Big Novel News!

Hello, everyone! Wow, it's been ages since I've been on here. Moving tends to make things jumbled, however.

So, an update on the first novel in the series: it's finished! I am currently up to my elbows in Latin and Italian translations, research notes and re-edits. At twenty-four chapters long -- twenty-six if you include the prologue and epilogue -- I'm proud to say that the first draft is finally all finished.

So, what's next, I suppose becomes the next question. I've currently got about four chapters re-edited, some characters re-tweaked and made a few changes to the structure and language of the characters. It's been one of the most frustrating, yet rewarding processes I've ever undertaken, and I am so proud of myself for making it through an idea. Once my re-editing process is over, then I plan on handing it off to a couple of people to take a look at it with a fresh eye. From there, who knows, but I feel like what I have in my hands is pretty special.

Any writer out there will more than likely admit that they have hundreds, if not thousands, of ideas floating around that they've never really finished or explored. John Grisham admits it in the introduction of my edition of A Time To Kill. I will most certainly admit that I'm horrible for not finishing ideas; on top of this series, I also have a bunch of other stories on the go as well. Will I finish most of them? I hope so. But it depends how much I get into the next idea.

Mirella's series was initially started with the idea of being a trilogy. Somewhere along the way it's spawned into a whopping five novels, and maybe more down the line if I really start getting into it. I find that I've become very attached to Mirella Cannellucci, a character that I have spent two years breathing life into. I've crafted everything from birthdays, appearances, tattoos, her behavior, her habits, her music likes, her movie likes. I've spent so much time crafting her into a strong, yet conflicted character, that I feel like she could be my daughter. I'm sure this is how Anne Rice felt creating Lestat, or how Charlaine Harris felt creating the amazing Sookie Stackhouse, or -- in the vein of my novels -- how Laurell K. Hamilton felt crafting Anita Blake.