Tackling My Second Novel And Why It was Harder Than The First - #WriterWednesday

After publishing my first novel, the question then became 'what's next'?

 

Around the time, I was becoming rather frustrated with writing fan fiction. While I loved the interaction and feedback from readers, there seemed to be this growing sentiment that I had to take the story in whatever direction the readers wanted it to go even if it wasn't the way I felt the story should develop. It was killing my creativity. And I feared if things kept going the way they were, I would never finish writing it.

The story was unique, despite it being written as a fan fiction. In fact, the only real connection it had to the original story was the characters names and the couple pairings. So when my new publisher asked me 'what's next'? the answer became obvious.

 

Within a matter of weeks, I pulled the fan fiction story and began working with an editor to make all the necessary changes in order for it to be published. The entire process took about three months with several editors going through it to make sure we hadn't missed anything. It wasn't only spelling and grammar we had to look out for, but also phrasing and situations that might be similar to the story the fan fiction had been originally created around. 

In July 2011, Slave, the first book in my Finding Anna series was publish. I didn't realize at the time that I'd be spending seven and a half years with these characters, and publishing three more books in the series: Need, Truth, and Trust.

 

At the end of Trust, I'd thought that Stephan and Brianna's story was finished...