Wednesday, February 16, 2011

And Now For Something Completely Similar

I always worry when I get an email from a reader telling me they've just discovered me and are devouring my backlist. Not because I don't like hearing from readers. It's like crack. I can't get enough and an email from a reader always makes my day. And I'm certainly not complaining about picking up some backlist sales because this writing career thing is also awesome. (I'm going to get a monthly check just for making stuff up and writing it down? Whoo-hoo!) What worries me is that the reader is going to put down the third or fifth or tenth book (figuratively if they're reading on a desktop, of course) and say, "Huh. Déjà vu."

I know that writers have themes that they like to explore. Sibling-parental issues, redemption, and reunions (guilty!) are just as common to genre fiction as secret babies and marriages of convenience are to series romance. I hope that all of my characters have a unique way of responding to the crap I throw at them. But hey, I worry, because if I didn't worry about that, I'd probably have to deal with worrying over something else that I'd rather not think about.

Take what happened to me last week. I was all set to start work on the next Fragments book, when another character started screaming in my head. I'd just turned in Bad Company and I knew from the minute Eli Wright popped up as a secondary character that he would be demanding his own book sooner rather than later. I had an idea for him (or an idea of how I could seriously mess with him) and I planned to get to that ASAP, but I didn't expect the guy I had planned for him to get so damned loud. He came to life and started spewing back story and issues so fast I couldn't have kept up if I had five secretaries taking shorthand.

What does this noisy guy have to do with my worries over rehashing the same theme? Well, Bad Company, which I love more than my favorite brownies and my favorite cookies together on a plate, is about sexuality being a bit more fluid than the characters expect. And what does the new man in my life have to tell me? That a lover's fluid sexuality just bit him in the ass. And not in the fun way. Even the title my brain gave me, Bad Boyfriend, just goes to show that my muse is determined to explore the B-side of the same issue. Now if I can just have the guts to not pull punches—to write on through no matter how painfully raw the feelings get in this—I should have one hell of a book to tell you about by the time you meet Eli in Bad Company. In the meantime, I hope you find things just as different or as familiar as you like them.

5 comments:

M Jules Aedin said...

I'm so excited Bad Company is to the submission stage already! And that Eli's book is being very loud. Hehehe. *rubs hands together gleefully*

Bookishly Awesome said...

Does this still leave a release date in June? I can't tell you how much I look forward to your books. Even if it isn't until June, at least I have a certain month to look forward to. I am way excited about this book. The chapters you released definitely did their job anf teased me.
Thanks!

K.A. Mitchell said...

Bad Company is definitely scheduled for June 7. It doesn't have a cover yet, but I'll show it off as soon as it does.

Eli was a lot of fun, but I don't know if he'll forgive me for who I'm sending his way.

I do wish my books would write themselves faster. I hate having to wait to share them with people.

K.A. Mitchell said...

Hi Artemis,

Thanks for finding me and stopping by. Eli was a lot of fun to write as a secondary character. Now I'm really enjoying being in his head. He's got a lot more going on in there than he wants people to know.

VJ Summers said...

I'm one of those readers who discovered you (Chasing Smoke) and promptly devoured your entire backlist. I was having a particularly crappy few weeks - my Goddaughter was molested by her new stepbrother, and the universe was crumbling - and Clay and Danny took me out of my own head. And SO freaking hot!

There's a line we, as readers, expect our favorite authors to tread - we want to see the things we liked in book #1, only a little different, only enough the same to keep the "voice" we've come to love, only different enough to stay fresh... We readers are a demanding and irrational lot! lol

But that's okay, cuz we authors tend to be a bipolar lot - well, okay, I'M bipolar, but it works, yeah?

So, keep doing what you're doing, but change it up, too! ;-)

VJ
VioletSummers.com

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