Familiar Faces

I realized belatedly this morning that I had a blog due today. It's been a incredibly productive -- but exhausting -- month. So far I've written the Halloween Fling sequel to I Spy Something Bloody. It's called I Spy Something Wicked. About Fifteen thousand words of wicked.

It's the one about the British spy who wants to retire to Old Virginny with his skeptical lover the handsome, fiftyish doctor. But Mark's (that would be the spy) old enemies won't let him. (This time around it's his friends who won't let him be.)





One of the questions we writers get asked a lot is, is it easier to write series or stand alones? I think it's about the same. In some ways revisiting old characters is easy -- you've done the ground-work. But you've also got more to remember, especially if you put a lot of careful detail in about those characters. Like I gave Mark a love of waffles and classical music. But he starts the story out listening to rock. The boyfriend's influence, I expect.

It helps if you keep a character "bible" but I don't tend to do that with characters I only plan on using once. And that was initially how I approached all these novellas. They were supposed to be pleasantly complicated one-offs. The only series I planned on doing was the Adrien English series.

But these characters turned out to be more popular than I anticipated and readers wanted more of them, and I found myself curious about how some of the dynamics I had set up might ultimately turn out.

So that was the beginning of the month, and then last week I did a Christmas novella for Samhain, which I really, really like -- all new characters on that one. It's pretty much my first straight (as in no real mystery) romance. It's very...er... quirky.

And then this week I'm working on Old Poison, which is the sequel to Dangerous Ground. That's one of my all time most favorite stories (both with me and readers). It's my popcorn movie novella. Two special agents for the DSS are trying to salvage their relationship after one of them is shot following a declaration of his feelings for the other.



Er, I should hasten to add he wasn't shot by his partner. He was shot because his mind wasn't on the job -- or so his guilt-stricken partner thinks. Anyway, they go camping in the High Sierras to try and mend their friendship and partnership. But, as you probably know, NOTHING good can over come of camping.

Just kidding. Although I do much prefer hotels.

Anyway, they survived camping. This time it's trickier to write because there's a lot more about their jobs -- they're Special Agents for the DSS (which is a fascinating organization, if you've read anything about it) -- and because the first time around they were too busy running for their lives to put in a lot of details. Although I did manage to throw in a couple of complicating things like...Will has a dog.

Why do I do things like that?

Now do I kill that damn dog or do I drag it along through this story?

So that's this week. Next week I have a Halloween ghost story due for MLR Press. New characters for that one -- it's a historical about spiritualists and serials killers. It's going to be complicated, without a doubt. Because that, apparently, is what I do.

I don't even want to tell you how many sets of edits I'm working on right now. Let's just say it is a hellishly busy month. But, assuming I finish all this on time, it's a relatively sane ride back to the barn.

So that's it for me. That's my month.

What are you working on? And what do you prefer -- as reader or a writer -- series or stand alones?