Sunday, November 25, 2012

The Continuation of Original Ideas




 The purple sky in Colonization

Happy Monday, everyone! I know it's not the happiest Monday for me, because I'm done with my Thanksgiving vacation and back to work. I did manage to get a lot of my Christmas shopping done, along with almost 10k in words, and the December break is so close. I can make it! 

I have a very special post to share today about the idea behind Colonization. Writers get ideas from so many places, and Colonization came to me in a very special way. Perhaps sharing my story will inspire others to draw upon the works they've already written to the the continuing stories yet to be told. 

I’d just finished Paradise 21 from my new adult New Dawn series, and I felt like the whole story hadn’t been told. In fact, I wrote a scene at the end (which has now been deleted in the final version) where the Bad Guy, Astor Barliss, finally reaches Paradise 21. The scene features his great granddaughter, Andromeda Barliss, as a teen, and I knew a whole new story was in the making. 

Except, this wasn’t new adult anymore. 

Andromeda was seventeen years old, making this new chapter a young adult book. Without thinking of repercussions, about what second books of trilogies should be, or what anyone would think, I wrote the book. It flowed like music from my typewriter because I was writing what I wanted to write, and not what should be written or what people would expect. After I'd finished, I had a book that couldn’t make it in the original trilogy, so I created a trilogy of its own for young adults, and the Paradise Reclaimed series was born. 

Some of my critique partners liked it better than the original book, Paradise 21. I knew the story had to continue, and I was so glad I’d followed my heart and written a young adult book instead of book 2. The Paradise Reclaimed series sat on the back burner for a while as I got a contract with Entangled Publishing and had to finish the original series. I was ecstatic when Inkspell Publishing picked it up. I’m so excited to share with you the product of my heart, Colonization: Paradise Reclaimed.



Click here for Inkspell's Website
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3 comments:

Tiffany Allee said...

Love the cover, can't wait to read it! Great post, too.

Nicole said...

Very cool story. Thanks for sharing and congrats!

Cherie Reich said...

I know what you mean about the end of the Thanksgiving weekend! I'm glad you got some more writing done. :)

I love the Paradise Reclaimed series! Can't wait to read book three!