, the tales that are clamoring to be told. And they deserve my time and attention. (And I sure as heck don’t want to piss off my muse!)

I’m sure I’ll come back and visit Cade at some point. But for now, it’s time to say goodbye.

Whoever it was that said “parting is such sweet sorrow” only got it half right.

There I was.

Forty-eight hours away from deadline and A TEAR IN THE SKY, book three of the Templar Chronicles trilogy, was all but done.

The rough draft was finished. The first and second set of revisions were completed and I was in the midst of the third and final read-through, anticipating the end of a couple of months of hard work on this particular volume and three years of the same on the trilogy itself.

One final read through and then off it would go to my editor, who had been waiting patiently after giving me that extra couple of weeks to be certain the book was just right.

But wait.

What’s this?

As I near the end of the book, as I’m reading through the final penultimate chapters when all is revealed, when the reader finally gets to see the bigger picture, finally understands the plans of the Adversary, understands how the shade of Cade’s dead wife fits into those plans, and stands at the brink of disaster with Cade himself as he faces off against his long-time nemesis…things fall flat.

Something was wrong. Something I didn’t see the first couple of times through the process. Something that couldn’t go ignored.

It took me half a day of looking, but I finally tracked down the culprit. It was hidden between the lines, in the underlying theme that had subconsciously invaded my work, just as it always did, but this time the actions of the story did not support the theme that had crept along between them across three volumes. Books one and two were fine, but this one, book three, was…well…off.

Thirty hours or so to deadline.

The book was readable as it was. It was more than readable. It was pretty darn good.

But it wasn’t right.

And that stopped me in my tracks. I had an important decision to make. Turn the book in on time, expect some revisions, and wait to make the necessary changes at that point OR blown my deadline, work my ass off for a few more weeks to make it right, and ride out my editor’s exasperation that I’m blowing the schedule by at least a month, maybe more.

I’ll admit it. I was tempted to just call it quits, turn in the book, and hope to fix it all later.

But in the end, the story wouldn’t let me.

It cried out to be corrected. It knew where it needed to go, whether or not I was smart enough to see it, and all it wanted was to be given the chance to get there. I looked closer. The problem was back in chapter eleven. I had zigged when I should have zagged and now one of the major plot lines ran contrary to the theme of the series. It would take a major rewrite. Vital parts of chapters 12-19 would have to be changed and everything after that would simply have to be tossed out.

A good third of the book would have to be rewritten.

The rational side of me said “no freakin way,” but the writer side of my soul, the one who has to be true to the story above all else, that side of me said “if you just do this, then you can…” – and I was off and running.

I’m three weeks over deadline now and I’m still not done, but I’m closing in on the end once more. Another week at most, is my guess. I’ve worked hard, but I’m also conscious of the fact that the writing has come much easier this time around, that I’m not constantly fighting an uphill battle to get the words on the page. I’d been so focused on the goal that I hadn’t seen the carnage I’d left behind me in my wake.

The book is better now, I’ll admit it. It reads better and I know my fans will enjoy it more. Perhaps most important of all, I know that I did everything I could to do the story justice.

And that was key.

I’d forgotten a very simple rule I’d learned a long time ago.

Be true to the story and it will be true to your readers as well.

It’s one I’ll remember next time around, I assure you.