Jun 10
Blog time, folks, and it’s my first post, so I feel like it must be something momentous…but I can’t think of anything momentous to write. It is June, the sun is shining, and I’m wondering if I can sneak away from my conference call to play the Broadway soundtrack of “Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812” quite loudly.
I have a book coming out in a month, as long as nothing crazy happens. I am very excited about “Broken Records,” whether it sells one copy or a thousand. Lucy and Jack have had a piece of my heart and soul for the past year and a half. I don’t plan on writing any more books featuring them as the main characters, but rest assured, they will appear in future Sparrow Hill Stories, working their way through their own shenanigans.
Lucy is very dear to me because as I wrote her story, I researched my own behavior and realized that I was probably autistic. A doctor agreed with me, and though it hasn’t been fully verified with a proper diagnosis, it has changed how I view myself and how I view my own behavior and thoughts. One thing that I had noticed with myself and found in my research is that people with autism are often prone to gaslighting, not always recognizing the social cues or emotional abuse. Not all people - it is a spectrum after all - but myself, definitely. I wanted to touch on this with Lucy’s story more so than the fact that she is an autistic woman. I wanted to make it clear that her autism was just part of who she was; not her actual story. I hope that I have succeeded.
While Lucy was very much a “write what you know” situation, though, there is a special place in my heart for Jack. He’s really the reason the book came out the way it did. Originally, the book was written very much in line with your typical romance novel, but had very little “me” in it. Then I wrote the “love shrapnel” line - if you’ve read it, you’ll know - and I realized that I hadn’t been writing the book as myself until that point. I went back, redid everything, and ended up with the oddball that is “Broken Records.”
I have written plenty of things for myself, but I’ve never written a series before, and it will likely show in the results. One thing I didn’t expect was missing characters afterwards, but it took me a bit to move on from Lucy and Jack to Nico, Lucy’s oldest brother. It’s a bit like bonding with a new puppy - sometimes it’s love at first sight, sometimes it takes a bit to get past the nerves of owner responsibility. This is how I was feeling about Nico’s story, and the outline went through some crazy changes before I had an epiphany in the car, where most of my epiphanies take place. The entire plot was gutted, and now I am very excited to work on his book. I’ll keep you posted as I continue on it.
That’s all for today. XOXOXO