Question Sunday
Nov
25
2012

Ask em if you’ve got em!

Irina asks: How do you feel when other authors refer to characters from your books in theirs? I’ve only seen it happen once and it was a nice hat tip so it was flattering. I suppose it’s going to depend on who does it and how.

Kathleen asks: Do you plan ahead how many books there are going to be in a series? Or do they form thier own life and you go with the flow? Example the Cascadia wolves and then the De la Vega cats, how many books are planned for this series?

Sometimes I know up front that there’ll be 3 or 4 books – that’s usually my series number, especially for a contemporary series because you don’t want to carry things on so long people are like, “oh my god, she should have ended this series 3 books ago.” Other times it just comes to me and I go one book at a time like with my Petal books because they’re about a place rather than a family or group of people. Same with my Federation Chronicles because that world is so big the possibilities are really limitless.

There are a few types of series I do – one that has a meta story arc that takes place over a specific number of books with individual HEAs within each book. (the werewolf mafia storyline in the Cascadia books for instance) One that’s set in a world and individual stand alone stories happen in it that may or may not be connected. Then there are series about a set number of people (Chase books, Brown siblings, etc). The first and last are ones I usually know how many I’ll write up front. But the middle type is limitless.

As for Cascadia and de La Vega – I had 4 novels planned for the original Pellini storyline and that’s done. But for instance, I wanted to write a story for Josh, the Enforcer of Pacific, so I’m doing one for him next summer. That wasn’t planned, I just thought of an idea I wanted to write. With the de La Vegas – they’re part of a larger world I’m writing in the Bound By Magick books – the world is changing radically and so I won’t go back to those until I finish with the BBM books (writing that last one now) because of timeline challenges. I never want to push out ideas that aren’t’ natural and don’t fit just because I’m supposed to or whatever.

Angela asks: I wanted to know who or what inspires you? Everything really. Movies, lines from songs, a picture in a magazine, books, things I see in my daily life, dreams, television – there’s so much inspiration all around me every single day!

Donna asks: Just want to say I have enjoyed the “Brown Siblings” series..Please tell there will be more.. As a matter of fact, DRAWN TOGETHER, Raven’s book, will be out in October of next year and it’s the last Brown Siblings book 🙂 But you’ll see more Browns/Copelands/Keenans in LUSH (out in April) as well.

4 comments to “Question Sunday”

  1. IrenaJ
    November 25th, 2012 at 6:24 am · Link

    How do you feel when other authors refer to characters from your books in theirs?



  2. Kathleen
    November 25th, 2012 at 8:36 am · Link

    Do you plan ahead how many books there are going to be in a series? Or do they form thier own life and you go with the flow? Example the Cascadia wolves and then the De la Vega cats, how many books are planned for this series? 🙂



  3. Angela
    November 25th, 2012 at 1:01 pm · Link

    Just to say I love your books! I re-read them all the time – especially when you post a snippet. I wanted to know who or what inspires you?



  4. Donna
    November 25th, 2012 at 3:31 pm · Link

    Just want to say I have enjoyed the “Brown Siblings” series..Please tell there will be more.. I read faster than you can write tehm… You Rock !!!!