Crossed Souls Rewrites Are Done!

Phew, what a journey! It took me an entire month, but I did it. Crossed Souls is now 16,000 words longer and I think the story is so much better than the original version. For context, 16,000 words is essentially the equivalent of four extra chapters (though I didn’t actually add any new chapters). I know all of my books are longer than your average romance novel, but hey, I’ve never pretended like I’m not a wordy bitch.

The entire start of the first chapter is completely different, and there are so many changes throughout the story now that I hope give more depth to the characters and make the worldbuilding better. This was my first time writing a paranormal story, and a reverse harem at that, and there are so many moving parts in the story that I really needed to figure out how to tell the story in my head while also balancing how much information I dump into the book without bogging the story down.

I hope I’ve finally struck a good balance between everything with these changes. If you haven’t read Crossed Souls yet, you can check out the new version by clicking here.

If you have already read it, the new version will be updating to your Kindle later this week (sadly, while Amazon delivers same-day, their electronic updates are still slow as hell) so keep your eyes out for that and let me know what you think of all the changes when you give it a read!

Next up… Bound Souls.

Crossed Souls: Meet Chandler

Waaay back in 2007, I fell in love with a beagle. Her name was April, and she was my first ever fur baby and my first ever baby. My husband and I adopted her when we bought our first house, and we were in love. Fast forward five or so years and our lives had changed dramatically and because of that, it was impossible for us to keep our girl.

So, we rehomed her to a lovely family who was in the military and about to relocate to Alaska. They had a couple of small kiddos who we knew would love her as much as we had. I’ve never quite healed from letting her go, and to this day sometimes I wonder about her.

So, when it came time to pick a familiar for Willa, I had to pay tribute to my girl and use a beagle. Willa’s lonely and socially, she’s had a rough go of it. Beagles and known for being so sweet, loving, and gentle that I knew that was what she needed…

Except Chandler isn’t those things. He’s this fun dichotomy of snark and assholishness wrapped up in a cute, fluffy body so no one really expects the crap that comes out of his mouth. I named him after Chandler on Friends because 1. I love that show so much, and 2. I imagined him this sarcastic jerk who didn’t really make any situation better even thought that’s literally his job.

Unfortunately, sarcasm is really, really hard to write. I don’t think I quite pulled him off like I wanted to, but I did my best and hopefully as things progress I’ll figure out how to write sarcastic dialogue. How do you feel about Chandler? Love him? Hate him?

Crossed Souls Rewrites: Progress Update

I’ve been working my way through Crossed Souls and tweaking the story to correct some things I should’ve put in the first time around. Currently, I’ve added about 7,000 words to the story and I’m working on chapter nine.

It’s been fun going back through the start of this book and punching up Willa’s character. I actually yesterday was working on chapter nine and realized that I totally forgot about the list I made of things to look out for and fix in this book.

So, I had to go search it out. Now, I don’t know about you, but I have a serious problem with collecting notebooks. I have so many and they are everywhere. My husband has honestly given up the fight against the stacks I keep of them, and I try to keep them confined to a couple of areas only. See? Compromise.

Anyway, I had to go dig through all the notebooks because I was *pretty sure* I’d written the list in an actual physical notebook and not, like, a word doc or google doc or something. Eventually, I found it and when I deciphered my handwriting, I noticed there were a couple of things on there that I hadn’t already corrected.

So, I had to go back to chapter five and fix some Willa stuff. There were complaints about her character falling flat when she meets her Guardians, and I definitely don’t want that for her, so I’m working really hard to make sure she keeps her personality throughout.

I also had to write in a whole new scene between Gramps and one of the guys which was fun and I think explains some stuff that was left out before that’ll help the story make more sense.

This week, I’m hoping to make big progress but I always feel like that whole “my eyes are bigger than my stomach” thing when you’re really hungry and load up your plate and then can only eat half. That’s how I look at my rewrites. I always start out like, “Okay, I can do this. I can get the next… 15? Yeah, let’s go with 15 chapters done this week and then it’ll be ready to go.” And then the week comes and goes and I’ve done three chapters and beat myself up over it.

Still, I would really love to get this finished so I can start writing Bound Souls. I’ll update next week and let you know how it goes!

Dulls vs. Extras

Remember when I talked about how my world building was basically trash in Crossed Souls? I’ve had to do a lot of exploring of the world in my head to figure out all sorts of little details of Willa and the guys’ environment to change while I’m doing rewrites.

One of the things that kept coming up was the question do the humans know supernaturals exist?

I went back and forth, but ultimately I wanted them to know of each others’ existence, at least on a basic level. The humans don’t know about all supernaturals or all powers, but they know people who have powers that mere mortals don’t exist.

But then this created a whole other issue. What do I call each side? Humans? Mortals? Supernaturals?

So many things had been done before, and I had a discussion with my 11-year-old because they read a lot of fantasy which was helpful in fleshing out what I didn’t want to call them.

Ultimately, I decided on Dulls and Extras. Dulls for the non-magic/non-supernatural humans because the Supes find them horribly “dull.” They don’t have powers and they’re not really worth interacting with because of it.

