Where It All Comes From

I knew from the first story, Broken, where this series was going. I knew exactly what the end scene was going to be right after I wrote the initial hiring scene with Jessica and April; it would be in the same place, only the roles would be reversed. Instead of Jessica hiring April, it would be with her pleading for April to carry on the work.

April was always meant to be a substitute Jessica. When I conceived the series, I was going to use Jessica as my heroine, but that kinda got blown out when in the first story, she got her ass handed to her by an amateur. So, step forward April Carlisle, heroine of the moment.

The whole thing got a bit out of hand ending up at 88k words, which is a full-fledged novel, and I feel quite bad for my editor, to have to pour through that. But, I know this had to be published on Lit, because that's where all this started.

Metamorph

Metamorph came about mainly because I knew a couple very similar to June and Dan (with different names, obviously). They aren't the exact same, -- Dan isn't a writer and while June is in the movie industry, she's not in production. But, they are about as mismatched as Dan and June. June is an unbelievable hottie and Dan is...not. He's a terrific guy but he's not even on the same planet as June, and it's something all their friends can't quite get over.

This story came about when I started wondering what Dan would do if June cheated, and who would she cheat with, if she did? The twist, where the guy who did the cheating had his own twisted honor system, where Dan got to work out and become the body of the guy who cheated... honestly, I've no idea where that came from. It just...happened.

June's friend exists. She's an old friend of my wife, who is cutting and rude about pretty much everyone. I have no idea why she's still my wife's friend, -- I've heard her be rude about me too, and the wife just laughs it off and says that her friend is just acting out.

I have worked in the movie industry, so most of what's in this story, about how movie lots work and so on, is drawn from practical experience.

The southern belle teacher, -- she's an interesting character to me. I never got a handle on her. She was primarily there to balance the scales for Dan, and also for him to believe in himself, hence the "I graduate" part. But she got more interesting to me as I wrote her. She has a background, a back-story. I always intended to write her back story, and it ended up coming out as one of the short stories in the Ebooks I released.

The interesting thing about the real Dan and June is that they are absolutely devoted to each other, and neither even looked at someone else, which made their situation even more comment on by all their friends.

I still want to write Dan's script and get Lifetime to make three versions of the same show, something I don't think has ever been done, even now. However, I don't have a power agent working out on the next stool to me at the gym, who feels guilty because he's been rude to me :( Every person in LA who is NOT an actor wannabe is a writer wannabe, so getting that chance is nigh on impossible.

The Ryan Series

Live from the Game

Well. Live from the Game. This one sure generated a lot of buzz.

I'll let you into a secret, -- Ryan is probably one of my favorite characters to write, simply because he's so easy. It's absolutely effortless to write him, mainly because even when he's being beaten down, he still retains his humor. I make it a point to have stupid friends doing this to him just because it makes the whole story less grim. Sometimes I have to make a point to stop writing the funny shit with him, because I do have a story to tell and I have to get on with it.

Lots of the family stuff that happens is based on my family. His eldest daughter is most assuredly based on mine, and the other two are both based on her little brother.

The friend who gets ultra-involved in some sport or pass time and buys stuff instantly? That's based on a friend in LA, who is also very wealthy. He got into music and instruments and the next time I visit his house, not only is every room now served by a sonos, but he's got an entire stage built in his great room, complete with synthesizers, a wall full of guitars, some drums and even a violin and saxophone. He can't play ANY of these instruments to any degree of real ability, but he has them all.

Solomon is based on pretty much every solitary software engineer I've ever met. Most have some social disability, -- god knows; I'm one of them.

Deanna, -- she's not based on anyone in particular, although Crystal is. Crystal was actually the wife of one of the software engineers I mentioned. EVERYONE knew she was running around on this guy, who was stuck at work with us, working late every night to get a game completed on schedule, except him. None of us had the heart to tell him, although we kept trying to set up situations where he'd discover it for himself.

Eventually, of course, he did, and it came out at the Christmas party, in somewhat spectacular fashion, but that's a story for another time.

The story I wrote was a basic one, your basic BTB pivoting around how he found out in the first place, -- the hardest part was trying not to give away what they were plotting to do at the end. I think there were some emotional touches in there that I wasn't expecting, -- the whole part of Ryan crying his eyes out in a closet while watching what the laptop had recorded, and the small touches of the things he found in the douchebags apartment that Deanna has placed there, giving some history of those things, made the whole relationship between him and Deanna that much more believable. Life is made up of those small kinds of stories, I think.

Deanna never really gave the reason for why she did what she did because, honestly, I couldn't figure out what it was. She was required by the plot to do what she did, so she did, but I couldn't pin down exactly why. I figure there must be a reason in my subconscious, but if there is, it hasn't been revealed yet.

I think this is why on the initial release of the story I missed doing anything from her perspective. I added the last chapter, -- which was written in one sitting by the way, -- simply because in the way the original story was told, she was almost a non-entity. She never said anything and never had any justification. That's the problem with first person writing, -- you can only talk about that which the protagonist sees or is told about. So Deanna, as a three dimensional human being, just didn't exist. I felt this keenly once the story was out, which is what the new chapter was about. It didn't really tell us anything new plot wise, but it fleshed her out a bit and gave me an out for a sequel, if I decided to go with it. It used the awesome story from Ohio, where he wrote the sequel to Just Plain Bob's Ari, as the basis for the conversation with a shrink.

