So, I've been working on Avery and Wilder's story for a few weeks. I had a (what I thought was) good outline and what was leftover from book one that I didn't use.
Let me back up a bit here. What I mean by "leftover from book one that I didn't use" is...
The first Omega Quadrant book was supposed to be Avery and Wilder's story. Gray's storyline was a secondary one, but after months of playing with it, shelving it for a while, and torturing it a little while, I realized who the REAL stars of that book were. So I pulled out all of the parts that were Gray, Jamie, and/or Rohan's, pieced it back together, and then figured out a way to move forward.
That left me with about fifteen scenes of Avery's that I couldn't use. So, when I returned to work on his story, I pulled those fifteen scenes out and took a look at them to see what I could still use and what might need to exit, stage left.
No authors want's to pitch words they've written. Ever. But sometimes it needs to happen. So I wrote an outline that used as much of what I had as possible and went to work. I pieced those scenes together and added some new scenes...
But it just didn't feel right.
So I took it apart again, did a little verbal surgery, and tried again. But it still didn't feel right.
I took a couple of days off, let my brain veg, and then came back to it.
Attempt #3 looked promising. I got about 40% of the book complete, but upon review a couple of days ago—it just didn't feel worthy of Avery and Wilder.
I don't feel the heat. I don't feel the connection between them. It just isn't right.
Let me tell you that I am well aware that His Surrogate Omega is the best thing I've ever written. I'm proud as hell of that story. It was my baby and I languished over it for nearly a year. I loved those characters and the journey they went on... so there's no way in hell I'm going to put out a sub-standard book to follow it up.
I know there are a lot of folks who want to read Avery and Wilder's story. Trust me, I'm one of them. I want the words I write to excite me and make me cry like the ones I wrote for Jamie, Rohan, and Gray.
Pushing it, forcing it... the end product won't be pretty. I've done that before, written a book because readers were vocal about wanting it and then we were all disappointed with the results. My muse needs to be ready to write that book, so I'm giving my muse a little more time to come up with the right path, even if it means utterly abandoning the pieces I've already written and coming up with something completely new. (Side note: I have this amazing scene I wrote with Avery that was supposed to be the first scene in book one. It got pushed to the prologue of book two... and I cannot lose this scene, but if it has to go, it has to go.)
So, I'm shelving their story a little while longer and letting my head and my heart figure that all out... and I'm moving on to write Tanner's story in the sister series, Alphas of the Western Provinces. Tanner's been SCREAMING since the end of One Wild Heat, so he's pleased. Maybe once I write One Wild Omega, I can get back to Wilder and Avery.
x
Kel
