Sunday, May 21, 2017

Paranormal Investigators Novels

Ages ago, way back when Kelly was probably still in middle school, I began writing a book about a group of paranormal investigators. It never really went anywhere.

Then, when she was in college, maybe junior year (2011/12), she participated in NANOWRIMO in November- National Novel Writing Month. I hadn't ever written a whole novel before and didn't think I had it in me. She and her roommate and best friend, Bethany, participated in 2011 and Kelly told me all about it during Christmas break. She wanted me to try it in November 2012.

So, in March of 2012, I decided to practice writing a novel, just to see if I could do it, before agreeing to participate in the 2012 NANOWRIMO. So, I took the characters from the abandoned paranormal investigators novel and resurrected them and wrote a sequel to the first novel, the one that didn't even exist yet except in a few random chapters that I wasn't going to ever continue writing, and a list of characters, and a location- a haunted house.

I set the second novel at another haunted house that had been turned into a seaside inn on the coast of Maine. I wrote the novel in about 22 days (I work full time, so this was weekday evening and weekend writing). I was pretty happy with the novel. Kelly was furious that I had written a sequel when she had been patiently waiting for the FIRST novel in what was now a series.

I didn't write it that November. I wrote Talon:An Intimate Familiarity in 2012. Again my daughter blasted me for not writing the first novel in the paranormal series. Sigh.

I wrote that novel 2013. In November 2013, I rewrote it as my NANOWRIMO novel- finally delivering the long awaited novel into her hands. She has subsequently picked it apart...so it's been sitting in a milk crate in a binder for three and a half years. I actually hired a graphics artist in 2015 who did the cover for me using one of my favorite houses locally. It's a great cover, but it's sitting in the binder because we never could make contact with the homeowner for permission to use the photo. The house has been broken up into college apartments but isn't owned by the college.

Well- to make a long story short- I have a werewolf novel that I've promised her now...but today's project turned out to be getting the FIRST paranormal investigators novel into some sort of professional looking format with a little clean-up done prior to creating a proof copy because it needs a major read through, some overhauling and a little TLC- but the whole story is there. I haven't looked at it in years- but the bits and pieces I read while working with it this afternoon and evening weren't bad.  It's definitely an earlier work when I still didn't think writing novels was my thing. (I've since been convinced otherwise and have 15 novels written to date (11 self published so far). Considering that I had ZERO novels written at the beginning of 2012 I've made some unexpected progress.

So, werewolf novel is on the side burner while I get this novel finished. It's long overdue. And so is its sequel, which I actually like better than the first one, but that's just my personal preference. There is a third one in the series started, and possibly a fourth one is lurking in the dining room somewhere- I believe I saw it when cleaning the other day.

So-what I might do is create the first two in the series this year and move on to werewolf as promised to Kelly and that will remove two more novels from the holding pattern on the dining room table. One other, the vampire novel, is close to being done. The resort hotel romance novel is about 3/4 done.

Life around here is not written in concrete and stone. It's more flexible and fluid. I didn't expect to be working on this project today, but around 2:30 this afternoon that's what came into my head to accomplish before Kelly's 26th birthday next month. I OWE her this novel from the early 2000's (she was class of 2009 in high school, so I'm thinking I started this in 2003-04?  She's been waiting over a decade...time for Mom to deliver on a promise.

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