The conversation with Crystal, where a tired Ryan refutes all the standard Cheaters Justification Jargon, I'm quite proud of. I actually wrote it twice. Once with the basics in it, and then, on the second pass, it doubled in size where I tried to put in every cheaters trope I could think of, then try and have Ryan knock it down. It worked more effectively than I thought it would; certainly readers seem to like it.

All the locations for this story I do actually know, having lived in the Chicagoland Area for over seven years, when I was first married. And yes, Giordano's pizza is my favorite.

I'm quite proud of Live from the Game. Its tight and self-contained, has some interesting characters in it, some silly dialog, an interesting and somewhat different plot and is above all, quite personal with the characters. There's some development, and some all too believable damage to everyone concerned. Of course the resolution is beyond ridiculous, but since the whole thing doesn't take itself too seriously (not like Ingrams does. I keep trying to work humor into that and it never seems to fit. April is just too damn serious all the time), it works regardless. At least I thought so. YMMV.

Long After the Game

The sequel I was not very sure I would write. The moment I committed to it, -- when I thought I had a story that was worth telling, -- I knew there would have to be another story after this, to finish off Ryan's arc. I knew going in that this would be about Deanna attempting the twelve tasks of Hercules. Most lit stories don't really have a third act where the wife attempts to make up for her mistakes, unless the man dictates what she has to do. I thought it would be interesting to have her work out what she was going to do, in order to show him she was contrite. Of course, I couldn't do a full twelve tasks. Once I had written one task, I realized it would make the story upwards of three hundred thousand words to do them all justice, nor could I think of twelve compelling and plot appropriate tasks for her to do anyway.

The story really revolved around cheating of a different sort. This time it was emotional cheating, where Deanna is using a man as her secret weapon, but effectively dating him in order to get his honest thoughts. He's so in love with her, he'll take what he can get. Deanna isn't even really aware she is cheating this time round, even though she decidedly is cheating on him, emotionally.

Deanna and Ryan were never going to get back together, -- there's too much hurt on his side for that to happen, and he wouldn't have been happy if they did. Deanna had just decided that this is what she should want, and so she was going to make it happy, never questioning if it was the right thing to do for Ryan. Or her, even.

Part of the story was to build a separation, on resolution, that wouldn't kill Ryan, and would complete Deanna's arc. She is done now, by the way. There won't be any stories of her cheating on Trey, because even if she did, it's just not that interesting. Been there, done that.

I did like writing the coven. Originally they were more of them, but honestly, they weren't different enough to warrant me having to keep track of their names, so I knocked it down to three and was done with it.

It was a real effort to try and get Treys appearances, and Deanna's reactions to him, just right. Not too obvious, where I telegraphed what was going to happen, but not too hidden either, so the end resolution wasn't believable. I actually had to rewrite her interactions with him three times before I felt like I even came close to what was required. Even then, I still think it's telegraphed.

Interestingly, I did feel at the end of all this that the story was a bit too static for Ryan. He basically did nothing in the story; it all just happened to him. He was only proactive at the end and even then, did very little, -- I felt the story suffered because of this, but I honestly didn't know how else to write it.

The next story, however....

Cheaters Coven

This one was purely for fun. Once these characters were introduced in Long after the Game, purely as a device so I could prime the plot with what Deanna was going to do, -- give her someone to explain it all too, so the reader could pick up on it, - and also to give a foil to the potential love interest, well, they were just too much fun to ignore. They were rich with promise and fertile with potential. I had to do something with them. I did consider a new series, -- where each story would be them helping a new applicant, but as it stands right now, I already have two series on the go and neither are finished yet, so starting another one doesn't seem like a smart move right now. Although, in the future...:)

So I wrote this, as a total aside, just to give some background. The new girl was introduced purely so the others could give their stories, which were designed to get progressively worse. Mae, of course, had to have the worst story of all, simply because she was the driving force and the obvious adult in the group. She had to have a story for which there was no possible redemption, a reason why she ran the group and kept it together, -- something so heinous she had to constantly atone. Incidentally, she's based on an old college friend, who absolutely had a guy going on the side for years even after she was married, and became a major political power in her local town. She got away with it though, -- but she absolutely wears two wedding rings, one with an inscription on the inside, which is where the idea for Mae's comes from.

The new girl was originally going to be pregnant from her husband's brother, but when I put that in, it instantly overwhelmed the other girl's stories, so I took that out, and just left it that she was still meeting him, and it was partially beyond her control.

The idea was to show that the group did care and would actually take steps to help; that it wasn't just coffee and conversation. It had a point and an aim and it would do things to help. They weren't just a bunch of whining cheaters, all trying to justify each other, as one commenter put it.

It's quite hard to NOT make them appear that, and I tried to make it plain that they weren't just a support group for bad behavior; they were a support group to try and reform bad behavior, -- to recognize it, accept it and move on from it.

