May came and so did the test results for the Word Dragon. The infections were gone, her lesions had cleared up, and there was nothing else to do but wait and see. We started calling her Lazarus and Schrodinger’s Dog and “the dog who lived”. She started to improve a little. I stopped having to take her out for a pee every four hours, and she started to eat again. Her legs still weren’t working right but thankfully summer arrived so our shuffling around the park was at least done in the dry. I read a few books on my phone and caught Hippogriffs on Wizards Unite while she had a rest before we took another ten paces to the next comfy bit of grass and hopefully a Niffler.
June came and it got roasting hot for a little while there and omg does a certain dog love to roast in the sun. Which meant I roasted, which was kinda nice. I wrote some words too, and then some more. I actually ended up writing the most words I’d ever written in one day – 6948 – which is pitiful to some but for me, a small achievement. It felt very much like we were never going to get back to normal but we could maybe find a new normal, one wobbly step at a time.
I’d written Gazes Into You, before I started publishing, despite my better judgement. It was a plot bunny I’d had while walking the dog at ass o’clock in the morning and passing a dimly lit office reception where two security guards would sit. After months of seeing them every day, I wondered if they saw me passing by and whether they would notice if I didn’t one day. The plot bunny got me bad and, thinking I couldn’t do it justice, I tried my hardest to palm it off on someone who I thought could. They wouldn’t take it so I had to write it.
Originally, I planned for five more books. Much like Alphas’ Homestead, there are hints of hints of stuff that I was hoping to come to later (no, I’m not telling you what), but then A Foreign Country came along and now I’m not so sure. Mostly, because the story went in a direction I wasn’t wholly comfortable with initially.
The book was supposed to be about John finding out about Jason’s past, about them strengthening their relationship, becoming closer, and revealing maybe that there’s a bigger picture going on. Which is what happened. I just wasn’t expecting a third party to have quite so much so much of a ‘hands on approach’ in matters.
It’s happened before, (read, anytime Seth effing Mason appears in anything) that a character will take over and make me realize all my carefully laid plans count for naught in the face of “In Character Behavior.” And this is what happened in this case.
I debated and fought it and talked it over with a bunch of people. In the end, I couldn’t go against what the characters were telling me they wanted and let John do what was in his nature to do—and got a sensitivity reader just to be on the safe side. Having said that, going with the flow has royally screwed up my plans for the other books so I have some thinking to do before I can write any more. And the story I ended up with was not the one I intended but I do like it. I love all my guys but I definitely do have a soft spot for this crew, for sure. I might love them even more if they stay on track next time.
#1 – #2 – #3 –#4 – #5 – #6 – Coming in 2020
