When I started Bourne to Love Emma, it wasn't intended to be a series. As I got about halfway through the book, I had invested time and thought and love into secondary characters and realized I had the ability to use the security company - R.E.D. - as a platform to make the book part of a series.
Sounds simple, right? I mean, I already created characters with backgrounds and physical traits and histories with other characters - that should make it easy to move from one book to the next and write!
Nope.
Nope. Nope. Nope.
If I wasn't almost halfway through the second book, I'd chuck the idea out the window and start over on a book with no ties to something I have already written.
As a writer, I already spend hours and hours each week researching some of the most ridiculous stuff -- names of places and people to make sure I'm not pulling reality into my fiction; specifics for something my character knows all about but I do not; military terminology and tactics, specifics about how each branch operates and how the characters specialty played a part; etcetera, etcetera, ad nauseum.
TO THIS, a series adds fact checking against your own writing! How old was XYZ in my last book? What season was it when ABC happened? Which character went on what mission last time? Who got hurt? How many floors did I say were in that building? Did he drive a truck or an SUV?
For real.
AND - that doesn't even begin to touch on the "which person will be in the next book and how does the hot mess happening in THIS book affect the story of THAT one?"
I'm exhausted just living in my own head today!
I should really count the words in this post and count them toward my NaNoWriMo goal...but I won't because I'm strictly using those words toward completing Fighting for Heather. If my brain can catch up with the goals of John and Heather, I'm hoping to have that finished before Thanksgiving. Finished is possible - edited and published...maybe not so much.
Back to it! Happy Saturday!
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