Book 2 of 6: Just Beyond the Horizon: The de Laisser, Ravenscar, Santiago Series
I loved writing this book.
Tia was a minor character in my first novel, Out of the Shadows. As I note on my “From the Author” page for that title, I began that first novel when I was in my twenties and did not complete it until twenty years later.
I know, right?
Then something quite interesting happened. I found my writing voice. Or at least the beginnings of one.
My novels, all of them, have a running theme about redemption. Redemption even when we think we don’t deserve it. Yes, of course, they are still romance novels with a bit of suspense thrown in, but those parts are the sum of the whole.
When I first put pen to paper. Okay, scratch that, when I started typing my work on a laptop, the voices flowed. I knew, however, that I wanted the villain from the first novel – spoiler alert, kind of – to meet his demise in the middle of Into the Light. I had a different story in mind. One that connected the idea of family, and the choices we make that sometimes require us to sacrifice a person we love for the good of the whole.
That’s Tia’s choice and I’m not lying to you when I say I struggled to make her choice(s) seem plausible. That’s where Max comes in. He helps contextualize the plot.
If Tia is tormented, Max won’t let her remain in that space. They work as characters because they are the family unit. One forged in love, not by blood.
My writing process was actually quite simple. I wrote whenever I had a spare moment. I did make notes on scraps/pieces of paper. If a thought popped into my head, I wrote it down. On anything. Napkins, the edges of a newspaper if I happened to be reading one when an idea presented itself.
If you want to write, I encourage you to do the same. Especially if you have limited time but endless ideas.
Write. Whenever you can. Don’t overthink the grammar, syntax, or mechanics. Write what you feel. Revising and editing is the easy part. Not giving your heart to what you want others to read is what’s difficult.
So, write. Again, and again. More and more.
And perhaps take a chance on reading this, just as I took a chance on writing it.
Contact