For the supernaturals, they go by “Extras” because they’ve got all the human pieces but with all sorts of extras sprinkled in. They’re “extraordinary,” hence “extras.”

So, if you re-read the updated Crossed Souls, or skip it but end up reading Bound Souls, you’ll see these terms quite a bit throughout the series, and now you know what they mean.

Crossed Souls in the Making

I mentioned in my last post that Crossed Souls had started in my head as something so much different than it turned out to be when I wrote it. Originally, I imagined Willa as a sort of Cupid-like character. She was compelled to help everyone around her find their soulmates while not having one of her own and she was definitely bitter about it.

Here’s one of the very first things I wrote when I was trying to flesh out the idea (sometimes, I get a snippet of a character’s inner thoughts or a tiny bit of a scene so I just write it out and stick it in a folder to deal with later. In this case, I never did anything with it because the story went in a different direction):

The book was originally going to be titled “Soulbound,” and I’m really glad I didn’t stick with that one. It would still fit in the context of the series, but I like Crossed Souls better.

Once I had an idea of who Willa was, it was time to create her harem. I’ve always had a love for all things dark and psycho, so Hiro and Crew were the first two guys who flickered into existence in my head. Then, Ever and Knox joined the party… and I can’t promise things will end with the four of them.

I’ve talked about my series bible before for this book, but this thing is a BEAST.

For every character I create, I make a full write up on them. Here’s just a peek into part of Willa’s:

There are about three pages like this for each character detailing all sorts of stuff about them, and I do the same thing for places, familiars, villains, magic types, and everything else in between. It’s a pretty hefty file when all is said and done. It goes on and on…

Did you have any idea how much goes into writing a book? I know I didn’t before I started doing it myself! Now I’m curious: Leave me a comment and let me know who your favorite character in CS is.

Crossed Souls - Rewrites

Crossed Souls, the first book in my Twisted Soul Magic series, was my first foray into paranormal romance. This was a story that started out in my head as something so much different than it came out when I wrote it. It also was my first attempt at writing reverse harem, and y’all… that shit is hard.

So, even though I did a ton of prep work going into the series (my series bible is more than 6,500 words, which is roughly two full chapters of writing), at times I felt like the story sort of got away from me. Trying to keep all the voices, goals, and quirks of each character unique while keeping the story on track was definitely a challenge I felt like I started to lose as the book went on.

Despite all of that, I was happy with it when it came out… until I started to read the reviews. Because the readers weren’t loving it. You guys thought Willa was naive and stupid and let her life happen to her (a fair assessment, unfortunately, and not at all how I set out to write her), that some of the plot got repetitive, and that my world building left a lot to be desired.

See, as much as I try not to, I read every review and I like to think I’m pretty good at taking constructive criticism. Now, when someone leaves me a 1-star and tells me my story sounds like it was written by a man (yes, that’s an actual review I’ve gotten), I can laugh that shit off. But, when a bunch of people say, “I kind of hate your heroine,” or, “your worldbuilding doesn’t make sense,” I listen.

It’s because of reviews like that that I’ve decided to do some major rewrites on Crossed Souls to make it a better intro into the series. I’ve put Twisted Little Games and Emerald Hills Elite off for now (no idea when it’ll be releasing) because this needs to happen first. I’m doing a full (MASSIVE) rewrite on the entire manuscript of Crossed Souls to try and improve it.

So, instead of updating you on the progress of me writing TLG, I’ll be updating you for now on my rewriting progress and giving you peeks into the differences in the story from what it started out as to what it’s turning into.

For now, all I’ve managed to get through is chapter one. But, it got some pretty significant rewrites already. Let’s look at the beginning.

This is the way the book originally started. What I was thinking when I wrote this scene was that she was having a dream, one where her powers were activating and she was confused. She was coming into her first contact with her Guardians, though she didn’t know who they were or what was happening in any way.

In hindsight, I can see that to the reader, this whole thing is pretty confusing. It made sense in my head at the time because I knew where the story was going, but as a reader, you didn’t.

So, I changed the whole thing (though she’s still having a dream) to be more conversational, to have a bit more of Willa’s personality in it, and to hopefully have it make more sense what’s happening. I don’t even think before it was necessarily clear that she was dreaming, but with the new version, I really tried to punch that fact home.

So, you can see that the story has changed already quite a bit, and there’s lots more to do. I’ll keep you updated on how the rewrites are going, but so far I’m a lot happier with where the story is headed. Have you read Crossed Souls yet? If so, leave me a comment and let me know!

Character Flaws

When I start brainstorming a series, that can look different every time. For Crossed Souls, it started with the characters—Willa specifically. I saw her initially as a sort of cupid-like character who was destined to help people find love while also being a person who couldn’t find it herself. She’d never known what being in love felt like, and was a really lonely person.

So many of the reverse harems I read involve a female main character who’s badass almost right from the beginning. That’s not who Willa is, though. She’s just not. She’s been beaten down by life, and instead of rising to the occasion, she’s been defeated and is sort of just trying to get through her days and appreciate the things she does have and the people who are in her life.

