The Story Behind The Stories
Leopold - Designing an Alien Species
When I first wrote Leopold I didn’t think much about the alien species. I made them up as I went along and didn’t put as much work into designing them as I should have. In subsequent revisions I did. I decided to design my aliens after insects and top predators. Insects are fascinating in their resilience, variety, and anatomy.
Legacy - Evolution of Story
So, like with many of my projects, “Legacy” started very different from where it ended up. The original plan in the long-ago yesteryears, was to have a trilogy. Or perhaps a quadrilogy. After I wrote the original draft of “Leopold” during the summer, I decided to write its sequel that Winter Break (still in college). I did. And it was the same length as “Leopold.”
Leopold - Evolution of Story
Believe it or not, I have been working on this for over a decade! Not consistently, mind you. About once or twice a year I’d bring it out and look through it again. The last two years saw my greatest push to polish it up and set a release date.
Red Sun - Ace Romance
One of my intentions or goals for this story was to feature an ace romance with little-to-no sexy times. For anyone familiar with my work, you know I love sexy times. This created an interesting challenge, to foster a growing romance between my leads with little to no sexual desire. That forced me to spend more time on their growing trust and friendship. While they were certainly attracted to the other, that came later, after a bond had formed.
Red Sun - Evolution of Story
So how did I come up with the storyline for Red Sun? Glad you asked. The seeds of it started decades ago when I was still a newb and unpublished. I had the outline for a werewolf series that never got off the ground, and it is unrecognizable to the finished story of today. In fact, I found that outline the other day and was amused at my ambitiousness so early in my writing career.
Legacy - Hardest Part of Writing the Story
I have to say that the hardest part of writing this book was the risk and self-doubt that plagued me from beginning to end. I am a huge believer in the quote, “Write the story that needs to be written,” as well as the one, “There is no book so great that someone won’t hate it and no book so awful that someone won’t love it.”
Leopold - Deleted Scene
Leopold started out over 200k (!) and during my last edits/revision I finally managed to mercilessly slash and burn a decent chunk of it and it now hovers around 170k. Still too big for smaller ebook publishers to take a chance on, so I decided to go the self-publishing route.
Healing Lance - Writing the Story
The final version of this story was not an easy thing to achieve. The first draft was decent but minimal. It was short and straight to the point. Then I wrote the second book and realized what I needed to add to the first. So I went back and tweaked. Then I wrote the third book and realized I had even more to add to the first. So, really, “Healing Lance” wasn’t done until I’d finished “Avenging Lance.”
Healing Lance - Quick Facts
I wanted to write a story about forgiveness, redemption, and compassion. I wanted to create a story about finding oneself and understanding one’s purpose. Lance’s life sort of gets a “reset” after he breaks out of the numb funk he’d lived in for most of his life. Now he has to confront all he’s done and atone.
Red Sun - Religion in Story
Now, I’m not a religious person myself. I consider myself an agnostic (though, for a hot second in high school, I was a goth wiccan), and so I know little about the rituals and core believes of many of the Christian sects. I know the broad strokes but none of the finer details. That is why I made Raphael’s father a bit more of a progressive Catholic, which helped Raphael be more open with being gay when he reunites with his father.