What I Wrote This Week

This past Tuesday, Saving Maddox released and now that it’s out in the world it was time for me to jump into my next project. If I’m not actively writing something at pretty much all times, I get twitchy.

Unlike every other aspect of my life, my writing process is really organized and linear. I start my projects by figuring out the two main characters and a loose plot line. I figure out where I want them to start and how I want the story to end. And then I jump into detailed plotting.

I plot every single scene I’m going to write before I write it. At least that’s typically how I do things. I also only work on one project at a time.

Way back when, I was super into knitting. And I was also super into starting a million projects and never finishing one so I had half-finished knitting projects all over the house. Knowing that about myself, when I started on this writing journey I told myself I would only start something if I finished something else. So far this has served me well, but I had two projects once Maddox was done that were tugging at me and demanding to be written.

So this week, I broke my self-imposed one project at a time rule. That’s right: I’m actively writing TWO books right now.

So what are they?

Well, the first is Playing Jericho. Out of all the books I’ve written so far, this one has given me the most trouble plot-wise. The character I originally envisioned for Jericho didn’t fit when the time came to start actually plotting the book and it took me a couple of months of plotting and replotting to finally figure out that the problem wasn’t the plot but the character instead. Which meant a complete overhaul of who he was as a person.

I had to stop trying to force him into what I thought he should be and start letting him be who he was meant to be. Once I did that, the plot flowed and the words came a lot easier.

On top of Jericho, I’m also working on a prequel. It’s working title is Shadow Phoenix (original, I know haha) and it’s the story of the four original band members and their friendship and their path to fame. It starts just before high school graduation and follows the start of their music career with lots of debauchery along the way. It’s been fun to write, and unlike Jericho, I’m not plotting the shit out of it before I write it. I’m just writing and seeing what happens.

So far I don’t have a release date set for the prequel, but I’ll let you know when I get closer.

It’s been hot, so I’ve been multitasking by spending time with my kiddo at the pool and writing.

So, here’s how this week breaks down:

Playing Jericho: 2 chapters written

Shadow Phoenix: 3 chapters written

A few done, many, many more to go!

A quick (unedited!) sneak peek from Playing Jericho:

Jericho

I repressed the urge to smash my controller against the wall and squeezed my eyes shut, taking a deep breath. “Fuck, I’m out. Maybe we’ll have better luck tomorrow,” DeathMinion said before signing off of the game. Once he was gone, FatUncle followed him and that just left LunaGirl and me. A devilish grin crossed my face.

“Hey, Luna,” I breathed into the mic, lowering my voice to almost a growl.

She laughed that throaty laugh of hers that always turned me the fuck on. “Hey, Wicked. Nice campaign, even if we did get our asses kicked.”

Flirting with Luna over this game was what I looked forward to most these days. It wasn’t playing sold out shows with Shadow Phoenix, the band I was a drummer for. It wasn’t accepting awards, doing interviews, or any of the other boring-ass shit that came along with being someone famous. Nope. It was this right here—LunaGirl and her sultry voice. Her and this game were the only places I let myself really be who I was deep down inside. The only safe places I had to let the darkness out to play because LunaGirl got off on my need for control.

Have a great weekend, and look for my “What I Read This Weekend” post on Monday for my favorite reads from the past weekend.