On A Book’s Path…

I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but Feb­ru­ary 25, my eleventh novel will be born into the world. WHEN SHADOWS FALL is the third Saman­tha Owens novel, a sem­i­nal book in the series, as it decides the course of action for the next several books.

Every series has a path, planned or unplanned. When I started writ­ing my Tay­lor Jack­son series, I had no idea it was going to be a series. I hadn’t thought about extended story, struc­ture, char­ac­ter devel­op­ment. I cre­ated a finite char­ac­ter in a finite world, and it was dif­fi­cult to see where to take the books.

With Sam, it was the oppo­site. I knew I wanted a char­ac­ter who could grow and change remark­ably. I knew I wanted to allow her the free­dom to move around the coun­try, the world, with rel­a­tive ease. As my then edi­tor and I were plan­ning the first book in the series, I men­tioned I wanted Sam to be the Indi­ana Jones of foren­sic pathol­ogy. The idea stuck.

What hap­pens in this book wasn’t sup­posed to hap­pen until book 4 in the series. It’s funny, the same thing hap­pened to me in the Tay­lor series. The third book, JUDAS KISS, was sup­posed to be the fourth. I made men­tion of my idea for it, hop­ing to entice my edi­tor to buy the book when I was fin­ished with the third I had planned. Instead, she jumped on the idea and told me in no uncer­tain terms this was the ONE.

So when I found myself in the same posi­tion this time, I knew what I needed to do. Aban­don the story and move the next book into its place. I couldn’t let Sam lan­guish in her sor­row any longer. It was time for her to move on. To start anew. Insert res­ur­rec­tion clauses here.

Of course, Sam wasn’t aware of the change her life was about to take. She wasn’t par­tic­u­larly ready to move on, not really. And I had to tell her, Too bad, sis­ter. I’ll let you have some onscreen sex to make up for it.

I think its one of the most part of the fun being a writer, this game you play with your char­ac­ters. I once asked a very famous writer about how char­ac­ters some­times do their own thing, and he looked at me like I was a recent escapee from an insane asy­lum and declared his char­ac­ters would never do such a thing because they only did what he told them to do.

I find that so sad. I like that my char­ac­ters and I have this sort of push and pull rela­tion­ship. They give me some of what I want, I give them some of what they want. In the end, we’re all happy and mov­ing on to the next adven­ture. At least, that’s the plan. After wrestling alli­ga­tors with them for 500 pages, they damn well bet­ter be ready to move on. Cause if they’re not, they often end up dead. Or maimed. Or mar­ried off, or on the run.

Poor char­ac­ters. Poor, poor char­ac­ters. Bet­ter behave, or I’ll make your life hell.

But Sam behaved, and she was rewarded with many excit­ing things, all of which set up the rest of the series. I’m not one-hundred per­cent sure where we go from here, but I love that book three has become this sem­i­nal turn­ing point for the Sam. And as such, for Xan­der and Fletcher too. The whole cast is being thrust into a new world because I got impa­tient. I hope they con­tinue to behave!

On Keeping a Book Journal, and the Nascent Beginnings of Books

WHEN SHADOWS FALL releases next week, and I wanted to show a bit of the process I went through writing the book. Every book has a different genesis, and I've been trying to keep better track of how the stories come alive for me.

I am not a natural journaler. I had the requisite locked diary as a girl (Dear Diary, why doesn’t so and so like me?) and when I found it a couple of years ago, I saw a familiar pattern: daily January entries faded into a sporadic February into one or two lonely March entries, then nothing at all until July, when I wrecked a friend’s moped and finally – finally! – had something to talk about.

It is the mundane that I’d always found of such little interest. And yet, how I wish I’d stuck to the discipline, that I’d at least put down a few words here and there for all those childhood years. Dinners, friends, sleepovers, heartbreaks. So many things lost, so many ideas gone.

I tried for years to journal properly – even took a class in college that called for a daily journal. What do you think happened? Yep, the night before it was due, there I was with my day runner, trying to recreate a semester’s worth of entries.

In 2003, blogging became a part of my life. It was a journal, though I didn’t realize it at the time. I can go back through the entries on my blog and on Murderati and watch my journey – my highs and lows, my successes and failures. When I stopped blogging weekly, I realized how much I missed it, and it hit me – you’ve been journaling. And you like it.

But I was still horridly inconsistent. I’m like many writers, I think, I have multiple notebooks and snippets of ideas and open file folders and cocktail napkins and half-finished blog entries scattered about my office. I need a method, a practice. And I found it again through two things – daily pages and a book journal.

Again, my fear of the mundane kept me from combining the two. What if, years from now, someone actually wanted to know my unpublicly chronicled thought process on a book? And what if they found my notebooks, and saw some of the ridiculously boring things that happen in my life?

So I kept them separate.

In each folder, for each book, I have a small journal file. I try to document the moment the idea for the book came to me, how I approached it, the emails I sent, anything that will help explain the genesis. And as I write, I keep score – word counts, what’s working, what’s not.

