If you know me, and you should by now, you know I'm an author. I auth. It's what I do. I am a writer and will write if I have nothing else to do, and I will write when I'm working, talking, thinking, walking, or just about any time really. I don't need a pen or keyboard to write. I create images and stories in my head. I am literally never alone. If I ever feel like I am becoming lonely, I simply start a conversation either with one of my characters or between a few of them so I can listen to them talk, and I take notes to put into future books.
I am currently writing my 17th book. It is a dramatic novel, not a romance. It can't be considered a murder book or a romance because it's a dramatic fiction novel. There will be murder and romance, but the main focus isn't on either of those events but on the characters' suffering and survival. They win and fight, lose and wrestle with one another, and discover what friendship and kinship mean.
My mind won't stall and think about one book at a time; it never has. While writing Book 17, I think of books 18, 19, and 20. I am purposely writing notes into their respective notebooks or in their files on my computer. I'm fluffing them before I even start them. This way, I have an idea of what I want to say, where I want the book to start, and where I want it to end up eventually. Like a lot of writers, I know the ending before I start the book itself.
Book 18, another dramatic fiction novel titled "Legacy," is being given special consideration because I'm about to hit the mid-point of Book 17 and will need Book 18 to be basically written in my head before I start outlining it and adding to its "bones." I have little tartan notebooks, one for each book; sometimes, they have to share a notebook, which is already being filled. It has killing and romance in it as well - I mean yeah, it's Scotland in the 13th Century. There will be bloodshed.
To be honest, Books 19 and 20 have more notes than "Legacy," but that's because they are sequels to the other Nick Posh books, and I can easily add notes about them as they play off one another. "Legacy" is a period book, a historical fiction book that will take place in 13th-century Scotland's west coast and Ireland as the main character, Euan Tavish, makes his way across the Atlantic to find his father after many years of being separated.
The storyline is not completely set, but basically, Euan's mother died in childbirth with him, and the baby was stolen by the midwife. She sold the child to a family that moved from Ayrshire, Scotland, to Ireland. At a young age, the boy was kidnapped by a man claiming to be his father, but he was not. He abused the lad for years, making him a slave aboard his merchant ship. The boy is told by the merchant that his father had given him up at birth. Though Tavish knows there is more to the story, he can't be certain about who he is until he returns to Scotland to find anyone who may know what happened.
Along the way, he falls in love, but because he is not of any type of noble blood, her family refuses to allow him to marry the woman. He's convinced that he could have been of a good family and that his cruel beginnings should not stop him from becoming a good and honorable man. He faces incredible odds, both physical and mental, trying to understand his own limits, not knowing what he will say to his father if he is still living. The journey is the story itself, the right of passage, the fight within the man, the internal struggle that he must either fight or put to rest and the reasons for the choice he must make.
"Legacy" should be written during April and May and probably be available the first or second week of June. I'm hoping it will be fun to write and that I will not only learn a great deal but also have an entirely new set of friends to talk to when or if I find myself stranded without a book to read or the internet to keep me busy—I am never, and I do mean never, alone.
PHOTO CREDIT: Me
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