It’s always hard to pick up a project after I set it aside for whatever reason. It’s doubly hard when I was in the middle of a sex scene…
Now add four years and try to pick up that project and make sense of it again.
I never intended to be gone from Helayna’s story for so long. The longer she lay idle, the harder it was to decide to pick up her story again. Their Vampire Queen’s world is so large and complex, I knew it was going to be tough to get all of the characters, magic, and story lines back into my head.
Finishing Karmen’s last story was easier–because there were crossovers into Shara’s story. So I could work on them both at the same time. Draw inspiration from one to help with the other.
Helayna’s story doesn’t have the same crossovers, at least where I left her. But I know I need her story figured out before I can get much further in Shara’s. I think I can finish Queen’s Purge without Helayna’s or Karmen’s stories laid out, but I can’t get much further after that.
Not without these queens ready to go.
I honestly hadn’t realized it’d been four years since I started Queen Takes Darkness2 until I couldn’t remember something and went looking for my notes. I have a current House Isador journal/bible with all the characters listed from all the houses. That’s what I’ve been using the last couple of years as I worked on Crusade and now Purge. But none of what I needed was in that notebook. So I went to my shelf, thumbing through journal after journal. All the way back to the thin traveler’s style notebooks with the flimsy paper. (I don’t use them any longer–I hate it when the ink ghosts or bleeds through to the other side.) My horror and shame grew as I kept going back further and further.
To September 2021.
Geez. No wonder I can’t remember what I intended to do next for Helayna!
Granted, I was going through Hel myself back then. My divorce wasn’t final. He was still dragging me to court. I was having to pay for everything, both our kids (including college) and his bills, while unable to publish much for fear it’d add another copyright into the mess. Giving him another weapon to come after me.
But Helayna deserved better.
Even the 13,000+ words I had was pretty rough, to be honest. You wouldn’t think four years would make that much of a difference in my writing style, but it definitely did, at least in her case. I’ve edited those words pretty hard, and now I’m trying to get through that sex scene from Hel.
You know I’ve written an 8k sex scene before. For a vampire queen working her way through her Blood, it can get a little… messy. Laughs.
A week later, and I’m still struggling. Last night, I finally set the scene aside and pulled out her prequel and book one (now in print!) to re-read everything. Just to get it all back in my head. What her intimacy journey had been like with her Blood so far. What their hang ups and insecurities were. What they all needed. What they were scared of.
Now well armed, I’m back in the trenches. Though I’m certainly giving “come hell or high water…” a new meaning.