Heather Masterson

Eight million years later…

Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but hey – I think that’s in the job description. Though I tend to think of fiction as less about exaggeration and more about… well, skimming over the uninteresting bits. As much as possible, anyway. I mean, Ryan probably had to pee dozens of times in the first book, but who wants to hear about it?

Book 2: We’re down to the really annoying bits… though given a choice between editing and formatting, I’m not certain which I like least. Making sure that the book is formatted properly and that the (few) images are up to snuff is ridiculously tedious. Luckily, I got a jump on this a while back when we printed a sample to send to a certain proofreader. There have been a lot of changes since then, but it’s mostly a matter of just ironing out a few wrinkly bits.

Incidentally, book 2’s official title is… *drumroll*… The Sucker Effect.

As far as book 3 is concerned… so, there’s this thing I do where I dream up a character and then don’t actually use him/her/it/them. For these books, that’s actually a good thing. There are a lot of hoopy – and not-so-hoopy – froods waiting in the wings, some of whom may never see the light of day. Even if they never manage to leap onto the page, they still need to be out there somewhere, doing their thing.

A while ago, I slapped six characters down on the table and then, for two whole books, did nothing with them. I like them. They’re weird, quirky, and a bit frightening. They fit right into the universe. When would they fit into the books? Would they ever?

I was starting to think that the answer was, “Nope, sorry – they may be floating around out there for the sheer lore of it, but they’ll never actually get involved in the story.” Except I was wrong. As usual. They sauntered over and started shouting rude and startling things into my ear. We had a rather heated discussion about it, and in the end, I had to go back and add new chapters for them.

That’s right – I’m being bullied by my own fictional creations.

When it comes down to it, though, that’s… basically a good description of my entire writing process.