Yellowstone Origins, the Writing Process

So, I had a dream a while ago about Yellowstone Origins. I don't normally have dreams that I remember, or dreams about books, and this one had nothing to do with the actual story, but more the process of writing this particular book.

In my dream, I was playing chess, having to look several moves ahead and concentrate, because if I made one wrong move, the entire game was lost, and I couldn't go back. At the same time, I was juggling two snakeheads in one hand, and had to be careful not to drop one of them.

Yep, that's about right as far as the writing process went with this story. I don't think I've ever tackled something this involved, where I really had to pay attention to each move, each scene, because this story involves all the background I have on the Yellowstone Romance Series in my author notes, and I needed to remember everything that came before, and what will come after, Origins . . .

So, I apologize that this book has taken so long to write, but I needed to get it right. On the surface, it reads very fast and smooth and typical of my other stories, but there's a lot of stuff I'm trying to cover without it getting overwhelming.

The series was supposed to end with Deception. I thought I had everything covered, and it had come full circle, but there's so much there that hasn't been told yet, which I realized with one word in a review a while back. That word; "cliffhanger." Those of you who know my writing know that I don't write cliffhangers, so that's what made me decide that I just couldn't let it end yet, because there were still lots of unanswered questions.

 Origins and the two books that will come after it have been over a year in the serious planning stages, when I firmly decided that I was going to pull out all my notes and get the back story out there (after that one word in a review) - and I had to take all that background and incorporate romance into it, too - and I'm now on month six since I wrote the first actual word ("Prologue" :D ). That sort of reminds me of my progress with Heart Song.

Ok, I did write a couple of books in-between those six months, because I had to step away from Origins every now and then. Maybe I'm overthinking it (because I never overthink my books, she says sarcastically), but in the end, Origins and the two that will follow will be the stories I wanted to tell in the Yellowstone Romance Saga.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post . . . Cover reveal, release date, and something I’m really proud of – a book trailer for this book.