Fantasy Romance
Rohan was right.
The woman inside was not his daughter. Had never been his daughter.
Where was Elise?
Where had they buried his little girl?
A sickening thought wormed through his stomach.
What if Rohan was right again and she was still alive, hurt, and all alone?
The king began to run.
Despite his better judgement, his advisers’ suggestions, and his own wife’s wishes, the king allowed his daughter’s grave to be disturbed.
They had to take great care given the poison, but he had to lay Rohan’s doubts to rest.
And, he had to lay to rest his own.
When they opened the coffin, the king closed his eyes and turned away.
By the gods, what had he done?
The crowned prince walked beside his father for a time, neither saying anything. Finally, the king stopped. “I miss her, too. No father should ever outlive his child.”
“She’s not dead. Or if she is, she isn’t buried there.”
The king’s jaw twitched.
“I have fought in a hundred battles. Watched men die a thousand deaths. I am not unfamiliar with Mor’s handiwork. For the longest time, I thought…”
“You thought what?” his father gently prodded.
“That she had not gone to the gods of the light, but I could never bring myself to truly believe it.”
“And now?”
“I think she is hurt. And in pain. And out there all alone.” He nodded toward the dark shadow of the Dragonscale mountains.
My beta reader was taking a bit longer than normal on this particular piece of work, and while I was a bit worried about it, they have a very busy life.
Yeah, that wasn’t it (though they do). Nice try on my part.
She gave me some high level feedback explaining why it was taking a bit longer.
There will be a bit of a delay in releasing Knight of Valor.
She noted I needed to tighten my beginning. Doable within my original release date timeline.
More than that, I needed to flesh out my hero in the beginning. She thought he felt flat. I cringed a little, knowing why she was saying it and where it came from.
I wrote this book over four years ago. It was one of three books I completed when I first got back into writing, and the only one I loved the characters enough to try to salvage. The other two are now buried on my hard drive and are not fit for human eyes.
But I loved Sir Marcus. I wanted to do him justice. And through him and his story, and I pushed myself to do better as a writer. His story helped me learn a lot about finding my voice, plot and character development, and even trusting myself as a writer.
So, I’d set Knight of Valor aside for a while and work on other things, become a better writer, and tackle this story again.
During the process, I read a whole bunch of craft books. And you can see their influence on the story. One of them was how to write a romance hero…and I did Sir Marcus a lot of disservice. Granted, he overcomes the bad writing advice towards the middle on the book, but it takes him a while.
At the time, they were telling romance authors that romance readers wanted alpha heroes. Don’t even bother writing anything else as it won’t sell and an agent won’t want it. So I changed him.
And he was no longer Sir Marcus.
Don’t misunderstand me. He is neither meek nor mild. He was not the “chosen one” and forced to do anything. He saw evil, and if there was a chance he could destroy that evil, he had to try. He dedicated most of his life training to do just that.
But he’s still a genuinely nice guy. The kind of person who’d come over and help you fix your roof because he heard you were having trouble without being asked. You’d share an ale afterwards, and that would be all the thanks he’d need or want.
Punch a kid or kick or dog? You don’t want him to see you do that.
Kill a village to fuel a evil spell?
Time to run. Fast.
So, I need to let his true personality shine through the first half of the book as well as the second. No easy task, that.
Oh, and I need to fix a plot hole, tighten up my pacing, and remove a few loose ends from earlier drafts I missed. And this is before I get back the full list of revisions.
*deep breath*
I see why this is taking a bit of time to get back the beta read. I also know I sent this out for just this reason.
I am literally on my eighteenth revision of this story. Yeah. Eighteenth. That I’ve counted. The first draft and several subsequent ones (no idea how how many four, maybe five?), I didn’t number and track. I am really close to this story, and I’ve put a lot of work into it. I can sometimes lose the forest through the trees. So I need more help on this than most.
It means a lot to me. I really want to get it right.
So, this is going to be a large revision, not a small tighten-things-up late game revision.
And that’s okay. Sir Marcus deserves the best story I can give him.
Yes, it means my entire plan for the year needs to change.
Yes, it means I will not make that April publishing deadline.
Both are okay.
I want to give you the best story I can.
Delaying the release date until June or July gives me the time to make it the best that I can right now.
You deserve that, and so does Sir Marcus.
His advisers tried to stop him. His aides. His retainers.
It was only the king’s voice that cut through the desperate haze of grief. “Price Rohan.”
Even now he could not dishonor his father. Standing, he saluted, ashamed of the mud that stained his surcoat and crusted his fingernails.
His father nodded toward the path. “Walk with me.”
Of course his father didn’t yell. His father never yelled.
That made it all the worse.
The pure joy of free-flowing creativity is the greatest endorphin rush.
Characters so excited for you to hear them that they are screaming at you.
New worlds unrolling at your feet like a carpet, and the people and places literally sprouting up all around you like CGI magic.
I am writing storyboards as fast as I can type, the ideas are coping so quickly. Trying to capture these amazing characters, their trials and tribulations.
I am already in love with them. But of course I am! The trick is developing enough talent as a writer to help my readers fall in love with them, too.
Their backstories are coming to life as I learn more about them. As I hear their stories and their struggles.
Honor and love. Betrayal and vengeance. War, assassination, arranged weddings and secret babies.
I have been seriously blindsided by these characters. They are haunting me all day at work. They are the first thing I think about when I get up in the morning and the last thing I think about in bed at night. The have even invaded my thoughts as I brush my teeth.
I am furiously taking notes, trying to get it all down. With a full time job there is no way I can write their story this fast, and I am still trying to work editing another novel that I wanted to publish this.
But that other story, the one I was going to write this year that I haven’t started yet?
It just got shelved.