That joke is pretty stale, considering that today is her 85th birthday. Not quite as old as the United States, but we're all pushing it now. Hope you are having a happy and sane Independence Day holiday. It's great to have a National Holiday that is just for celebrating and not in memoriam of something or someone. I would, of course, appreciate it if people would stop shooting off fireworks in the middle of a severe drought. Or within ten miles of our pets, veterans, wildlife, and tinder.
Today, I've released book two of Living Next Door to Heaven 1: The Agreement. It's now available on bookapy.
This is the book that really sets the stage for everything that comes after and enables the communal environment that they end up with and the multiple partners with whom most share their love. And it was all made possible with an agreement that was designed to protect their chastity and reputations while allowing them to have fun and date safely. Even I did not realize what possibilities would open up when they wrote The Agreement! This second book in the ten-volume series is 113,000 words long. They get longer from here!
I'm not saying I'm getting more long-winded. But it took me more words to write each one. In LNDtH1, there are five books. I'm getting the new edition out at the rate of a book a week. Not bad. They are:
1 Guardian Angel, 103,800 words (released June 27)
2 The Agreement, 113,000 words (released July 4)
3 Foolish Wisdom, 144,900 words (to be released July 11)
4 Deadly Chemistry, 157,200 words (to be released July 18)
5 The Rock, 171,700 words (to be released July 25)
I don't have the statistics on the four books of LNDtH2. Or the last single book on SOL as LNDtH3. I will say, however, since this has come up, that if you read the first or second book above and then switch to the SOL version of LNDtH2, you will miss a whole lot of story that is still in LNDtH1.
Since I started talking about triggers in the first paragraph of this post, (Did you not understand that firecrackers are triggers?), I should address some of the discomfort readers feel with the violence in some of my writing. Living Next Door to Heaven, in fact, has several scenes of intense emotional impact--whether you have known triggers or not. Very little--but some--is played out on-screen, but is talked about. Attacks by bullies, hit and run, accidental pregnancy, murder, revenge, domestic abuse, fire, tornado, campus shooting, vengeance, attempted murder, heart attack, Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Twin Towers, death of pets, anger, rage, heartache, love, lust, joy, peace, and good meals. One person was even 'triggered' because a black person went on a date with a white person. The LNDtH saga (1,2,3) is over 1.2 million words. I haven't even attempted to code it with all the possible things that might trigger a person.
Team Manager: SWISH! is an order of magnitude gentler than LNDtH, but there are still some gut-wrenching scenes. Rape is only talked about as part of a person's healing process. Yet it is deemed a severe trigger for some who have apparently experienced it. I'm sorry.
I suppose some have never experienced any of the above and simply see it as shocking and unnecessary. For me, it is a part of life and may be one of the reasons I live my life in relative isolation, purging myself of the demons that are still in the back of my mind. As Nikki said in Deadly Chemistry, "Why do I write? To keep the fucking creepy things away."
I still hold to the basic premise of nearly all my writing: "You can't really know what happily ever after is, if it's been happily ever before." If you don't believe in the obstacles my characters need to overcome, you really won't believe in their happiness when they come out victorious.
In no way is this meant to minimize your feelings, triggers, or objections to either action or scenarios in what I write. I simply want you to know that I face them as well and that is what makes my writing come alive. I don't write for a living; I write to live.