The following post will only make sense if you:
a. have read most of my books
b. are me
c. have a working knowledge of the "Mess" aka the books I've written that really are connected but don't look like it unless you read them all
d. are, possibly, Vicki (and I'm not even sure she'll get this one entirely.)
You have been warned.
I've never liked Sarah Campbell.
This is really a bad thing, especially since she was supposed to be my main character for the Beth-Hill series. I never came right out and admitted my dislike of her until I met Karen Montgomery, our librarian heroine who has a job, is fairly stable in her life (for the most part) and pretty much knows what she wants in life.
Sarah never had any of that. She was an aimless character, jobless or with a vague idea of a job, an orphan in one draft and a motherless twenty-something in the other. She never had a real occupation, and even when I tried to make one up for her, it fizzled out. She wasn't cut out for a main character role.
At one point, I had even considered attempting to tweak the storylines a bit and make Karen the person who rescues Michael from the bookstore, etc., etc. But that wouldn't work, since the entire Karen Montgomery series happens after Heart's Desire & co.
After my last attempt at rewriting HD, I left the story at 54k with Michael on a mission from Hell and Sarah asleep at the critical moment. It just wasn't working out.
So I decided to retire Sarah. Put her aside for someone else; someone who already had a life when she was thrown into the plot of Heart's Desire. Someone who wasn't ignorant of magic (when Sarah was first realized, she was a witch. She lost her talents as the drafts continued and the story broadened into what it is today.) Someone who could stand her ground, and especially someone who had obligations and responsibilities that made her into a well-rounded character.
With only a small pool of female characters of the right age to work with, I started searching. And realized that the answer was staring me in the face.
Sennet shows up in Fire and Water, I believe, but not for the first time in the "Mess." She has a largish part in Blood of the Innocents (the book that will be my notorious book, I think) and its sequel. Her superior, Espen, has a decent part in the Shadows trilogy. She is a Healer--in my world the Healers are kind of outside the law. They are neutral--or as much as anyone can be neutral--and they can't turn anyone away who comes to them for help.
No one wants to piss off a Healer, because they have the option to permanently sever Healer relations in the offending area. And if a Healer is wounded in the line of duty, they are duty bound to leave. (Now there are ways to get around every rule, of course. But if you're lucky enough to have a Healer nearby, you certainly don't want her to leave.)
But Healers aren't trusted by most supernatural residents of any given area. Part of this reason is because when a Healer heals, she can see things that the patient might not want her to know. Since Healers are neutral, they don't play favorites and confidentiality is striven for, but that doesn't always work. Healers are, after all, human. Or close enough. They move through time and different dimensions (there aren't really that many Healers at all, it just seems like that sometimes) and in and out of Faerie, so they're almost beyond time as well. If that makes sense.
Anyway, after the fiasco in Faerie (and not necessarily the Faerie of the Beth-Hill stories--Talora and Orien and all are probably from a different section or dimension of Faerie) Sennet was ordered (kindly) to pull up roots and relocate. (One of the nice perks about being a Healer is that your house goes where you go, and Sennet's cottage can relocate almost instantly.)
So she came to Beth-Hill. And the rest of the story is unfolding, almost effortlessly.
It's a different story, but the same one. A different approach, with the same outcome. Different points of view, with the same feel. It's strange.
So far, I've only written in Sennet's POV. The previous drafts of HD had many POVs, but so far this version is sticking with Sennet. We'll see how it works. I'm not sure I'll stay in her head the whole time.
She's about to visit the bookstore and find out what Lucas didn't want to tell her. She's not going to be very happy.
But I am. :)
a. have read most of my books
b. are me
c. have a working knowledge of the "Mess" aka the books I've written that really are connected but don't look like it unless you read them all
d. are, possibly, Vicki (and I'm not even sure she'll get this one entirely.)
You have been warned.
I've never liked Sarah Campbell.
This is really a bad thing, especially since she was supposed to be my main character for the Beth-Hill series. I never came right out and admitted my dislike of her until I met Karen Montgomery, our librarian heroine who has a job, is fairly stable in her life (for the most part) and pretty much knows what she wants in life.
Sarah never had any of that. She was an aimless character, jobless or with a vague idea of a job, an orphan in one draft and a motherless twenty-something in the other. She never had a real occupation, and even when I tried to make one up for her, it fizzled out. She wasn't cut out for a main character role.
At one point, I had even considered attempting to tweak the storylines a bit and make Karen the person who rescues Michael from the bookstore, etc., etc. But that wouldn't work, since the entire Karen Montgomery series happens after Heart's Desire & co.
After my last attempt at rewriting HD, I left the story at 54k with Michael on a mission from Hell and Sarah asleep at the critical moment. It just wasn't working out.
So I decided to retire Sarah. Put her aside for someone else; someone who already had a life when she was thrown into the plot of Heart's Desire. Someone who wasn't ignorant of magic (when Sarah was first realized, she was a witch. She lost her talents as the drafts continued and the story broadened into what it is today.) Someone who could stand her ground, and especially someone who had obligations and responsibilities that made her into a well-rounded character.
With only a small pool of female characters of the right age to work with, I started searching. And realized that the answer was staring me in the face.
Sennet shows up in Fire and Water, I believe, but not for the first time in the "Mess." She has a largish part in Blood of the Innocents (the book that will be my notorious book, I think) and its sequel. Her superior, Espen, has a decent part in the Shadows trilogy. She is a Healer--in my world the Healers are kind of outside the law. They are neutral--or as much as anyone can be neutral--and they can't turn anyone away who comes to them for help.
No one wants to piss off a Healer, because they have the option to permanently sever Healer relations in the offending area. And if a Healer is wounded in the line of duty, they are duty bound to leave. (Now there are ways to get around every rule, of course. But if you're lucky enough to have a Healer nearby, you certainly don't want her to leave.)
But Healers aren't trusted by most supernatural residents of any given area. Part of this reason is because when a Healer heals, she can see things that the patient might not want her to know. Since Healers are neutral, they don't play favorites and confidentiality is striven for, but that doesn't always work. Healers are, after all, human. Or close enough. They move through time and different dimensions (there aren't really that many Healers at all, it just seems like that sometimes) and in and out of Faerie, so they're almost beyond time as well. If that makes sense.
Anyway, after the fiasco in Faerie (and not necessarily the Faerie of the Beth-Hill stories--Talora and Orien and all are probably from a different section or dimension of Faerie) Sennet was ordered (kindly) to pull up roots and relocate. (One of the nice perks about being a Healer is that your house goes where you go, and Sennet's cottage can relocate almost instantly.)
So she came to Beth-Hill. And the rest of the story is unfolding, almost effortlessly.
It's a different story, but the same one. A different approach, with the same outcome. Different points of view, with the same feel. It's strange.
So far, I've only written in Sennet's POV. The previous drafts of HD had many POVs, but so far this version is sticking with Sennet. We'll see how it works. I'm not sure I'll stay in her head the whole time.
She's about to visit the bookstore and find out what Lucas didn't want to tell her. She's not going to be very happy.
But I am. :)
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