Redesign, Rebuild, Reclaim

*Thumbnail by Railod, on Reddit

A little over two years ago, I released the first book in the Bloody Marytown saga in paperback and sat down to begin the process of doing the same for the sequel, which had been released on Kindle, like the first book. Very quickly, I was forced to accept something that I had actually known all along…

I wasn’t proud of the second book. I didn’t like what I had done with certain characters. I felt like I had lost my creative ‘voice’ and some of the criticisms I had received about it cut very deeply - because they were right, in ways that I felt rather badly about. I had rushed from the release of ‘Sins of the Father’ on Kindle straight into writing the sequel, which I rushed out for sale. It was impulsive. A rookie mistake. I hadn’t taken the time that it needed to be worthy of the world it was set in. And then I cut a lot of content which, while not entirely essential to the plot, took away the descriptive voice the first book was praised for. I had not done the characters, or the world justice. I had personally gotten in the way of the story and rushed plots that needed much more time to find their truth and have the eventual impact that I had intended for them to have.

The battle began as I decided to try an fix what had gone wrong. And it was a battle hard fought, right up until the day the book went on sale, I was battling to get it ready. To make it as good as I knew that it could be.

Am I happy with it now? That’s a tough question. I don’t think I will ever be able to put my writing out there in the world and not find ways it could have been better. But I have made my peace with it.

As I had to do with the first book… I had to let them both go. And now, I have.

Am I proud of the second book….? Absolutely.

The process was long - it took two years, on and off, as I ran away and hid from it for such large periods of time that my husband was convinced that I was done. Maybe not with writing, but with this series. That I would never get the second book finished. That it had beaten me. And I have to admit, there were times that it came very close. I avoided it, was convinced that I couldn’t do it. The task was too enormous. Too difficult.

I couldn’t see the end of the tunnel that had grown up around me.

But I went back to it. Again and again… Because Martha wouldn’t let me forget about her. She needed her story to be told and for me to get out of my own way and trust in my writing ability. It was a voice, a need that niggled in the back of my mind, no matter how much I drowned it out by exploring my other creative hobbies that nurture that part of my brain.

Making the decision to start from scratch and call it a REWRITE as opposed to a paperback version of the first edition was the best creative decision that I have ever made. Without going into too many spoilers, the new version is three times the size, because I have given characters who were not Martha a lot more time on the page. Olivia’s plot now plays out in a much slower and in depth way, dealing with the aftermath of what she suffers in a way that was difficult to write at times but brutally honest. And how that it affects her personal relationships - a thing that I barely touched upon the first time around. I have to confess, it was her plot that affected me in a way that my writing hadn’t for a long time. Her scenes that made me cry as I wrote them - twice. Her story brought me to actual tears. I’ll let you read it to find out why…

Amanda now has a lot more to do in the book. As does Walsh, who was lingering in the background more than he ought to have been previously. I allowed myself the luxury of exploring their relationship more - It cannot always been action and drama. Underneath the horror and the monsters, this story is about people. About relationships and about family. Love. Reasons to fight. Amanda and Walsh probably can boast that they have the most ‘normal’ and stable romantic relationship in the series and I wanted to show their closeness, the fun that they have together. I think I finally did them justice.

The Mount was a hurdle so enormous, I feared I might never be able to ascend it. There were a few reasons for this. To avoid spoilers, I will simply say that I previously misread the reason why Martha needed to return there and what I needed to do in order to repair some of the damage that had been done in her world. This time, I wanted to explore that realm a little bit more. Who are the Watchers? What are they like? What about other people who call the Mount home… Again, I feel like this time, I did it justice and left the door open to explore the people in Martha’s otherworldly home further.

Also I feel like I handled how her own personal relationship evolves in a way that is no longer rushed and feels honest to Martha and her male companion. This was one of the places that I failed the first time around. I hope now that the choices some of the characters made make a lot more sense and are in character.

Upon the Mount, I also introduced a character that I will be exploring further, in their own set of stories, starting right after when ‘Art of War’ comes to a close. A character that is still relatively new to me, but one who stomped into this world and owned the spot that they have claimed in it… I look forward to sharing more of their life with you all. But for now, I will simply say that, right at the end, as I was writing the book, they made me equally excited and fearful to write a scene that I was almost certain would need to be cut from the story completely. Another surprise that showed me that this book is finally where it needed to be.

Because the world is once again alive in my imagination. It has an energy of its own and I do not always know where the story will take me. I love that moment, when I am writing and the characters pull the rug out from underneath me. It makes me excited to keep going, so I can work out what happens next, even as I am yelling at the laptop - ask my husband, he will confirm this - because my plans have been cast aside and I just want to get to the end of what I have been writing. Sometimes it won’t let me go. And I absolutely LOVE that!

This world is vibrant, more alive in my mind than ever and there are so many more stories left to tell.

It is now November, which is National Novel Writing Month. I will not be writing a book the size of ‘Art of War’ this month, though I will be making a start of that new character’s story - I cannot possibly even share what the title of it might end up being, but the working title, inspired by the main character is ‘Surviving Son.’

Which has an intriguing ring to it, no?