Threat of Darkness and Letting Go

So I had a book release yesterday - Threat of Darkness.

Mei is a Warrior for the Balance. She stands between good and evil. So when her boss tells her she's got to head to Tir na nOg to help the Fae she is most displeased. Mei's mother Aine, the queen of the Fae, betrayed and exiled her millennia ago. Or so she's been led to believe.

But Aine was misled by her own sister, and suddenly everything Mei has thought was true for thousands of years falls down around her ears as she looks up to see the face of her husband. Her first husband, a man she'd thought was dead.

Jayce MacTavish is surprised to find that his wife, thought millennia dead, is alive, but his joy is tempered by the realization that she's got another mate.

Mei, Card and Jayce must find a way to be together as three while a threat from the Dark Fae and a new enemy darkens the horizon.

TOD taught me a few things - most importantly, you have to let go and write the book that wants to be written.

I started with an idea of this female warrior who met Jayce by accident. She was half human and half Fae, bad Dark Fae, blah blah blah.

But it wasn't working. I'd get like 15K in and it wouldn't go. So I changed Mei a bit because Aine, the queen of the Fae wanted to be in the story more. I re-wrote from scratch but this guy, Mei's partner, kept not wanting to leave when he was supposed to. He was in love with Mei and wasn't having me just give her to Jayce.

At the same time, a minor character I had, the warden of the demon prison Mei was in for a thousand years, wouldn't go either. I had a full blown riot on my hands because my damned characters and story wouldn't behave.

So. I gave in. I wrote a menage so Card and Jayce could share the page, I realized Aine was Mei's mother not her aunt and the bad guy wasn't so much the Dark Fae but this other dude, Xethan. Once I gave in and wrote the story as it wanted to be written, the book was finished in just a few weeks.

Sometimes as a writer, I have an idea and the book follows that pretty closely - Stripped, Triad, etc.. Other times, I start off with one thing and end up with something else - Enforcer was this way too, Tri Mates, etc. I love that. I have to say I love it when I just let go and write.

It's a balance, finding the place where you need to whip your idea into submission and when you need to just let the idea take over and allow the book to meander. Each book I write enables me to recognize the difference a bit more. It's like magic sometimes.