The Process

I thought I’d give you a little peek behind the curtain of what goes on when I finish a book, so here goes…

You can read my previous post about when I finished writing the first draft of Dirty Hit if you’re curious about how it wrapped up. Once I had the first draft done, I didn’t waste any time. I decided a couple of months back to give pre-orders a try again for both Dirty Hit and Perfect Nightmare because it’d been a while and I thought it might be motivating to help me write faster.

It’s really not. All it does it stress me out like crazy. So, after those two books it’ll be a long, long time before I consider putting up pre-orders again. To me, getting the book right is more important than any timeline to release it. I want my books to be the best they can and that means not cutting corners.

Thankfully, the first draft of Dirty Hit was done with enough time to spare that I can do it right.

So what is “doing it right”?

First, I take a read through the entire manuscript. I take notes as I go of things that are inconsistent or words or phrases I notice that I’ve repeated way too many times. (In the case of Dirty Hit, I used the phrase “makes me” almost 70 times. Yikes. For example, “When he looks at me like that, it makes me want to jump his bones.”

This process took me 10 days this time around, including a couple of days I had to take off for migraines. I finished it up late last night.

Once that’s done, the file goes to my beta readers. For this book, I’ve got five of them. They each get their own copy of the file to make notes on. I ask them to point out things they love, things they hate, and anything that takes them out of the story.

After they finish, I go through and read all of their comments file by file. Then I tweak/edit the manuscript to reflect any changes I think need to be made based on the comments I’ve gotten.

Finally, the file goes to my editor where the manuscript goes through multiple rounds of edits and changes. I have ADHD so I really struggle with timelines. My editor does a great job of keeping the timelines of my books straight because otherwise they’d be a whole damn mess.

When the book’s gone through multiple rounds of edits, it’s then ready to format. I’ll make another post about that at some point as I get to it.

So, right now we’re in the “beta readers” stage of getting this book out into the world, and it can’t go fast enough. I’m impatient at the best of times so having to wait to get this book into your hands is driving me crazy.

But a little nugget you might be interested in: There are a few Savage Society cameos in Dirty Hit. You’ll see Romeo, Grave, and Wraith make an appearance in this book. Any theories as to what that means or what they’re doing?

New Series Announcement

Savage Society of Emerald Hills is a dark (my darkest yet) series full of forbidden stories. Think father's best friend, step brother, priests, etc. It’s set in Emerald Hills, the fictional town located in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains (in the Pacific Northwest), and it takes place roughly five years before my upcoming series Riot Boys of Emerald Hills Prep.

The series kicks off with Cole and Fallon, a father's best friend, age-gap (obv) forbidden romance. If breeding is your kink, you're really going to love this one, too!

I’m currently writing it, but if you want a sneak peek, you can read it here.

I’m doing a few things different with this series. For one, I’m not planning the entire thing out before I go. I’m letting my creativity take me where it wants to. The chapters are going to be much shorter than my usuals, but there will be more of them, so the book lengths should be relatively the same.

But the coolest new thing I’m doing is posting each chapter as I write them over on Patreon. If you read chapter one and can’t wait to read more, I’m posting new chapters daily over there so you’ll want to sign up.

Please keep in mind that with editing and rewrites, the story is subject to change before it's published, and once it goes live on Amazon, it will be taken down.

I’m really excited for this one and can’t wait for you to read it!