When did you first start writing?
I started writing fiction in elementary school when I was assigned a class story project. I wrote a few stories for classes, but didn't start writing independently of school until I was in junior high. My writing really took off in high school, which was when I wrote my first novel. It was pretty short, probably closer to a novella, and I'm sure it was completely unpublishable. But I wrote it! Then in college I got hit hard with writer's block. It took me years to figure out that writer's block--at least for me--is just another word for performance anxiety. I didn't start writing seriously again until I was in my early forties.
What's the story behind your latest book?
My latest book is Darkness Embraced, and it's the final (for now, anyway) book in the Legends Of A Dark Empire series. The hero is Raphael Black, a super-ancient vampire who started out as an unrepentant bad guy in Darkness Awakened. I've slowly revealed more of his character and redeemed him little by little in Darkness Forbidden and Darkness Beloved.
Originally, Raphael's story was going to follow Darkness Forbidden. I got almost half way through his book and I realized that if I put all his material into one book it would be awfully long, so I switched it with Darkness Beloved. I put Raphael on the back burner while I worked on Jared and Rebecca's story.
When I started with Raphael again, I re-drafted the book and got about a third of the way through and decided I was going about it from the wrong angle. I have a tendency to let my hero and heroine get along a little too well too quickly, not giving them enough angst and stuff to work through, and that's exactly what I was doing with Raphael and his heroine, Perrie. So I threw out what I'd written and started over.
I've started this book three times, and since three is a magic number, I'm sure this is the version that will stick.
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