July's project (Pyromage)

In late 2014 I was "hired" to ghostwrite a gay romance of 10k words. The premise was "gay assassin". NOT MY PREFERED WIP NAME, but whatev's. I did my world building, made my characters. Did my sheets. Filled out my story outline and... (here comes the punch line of this entire thing)...

I went back to the platform I use (at the time it was called oDesk and now called Upwork) to connect with the client, only to find said client was suspended for violating the terms and conditions of the work platform.

Fantastic.

Not only that, but this was during the early days when I was naive and trusting. So when I make parenthesis around "hired", it means there was no money or contract made between me and the client. Basically, I wrote this story on the word of mouth of an "okay".

After this experience, I didn't start a project until it was funded. Go figure. 

I'd written the 10K words as the client expected. I had crit partners look at it. As you see in the picture above, you can tell what they thought of it. But now I had a story that had no client, no contract, no nothing. I was not under any obligation since I hadn't signed anything in the way of a NDA or all rights reserved contract as ghostwriters sign. It was my own creation. Since there was no contract or money exchange, it was a writing prompt I took and ran with. <-- *side note: Does anyone want to see that sentence without the preposition? I do...here...Since there was no contract or money exchange it was a writing prompt for which I took and ran. There. Better? Don' know. Maybe. Would I say it like that? Nope. I'd be very Kentucket and use the preposition. Anyway...

This particular story wouldn't let go. I persevered...by putting the thing in the drawer for a year and a half.

But, I never put it fully away. I loved the story, the characters and maybe I fell in love with writing it. Much in the same way I fell in love with writing Seducing Sensei. I managed to write a story line that made more sense. Kris was right (See notes in the picture above). This was not a 10K word story. This was a series. Marilyn's challenge (again--see notes in the picture above) helped me make things cohesive and Patricia (do I really need to direct you to the picture above?) had me thinking about how to create a story that made sense.

One of the things I agonized over was the name. Gay Assassin doesn't do it for me. Besides, it sounds contemporary and this is fantasy. I mean, look at the things to know about the main character, it screams fantasy...

I thought of many titles. Fyre Mage, Fire Mage, Pyro-mage, and a whole slew of titles came to me. I even did a poll trying to understand which direction I should go. You can see the results  of one of them here: https://www.pickfu.com/8MLY0S

It's funny how most people preferred the traditional spelling of fire in the poll (In the poll 34 people voted for "Fire Mage" and 16 people voted for "Fyre Mage"). But my reader is not most people. The true fantasians "got it".  For now, I'm calling it Pyromage. I plan on making it a four or five book series. The series title...I'm up for suggestions. I've got Chronicles of the Fire Damned, The Dragon Wars, and Elemental Dragons.

So at the end of July, I might have this done. Then I can put it away for soaking and bring out Seducing Sensei again. All part of the process of writing. But I'm excited to show you what I've got going on.

Until next time!

XOXO ~ Stephy

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