A "Series"-ly Complicated Dilemma

The year was 2019. It opened with big plans, big ideas, and big promises. The biggest promise? A fully completed MM romance out by year’s end. The promise died on a whimper. Not due to lack of time or lack of ideas, nor because of an excess. What was the dilemma?

A series.

I wanted to write a series.

It doesn’t sound like a dilemma, does it? Nothing too difficult, nothing that should cut a book off at the knees, (or should I say, more accurately, the bindings?).

So I wrote the first book. Tentatively titled En Pointe, I toiled for eighty thousand words to bring Shiloh to life. Shiloh, my lovely ballet dancer with bruised toes and a bruised heart. Shiloh, whose trust fund couldn’t buy his way out of depression and desperation. Shiloh, my pink-haired brat, with eyes that linger too long on his bodyguard.

Of course, it couldn’t be that simple.

Because Shiloh’s best friend—only friend—is a bartender named Teddy. And of course, when I laid down the pen on Shiloh’s story to let it breathe, I realized that Teddy had a story of his own.

Unfortunately, I realized nearly immediately after, Teddy’s story needed to be told first.

The more of Teddy’s story I wrote, the more I learned. About the world and about the characters. About Teddy, who was born Theodora, and who learned the hard way that there is more to a family than just acceptance. And seeing Shiloh in high school—years before his story was meant to start—forced me to look at Shiloh through new eyes.

The Shiloh I wrote is a shell of the real character. I knew him only as well as his father knew him—which is to say, practically not at all.

So I will not have a finished book by the new year. I will, however, have two nearly finished drafts of better books.

Hopefully you find them better as well.