Unfortunately, this means that sometimes life just happens to her. She doesn’t know how to handle it when life throws her a massive curveball she didn’t expect. Because she’s naïve and been sheltered her whole life, she doesn’t always make great decisions. In the first book of the Twisted Soul Magic series, this means that sometimes she’s a pushover. She lets her guys make decisions and goes along with them because she’s just trying to learn how this new world works before she jumps in.

She’s cautious and inadvertently reckless at the same time because she doesn’t have all the information. She’s doing her best, but sometimes her best is frustrating because she doesn’t seem to get it.

Trust me when I say this is all part of the plan. Yes, I’ve got a plan for Willa and how she’s going to grow throughout the series. She won’t always be the clueless and frustrating heroine she is in book one. If she were, that would make for a shitty series, right? But… if she doesn’t start somewhere low, how can she have the journey that will make you root for her to have happiness and everything perfect by the end of the series?

You’d get just as bored if she was a badass from the beginning and stayed a badass throughout. So, while I know book one might’ve been frustrating, I promise things will get much, much better as the series goes on.

Meet the Harem: Crossed Souls

I’ve been a big fan of reading reverse harem for a while now. At this point, it makes up about 98% of what I read in my free time, so because it’s my favorite, I wanted to try my hand at writing a series. I’ve had a lot of ideas about what my first RH series should be, but Twisted Soul Magic wouldn’t leave me alone, so it’s first up (and for the record I have about five other series’ in the works for the future that I can’t wait to get to).

In Crossed Souls (book one), we meet Willa’s harem. She may or may not collect another guy or two along the way, but for now, we’re going to focus on these four.

Ever — He’s our leader. He’s also the resident Healer and he’s not one to rush into a situation without considering all angles first. Ever is the guy who keeps the group together, who keeps a level head where some of the others don’t, and who keeps everyone safe and cared for. He also has a secret that he’s ashamed of and isn’t sure how to handle when it comes to revealing himself to Willa.

Crew — With a sense of humor, he’s both the light and the dark. Crew is funny and quirky, but his powers are the epitome of dark, which makes for an interesting dynamic. His powers are also legendary and almost as rare as Willa’s, so they have that in common. One of his favorite pastimes is scaring the ever loving fuck out of the people around him, so he keeps everyone on their toes.

Hiro — Ever, Crew and Hiro are like brothers, but where the other two are more outgoing and lighter in their approaches, Hiro is suspicious, intense, and an asshole at times. He’s a skilled fighter, but his past will never make it easy for him to let new people into his life. He’s a glass half empty kind of guy, and makes no secret about wanting to stay out of anything that doesn’t fit into his version of a normal life.

Knox — He’s the outsider. He isn’t a part of Ever, Crew, and Hiro’s group, and he’s Willa’s professional rival. Knox has a power that’s so shunned by the magical community, he hides who he is to avoid being completely driven out of town. Knox has spent his entire life alone, and has long ago given up hope that he’d find people who accept who and what he is.

The guys of Twisted Soul Magic are complex, both strong and soft in different ways, but every single one of them is necessary to support Willa in figuring out her powers and how to keep them out of the hands of the sinister shadow presence who’s determined to take them for their own.

So, any guesses what the guys’ powers are?

Leave a comment and let me know!

Two-Timing

Well, it’s official: I’ve lost my mind.

Yup, I’m about to dive into writing two books at the same time.

I mentioned it in one of my recent blog posts, but even then I wasn’t 100% sure I was going to do it. Now, it’s official because I’ve fully plotted both stories and have the set up all finished.

I’ve talked before about how I plot my stories, but the part that comes after plotting is what I’m going to talk about today. Once I do my general plot, I dig down into the details—both of which I’ve gone into before. I do that part by hand so once that’s done, I enter it all back into my plotting program.

Finally, I go into Google Drive. This is where I store everything for writing my books. I create a Google Docs file for every chapter and then I name them and format them for my editor (this is a new development since I started with her for Captive, but she’s amazing!). So, everything’s written in Times New Roman because that’s just how I roll.

(Quick side note: I read a study once that said people who write in Comic Sans are more productive, but fuuuuck that. Comic Sans makes me want to rip my eyeballs out of my skull).

After the files are all formatted, I copy over all my scene details from my plotting program into the appropriate chapter. It looks like this when it’s all done and ready for me to write:

Once that’s done, I’m all set to write and I don’t stop until I’m done. I set myself daily goals (I’ve talked about it before, but in case you missed it, I aim to write 4,000 words a day in 500-word blocks) and I have a writing partner who keeps me accountable.

So, now that you’ve had a peek behind the curtain, I’m gonna change the subject real quick. See, I’m honestly HORRIBLE at keeping writing news to myself. I don’t want to get ahead of myself and promise books that end up not working out, but now that I’ve got everything set up and am ready to actually dive into these stories later today, I feel confident sharing just a little hint of what’s coming in that top secret project I’ve been talking about.

So, now you have a title for book one: Crossed Souls.

It’s not up for pre-order, but here’s a sneak peek of the story aesthetic and maybe a couple of plot hints.

There’s no release date or pre-order or anything yet, but do you have any guesses what the story might be about? Leave ‘em in the comments!