This one was purely written because I thought it would be fun to do so, and it was.

Incidentally, has anyone noticed the female naming thing I have been doing yet? We've had April, Mae and June so far. I'm going to work a January in there somewhere, but I've no idea how to get February in...:)

Ryan's Happy Ending

It's coming. I'll update this document when it's done. So far I've actually outlined two different stories, and neither one of them really strikes me as The Right Thing, so watch this space.

In Sickness and in Health

This is a dark one. Occasionally I can go down these paths. The actual premise is bang on true. I did meet the guy who told me about how he was HIV Positive, -- over an evening we got progressively drunker and drunker and told more and more outrageous (but true) stories, - and how it tended to follow him around and rule his life. While being HIV Positive isn't a death sentence any more, it's a chronic condition and it does impact a lot more than you think it does, -- you can't give blood, you have to be paranoid about where your blood does go, -- you can't have a nose bleed in public, you HAVE to quench it and keep people away, for example. You can't be an organ donor, you can't emigrate to a lot of countries, without Obamacare, you'd never get medical insurance in the US, the medicine required to combat this is one hundred dollars a tablet, so that's thirty-six thousand dollars a year, just to keep it at bay, etc.

This guy's marriage disintegrated exactly as detailed, and his daughters practically disowned him because of it. The real guy hadn't run away in quite the same way; he was still in contact with his daughters, but it was all done by skype for the most part.

I have never seen him again, so the ending of the story, where the daughters caught up to him and beyond is entirely fictional, but the basic premise was true.

I did actually end up asking the person who ran the conference where I met him if she'd seen this guy again, but apparently not. Last she had heard he'd dropped out of writing software for some other career.

My editor didn't believe the whole 'I became HIV positive through blood exchanged during a fight' thing, -- but that's what he told me, and I did some checking and there are three reported infections at the CDC from that situation, but it's anyone's guess as to whether that's reality or something said by people who don't want to admit to risky sexual activities or drug usage.

Either way, HIV is still a heart-breaking disease to be infected by, and I wanted to set the record straight on what it is, how it impacts lives, because it's distressingly clear that most of the authors on Lit haven't got a clue. It's used as some mythical story ender, where people die six months after contracting it. It's really not like that, and it's sad that most authors are still working off scary bathroom discussions from the 1980's.

Award Night

This one was written in one sitting. I don't know where it came from, just that I felt in a silly mood that night. I tried to drop in every author I could think of (although Texas Tall Tales was miffed I left him out). I even dropped in StangStar's hatred of the new Mustang in there. It was really a love letter to all the authors and readers of Loving Wives on Lit.

It was also an attempt to actually write some humor. I can do it when the right mood is upon me, but I think I only partially achieve it with this.

I know for a fact I'll never win an award:) I'm sanguine to it:)

Words

This one gets the most email, by far. I don't know why. The whole thing was written over two nights, and stemmed entirely from the idea about whether it's possible to destroy someone else, - who's betraying you, - with just words. I'd read a lot of stories where people who are betrayed have a rant at the person doing the betraying, and in the situations where the offender felt terrible, it generally wasn't as a result of anything the other person actually said. It was generally because they were already feeling shitty about it and the dialog from the other person just highlighted that.

In this situation, I wanted a couple who were the picture of togetherness, to totally blindside the guy, and the women to actually be feeling okay with the situation that she was bringing to the table, totally misjudging the depth of feeling on the other side, and for the guy to just take her arguments apart, one by one, to highlight and destroy the inadequacies of the new relationship.

I wanted to do it all with words, and possibly gestures (I still like the flushing of the ring down the toilet part. Not seen that done before.) I don't know if I succeeded or not. People seem to think so, although a fair number of people have complained about the length of the introduction of the main character. That was necessary, to understand how he had the capability to do what he does. Stories that suddenly have the principle character display abilities that weren't talked about previously just annoy the crap out of me. ("I kicked him in the face. I have two black belts that I'd never bothered to tell my wife about" Seriously??) If people have skills, they need to be known about, so they fit into the story correctly and are not just dropped in as a last minute mcGuffin to resolve the situation. That's just cheating and is being a lazy writer.

Honestly, and I'm not just trying to be 'Aw shucks' humble here, I read Words and I don't see what the fuss is about. It obviously resonates with people but I don't really know why. I think I achieved about 40% of what I intended to with the story.

I think it's because a lot people would like to see themselves in the protagonist. He keeps himself together, takes complete control of the situation with no prior warning, evidently makes his points, and still gets to punch the other guy in the face. Lit BTB lovers tend to run to the authoritarian side, and this is like the most controlled version of that mindset you can get.

People have been asking for a sequel. C1992w wrote a sequel with my blessing -- as I said, I'm not that precious about my characters once they are out in the world, and their mission is accomplished -, but it didn't particularly resonate with me. The characters are really a means to an end -- the story ended, they parted, there's nothing really going to happen past that that makes it worth telling to my thinking. If other people have something to say, then more power to them. Good luck with that, -- I'm not going to stand in your way. I don't have anything to say though.