Giving up is easy. Some days, I wake up and wonder why I don’t give up. My writing career is progressing, but I haven’t found the fast track yet. I write pop novels… Crime thriller horror novels… Romantic comedy action adventure novellas… and I have plans for another Urban fantasy adventure thriller series that spins off the Strachan Series (bring on Callie Strachan as an adult with a child!).
Writing is not for the faint of heart. As my work on Summoned Dreams has proven. About half of it got thrown out the window with a single exchange: You are going to send them to city taken over by violent crime and they are going to hunt down a single serial killer? Yep, sure am. Wow, that sucks. I can’t imagine Aislinn would willingly sit on her hands while they search for a single, elusive serial killer, when there are so many more violent criminals should could be squaring off against… What about gang members? What about other serial killers? What about serial rapists? I think that’s a lot for a single novel. It is, but you could do it and it makes more sense for Aislinn’s character as well as the rest of the members of the SCTU. Plus, you could bring in Malachi and your new character, let the readers get to know a little more. I could, but that’s a lot for a single novel, especially since Aislinn has to deal with some serious emotional issues. All the more reason for her to try to find distraction in the hunt. Okay, in reality, I’m lazy and don’t want to re-write an entire half a novel. The consequences of that laziness will kill the series, just saying.
So, yep, I woke up this morning with another 20,000 words to re-write and thought: I want to quit.
I won’t. I’ll get it done (maybe a day or two later than planned). It will be an adrenaline ride from start to finish because she isn’t going to track down a single serial killer. She won’t even accidentally stumble upon a second. She’ll be taking on an entire city of violent criminals.
Sorry, Detroit… I took everything negative from every movie ever placed in the city and made it worse, then tossed in a little Escape from New York meets Dredd – specifically the Peach Trees concept. Even Robocop would fail in my version of Detroit.
And don’t worry, the original serial killer hasn’t been forgotten and doesn’t get captured in chapter five… He plays a serious role.
Hadena James 
We love you no matter what you write i she wipes out all the bloods and crips so be it.. better yet why dont they just round up leaders and say fllat out we are on a hunt, you can eith go into habernation or become collateral damage cause you aren’t that far off from what we are hunting.. so if you quak like a duck waddle and say aflac we’ll go duck hunting..
just don’t burn out over something that is fixable even it it has to be continued in a second book, as long as they come out quuickly one after the other then folks can live with s plit book.. it’s when the cliff hanger is a year away from solving we loose patience.. You know this..
As for making the big time.. Honey you are a PUBLISHED WRITER.. that is more then 99% of us can ever say, don’t sell your self short.. If you get a check that covers your expenses then you are ahead of a lot of us.. Just saying..
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that sole little i in the first line is an i missing it f buddy.. keep it clean ..
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you can tell I didn’t spell check.. sorry
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I pay someone to edit my books and they still have errors… It happens. And no, it’s a single book, just lots of re-writes and re-writing makes me tired.
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