Boo! Happy Halloween, everyone!

I do love this time of year. The cool crisp air, the autumn leaves, the foggy mornings… Oh wait… I live in Florida now. I don’t get any of that. Ha… It’s 83F and I’m running around in… well I do have flip-flops on.

Imagine this… wake up, pour some coffee, sit down and you’re at work. Doors and windows open. The quiet morning hours shrouded in darkness with just the promise of dawn around the corner, most of the world still asleep. So quiet and peaceful. Perfect writing time.

Not so fast. Perfect if the muse is with you and things are flowing nicely. Yeah… that wasn’t happening with this last book, My Hero: The Olympian. It was like pulling teeth from a mule from his rear end. I would sit and look at the screen waiting. Waiting for someone to start talking to me. Anyone. I wonder? Do other authors go through this?

It was hard. Painful even. Now that it is done, and I look back, I now know that I had been putting a lot of pressure on myself. Because My Hero was so popular, I was afraid that I was going to disappoint those who had liked the first book so much.

Relationships are just as complicated in the fiction world as in the real world, if not more so. When you have a book that deals with an existing couple, where do you go from there? Think about it… there is none of the angst of the new person, the dating, the excitement, the sex, the newness. Okay, now what? What else is there?

How many books have you read recently where the two main characters were an established couple? What do they do? What is it that makes a reader want to continue reading? Where is the romance?

I actually started this sequel over a year ago. There were a lot of starts, stops, breaks and nervous breakdowns. There are a few people who were kind enough to hold my hand while I went through this process. How and why they put up with my whinging is beyond me.

Then I started to think about all the other authors who write series. I have no idea how they do it. I’d be a nervous wreck. How do they live up to the expectations? I was so afraid of disappointing someone that I was practically paralyzed. Admittedly, I fell off the wagon and drank who knows how many gallons of milk!

Alright, now I do try and write for myself first. I need to be happy with what I’m producing. If I don’t like it, then I’m not going to put it out there. This was the first time that I think I had the reader in mind the entire time I was writing Olympian. I’m thinking that wasn’t such a good thing. Why? Because it had me doubting myself.

Did I mention that this was the longest book I’ve ever written? Damn thing is huge, or it is for me. But I was true to the story. It needed to be that long. I think that is also part of the reason it took me so long to write. There is a lot going on, a lot of things that these guys needed to experience. The growth and change they had to get through.

But it is done. Yay! I was never so glad to type out The End in my life. As if that was really the end. I sat on pins and needles with each beta read. I had this feeling that it was crap. That I’d wasted a lot of time and effort on something that would never see the light of day. After the fourth beta read, I finally felt better about it.

Beta readers are worth their weight in gold. I try to pick those who know me, but aren’t exactly best friends. I want objective points of view and constructive criticism. Rarely do I ask the same beta readers to read over something. Now I do have a few that I will rely on, especially when it comes to grammar and punctuation. Those are the ones that I do rely on with each and every story. The last thing I want is for a beta reader to tell me it is just wonderful, when it really isn’t. If it’s crap, I want to know it.

Now… My Hero: The Olympian is off to the editor. I have a feeling I’ll be cringing a lot when I get those first rounds of edits back. But if I didn’t, I’d be looking for another editor. If an editor doesn’t make you cry, then they probably aren’t that good. So if you hear uncontrollable sobbing, it’s probably me. Never fear, it is a good thing and part of the process.

So keep an eye open. My Hero: The Olympian will be released very soon.

Max