A New Adventure

You may or may not have born witness to my Twitter angsting over the last week. A big project was unveiled recently, of which I’m involved, and I’ve been battling with words to complete my part.

First, the project. What was it? Best answer: here.

My answer: Shortly after the New Year (can you believe I kept a lid on it for THAT LONG?), I received an email inviting me to participate in a short story anthology podcast that would lead up to the release of Tee Morris and Philippa Ballantine’s Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences: Phoenix Rising. Honestly, I was rather speechless when I first saw the invite. Then, I became excited. That excitement then turned to dismay as I had yet to finish Antigone’s Wrath and had planned on devoting all my time to that. After a sound self-kicking, I realized I’d be an absolute idiot to pass up a chance like this. So, I accepted. And then, the terror began.

I’ve never been much for fan fiction. The authors of those never seem to get the characters quite right (please don’t send me examples refuting this, I really prefer not to read them), and they tend to botch the whole original story for me. Yet here I was, pecking away at my keyboard, attempting the exact same thing. Was I insane? At several points in the last week or so it was all I could do to keep plugging away. I fell into a giant black hole of research. I took virtual tours of locations. I called on my own memories. I was constantly haunted by ghosts whispering doubts about my characterization, my phrasing, even the plot itself. I spent my waking moments thinking through scenes. It plagued me constantly. I’m fairly sure my family is ready to choke me just to shut me up about it!

I finished it, however. I felt on the verge of completion last night and so stayed up until the thing that was hanging over my head was no more. After reading through it a few times and making some corrections, I closed my eyes and hit SEND. The object of my obsession was on its way to Tee and Pip.

Now imagine my surprise when I received congratulatory emails and tweets this morning from both the MoPO authors. After all that wrangling, also imagine that my story was the first they’d received!

I’m so very very glad that my submission was deemed acceptable, even more so that Tee called it a “bar-setter”. Of course, it being the first in the line of many others, take that as you will. Me, I’ll just take it! LOL

I’ll now be focusing on Antigone’s Wrath again; at least until the edits for this short story come back. Then begins recording phase. I’m brushing up on my French for the occasion. Look for the story to drop in March, right around my birthday, coincedentally.

I read the entirety of Phoenix Rising in a few days. You guys are going to LOVE it.

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