I Love My Universe

This one’s a little bittersweet for me. Originally, back in 2011-2014, RWDEM grew to a 5-book series. Book 5 was intended to be the final book, had a distant-future epilogue, and so on. And that book, published in spring 2014, was, along with all of my other books with that publisher, pulled off the market in 2016. (My decision, primarily; my sales were tanking, my burnout was burning, and I just didn’t want to deal with any of it anymore.)

In 2021, out of boredom, I started rereading those books, which I hadn’t really looked at since they were published. And I decided they were GOOD, and that my vegan werewolf Kyle Slidell and his sexually submissive Alpha mate Tobias Rogan deserved another chance in the world. So I started rewriting and updating those books. In 2022, I rereleased Salad on the Side, the first book of the series.

Through the rewriting/updating process, I discovered–or, rather, was informed by Kyle and Tobias, because for a writer sometimes characters take on a life of their own–that the story didn’t actually end with book 5. I wrote a book 6. And then 7 and 8, both of which are available. And then 9, which is coming out in January.

And now book 10, which I think *is* actually the final book of the series. There might still be more adventures for Kyle and Tobias to have, but in this book, they get legally married, which seems like a good stopping point. (Also, 10 books is a lot, and since every single book has either Kyle or Tobias as the narrator, and the entire series is about their relationship and their navigation of the werewolf world, I think readers might be starting to have enough of them.)

I challenged myself with this book. I’m behind on my self-imposed writing schedule and deadlines after struggling with, and twice rewriting, book 4 of my Ebb & Flow series (which currently will be the last of that series, because I’ve reached the end of what I can do with the characters for the moment), so for RWDEM 10, I decided to see how fast I can actually write a first draft without sacrificing first-draft-level quality…or my mental bandwidth.

I came down with something Wednesday, so for the past few days, I’ve been battling through foggy brain, congestion, headache, and general blah-ness. And despite being sick, Thursday and Friday I also had to work at my day job.

I started writing this book on Monday…and even though I’ve been sick and had to work a couple of days, as of this morning, I am on page 65 of the book. 35,545 words written. (Some of which will be deleted on edits because it’s a little too infodump-backstoryish, but still.)

And this book brings in characters who will springboard into a new series I’ll be launching next fall. A series that doesn’t have a name yet, because I suck at titles. Each book of that will have a different main-character couple, all linked by the common thread of at least one member of each couple belonging to an online support group that Tobias establishes (in RWDEM 10) for LGBTQ+ werewolves.

I love my universe…