Postponing Emerald Hills Elite

I don’t know if you noticed but Twisted Little Games has disappeared from Amazon and my website. It’s not cancelled.

I’ve mentioned this in other blog posts I’ve done recently, but I’ve decided to postpone the Emerald Hills Elite series, but just for a little while.

When I created the pre-order and started working on it, I thought I had all the time in the world. Well, it turns out that writing reverse harem is a lot harder than I thought it’d be and Crossed Souls took me much longer than I expected. It’s not a huge deal, but just means that I’m not ready to put out Twisted Little Games just yet.

I probably could’ve rushed it, but I really didn’t want to do that. Getting books out as fast as I can is something I try to do, but I won’t do it at the cost of the quality of the story. And after reading the reviews on Crossed Souls (which, admittedly, is a whole different beast because it’s paranormal and comes with its own challenges), I really want to take my time to get TLG right.

So, right now, the order of things I’m working on is this:

1. Crossed Souls rewrites.

2. Bound Souls

3. Secret Emerald Hills project that takes place five years before TLG.

4. Deceit

5. Stolen Souls

6. Twisted Little Games

That order could change, but for now that’s where my head’s at. I have another series that takes place in Emerald Hills that I’m not announcing until I have made some progress writing it, but I’m happy to put off TLG so that everything can release in the chronological order that the stories take place.

Just remember—good things come to those who wait! Haha :)

Twisted Little Games - Plot

Every book I write, my actual process of writing the book changes just a little bit. Well, I guess that’s not true—sometimes it changes a LOT.

I’ve talked about this before, but I’m a hardcore plotter. There are some writers (called Pantsers) who can just sit down and write and let the story take them wherever it wants. The thought of that gives me massive anxiety. Sitting down to stare at a blank screen with no idea where I’m going makes me sweat.

I tend to write out the big parts of the story (like where it’s going to start, end, and anything important from the middle) and then start to get more and more and more intense and detailed as I break it down until I have all the details worked out before I start writing.

As much as this brings me peace and lets my brain calm down enough to begin, it also really boxes me in. So much so that with two of the last three books I’ve written (Hostile and Chased), I’ve had to scrap the second half plans for both, do massive rewrites and then replot the second half. It’s a big undertaking that might not have been necessary if I’d just shifted the way I worked.

Yesterday I was stressing over Twisted Little Games because I know the characters. I know exactly where I want it to start and where it’s going to end. The problem is the middle is still a bit fuzzy for me and not a lot was coming to me when I’d sit and try to brainstorm.

Enter my writing partner slash awesome friend Cathleen Cole who said, “Why don’t you start with what you have and then when you get to the end of what you’ve figured out, plot the next bit?”

Uhhhh.

Lightbulb moment!

So, that’s how I’m writing this book. I started today working on the first chapter without the entire thing plotted out (eeeeep!). We’ll see if this way allows for more creative freedom without it being a total free for all or if it bites me in the ass, but at this point I’m willing to try anything.