It's important that I state, first and foremost, that I am in an exceptionally good mood right now. I feel more creative, and, in a word, "pumped" than I've felt in awhile, so take that into account foremost to set the 'mood' of this blog post.

I know after I finished Book Two of Becoming Robin I sort of went into a conservation phase for awhile. It took me forever to get the final chapter posted due to a combination of RL stuff and the Holiday blues, which put an even further damper on my finishing rewriting Shadowcraft.

The original concept behind the Shadowcraft rewrite was that I'd be able to put out different stories within the established universe as part of Margie's expanding beyond 'just' doing Aria Blade within the context of Robin. That didn't work out like I'd intended, but at the very least I'm finally getting back to working on the Aria Blade saga. I want to get that finished so I can move on to working on a Book Three.

Now, right now I have several different story strands I'm toying with. One of the things that sort of bothered me about Book Two was that, unlike Book One, it felt like it had less focus. It was less like a true sequel novel than a serialized soap opera (Degrassi Light, as I like to jokingly call it :-))

I could do B3 the same as B2, in the serialized style covering the new school year, but I think I'm going to try and get away from that and back to a more novelized style ala B1. That means it might be shorter than B2, but if I go this route, there's going to be more ups and downs coming at the girls this time around.

Something that really amuses me greatly about my writing is how much of my personal dreams crept into the story without my really realizing it. It happened so gradually that once it was written, it felt as though it 'belonged' there all along.

One example is Heedless Despair. Originally, they were supposed to just be a cameo group, a plot device for Nicole to have the sweet sixteen she would never forget. I wanted to show just how much Allison cared, that she'd go to such great lengths to book the band.

I started to flesh out the band as characters and realized that Moira would be a fantastic 'big sister' role for Nicole, and I started playing with ways to kind of bring her back.

With both Nicole and Allison already dabbling in music, it was inevitable that they'd pull Robin in eventually, just like Jennifer getting her interested in gymnastics and cheer.

Robin loves to try new things, and she's the sort of person who just sort of stumbles into situations she has no desire to be in, good or bad. In other words, she's a fun character to write specifically because even I have no idea, until after I've scripted a situation, how she'll actually handle it.

I'm thinking about playing up the music angle in B3 more, and I have a few ways to go about doing that without making it the main focus of the story. One of the big things I'd like to actually avoid is making it all about music, partly because that just isn't the story I want to tell. :-)

But music is important to me. When I'm not actively playing music, I'm either listening to anything from country to latin pop to classical, or I'm singing. I enjoy music the way others enjoy breathing, and at first, it kind of bothered me how that had crept into Robin's life, but like I said before, in a way it 'felt' like it belonged, like that's who Robin is.

She has a compassionate soul that I think is almost crucial to being a great musician, or a great writer. I'm neither of those two, but my guitar teacher, years ago, once told me that the greatest musician in the world is the one who enjoys it the most, so... Right, anyway, back on-tangeant! ^_^

Err, what was that tangeant again? Oh, yes, writing.

So um, yeah. Expect a different style when I start publishing B3. It's going to probably be awhile because I want to get closer to 'finished' this time than I was when I started publishing B2, but I have a general idea of what I want to do with the timeline overall. I just need to work out the fine details of what happens between January and June.

I might include the return to Girl Scout camp as part of B3. I haven't gotten that far ahead yet. Honestly I'm still even trying to decide if I want to cover every single sector of their lives in a serial style, or if I want to skip ahead any (as I've mentioned before, I have plans for them through college ;-))

Anyway! I just wanted to sort of post an update while the creative juices are surging a mile a minute, partly to organize my own thoughts, partly to say "I'm still here" :-D

The overwhelming support I've received for my writing has been ... well ... overwhelming :-P It continues to amaze me how my simple little story has touched so many people. I realize I'm writing for TopShelf's "sweet spot", but that's fine. I've put people outside their comfort zone pretty handily too, and if I really wanted, I could scare you guys off from ever reading anything I write again with my twisted sense of macabre horror ;-)

I wouldn't do that though. Or if I did, it would be covered in warnings :-P

Anyway, that's all I have for now. I'm reviewing what I have of Shadowcraft right now, so hopefully I'll have something of that ready "when it's ready" :-)

Love,
~Zoe