Which brings me to WHEN SHADOWS FALL, which comes out next week. You’d think, after all this time, I’d know what sparks a book idea for me. But for the life of me, I can’t remember. So I’m writing this blog, and now, I will go open the magic box that is the Book Journal and see. Be right back…

Here’s what I found – it’s a copy of the transcript of the email I sent my agent on 5.15.12

So the story idea for Sam #3 pranced into my head two nights ago, and I wrote it down. It's a fun idea, I think, and based in part of a real case in Mississippi, where a man moved from California running from the "Masons" then committed suicide. Don't worry, not a DaVinci Code-esque storyline. I have something much more fun in mind, as you'll see when you read the synopsis.

The title - obviously a working title, but I wanted to go with three words, and have a play on the darken and black from the first two. I like this. Second place is BREATH AND SHADOW - from Sophocles. (A human being is but breath and shadow.)

Ah – I remember now. I was in the shower, and the idea for the book hit me out of the blue. I messed around with the story, wrote up a synopsis, found a title – I can’t work without a title – and sent the email to my agent.

The title, by the way, was WHEN SHADOWS FALL – everyone loved it off the bat, and my agent loved the proposal, and the editor loved it, and suddenly, I was in business.

Except – I had a few other things on my plate, and I couldn’t come back to the story for a year.

A year is a very long time between concept and writing for me. Normally I dive right in, but I had to write my first book with Catherine Coulter, and I can’t write two books at once. So SHADOWS went on the back burner for a year. 

Not surprisingly, the book journal shows a rough start when I got back to it. I just read through the diary, and realized – I am rather hard on myself.

But, all that said – the journaling is now a Godsend. It was with this book that I really got into sharing my thoughts at the end of each day, which has morphed, these many years later, into an actual daily journaling habit!

I was using my blog, but there’s a strange, uncomfortable level of intimacy to sharing a book’s life while it’s under construction, so I’ve switched to a great app called Day One. I record the mundane and the important, the books stuff and the life stuff, all in one place, and I find I can’t move on with my evening if I don’t write my little bit at the end of the day.

Apparently, I’m a journaler after all.

A little added bonus, here's an excerpt from WHEN SHADOWS FALL 

1.27.14 - Starred PW Review for WHEN SHADOWS FALL

Thank you, PW! 

WHEN SHADOWS FALL (Starred Review)

Exceptional character development distinguishes Thriller Award–winner Ellison’s third Samantha Owens novel (after 2012’s Edge of Black), the best yet in the series. When Sam, now head of Georgetown University Medical School’s forensic pathology department in Washington, D.C., receives a letter from a stranger named Timothy Savage asking her to solve his murder, she gets drawn back into her former career in law enforcement. Sam performs an autopsy on Savage, who recently died in Lynchburg, Va., and the examination shows he did not commit suicide, as the police ruled, but was indeed murdered. Meanwhile, Sam and her boyfriend, former Army Ranger Xander Whitfield, become embroiled in a search for a missing child whose disappearance may be related to Savage’s death. The suspense builds as Sam and Xander, aided by D.C. homicide detective Darren Fletcher, chase down a host of surprising leads. The author’s ability to neatly tie together the mysterious clues helps make this a standout in the romantic thriller subgenre. Agent: Scott Miller, Trident Media Group. (Mar.)

Reviewed on: 01/27/2014 
Release date: 02/25/2014

As you can imagine, a good day. Getting close on THE LOST KEY, too, so back to the grindstone....

1.21.14

Breaking radio silence to say - it's been a happy day. Had news this morning that WHEN SHADOWS FALL is a Romantic Times Top Pick for March! I am giddy! Thank you, Romantic Times!

Here's the takeaway... 

Ellison excels at imaginative and terrifying plots, and this thriller is a fine example that sucks readers in at the beginning and spits them out at the end, emotionally drained. The latest Samantha Owens installment is a complex story with interwoven mysteries and a frightening conspiracy. Villains range from just greedy to truly evil.

Just a reminder, there's a Goodreads Giveaway for an ARC of this book that ends January 31. Enter, and don't forget to add WHEN SHADOWS FALL to your To Read list. 

Back to the real world for me. 3000 today, 3000 yesterday. THE LOST KEY is rolling, rolling, rolling...

1.17.14

1800 today, and it's time to take a break and see what's what in terms of what's done and what still need to happen in the story. Having this great outline we developed is a true blessing, but now I need to compare what's on the page to what's in my head and match the two together. And then I've have a clear path to the end, and I think - think! - I will be there at this time next week. I can see the end, but so much still needs to happen, so we'll see. 

Off to Manchester in the morning for their annual Writer's Day - will be signing from 10-1, then it's back home to dive in again. I normally would never agree to do events during deadline, but someone (ahem) thought she'd be all done by Christmas and only editing at this stage, so said someone blew it is.

It is time to disappear into the story, though, so if I'm largely absent for the next few weeks, that's why.

Sweet dreams!