Website Changes and Questioner’s Shadow Trivia

I’ve made some changes to the site in anticipation of the release of Questioner’s Shadow, the first book in the Lords of Genova series.

What?! Another series?! Why don’t you finish A Wizard’s Work, first?!

That was my original plan. But if you know me at all, plans never work out the way I want them to. Here’s what happened.

I finished the draft of Shattered in the middle of September, 2010. I didn’t want to go right into the second book, because I didn’t want to have to make changes to the second book because I made changes to the first.

However, I needed something to work on at a workshop I had registered to attend. I spent weeks trying different things. First, it was a space opera type story (that I will write someday, it just wasn’t the time for it). Then, I came up with a story that I’m planning on writing, but I needed to do a lot of research to even get it off the ground, and I just didn’t have time.

One night, with about four weeks to go, I challenged myself to write the most provocative first sentence I could. I was pretty happy with it, but it didn’t have a story.

And then, with about a week and a half to go, I realized I could put that first line together with this other story idea of mixing Jack the Ripper and Beowulf together, and that’s what ultimately kicked off Questioner’s Shadow.

At this time, Questioner’s Shadow was only a single story, and I was really excited to write it. However, as I started to get into the first scene, and started to learn about my main character, I discovered that he was in real trouble that extended beyond the arc of this single story.

Thus, I ended up starting another series before Shattered had even seen the light of day.