You are all probably wondering what happened to my write 80,000 words in 8 days. I went rather silent on it. 

Here is the reason why (I wasn’t going to share this, just brush it under the rug as it’s rather embarrassing but I thought… I want to share my journey in writing the book as well as publish what I finally finish)

I’ve written 60,000 words on Destroyed. 

29,000 was written on the first draft–which I love and will use the concept in another story, but the characters turned out to be rather different than who I envisioned for THIS book. So… I made the heartbreaking decision to start again.

31,000 words were written on draft two. The characters were correct, but I didn’t like their motivations or reasoning. It felt weak and underwhelming…so… I made the crazy hard decision to save it for another day (another plot or book) and start fresh. AGAIN.

Yesterday, hubby went for a surf and as I stared at the waves in the sun, I really asked myself what the hell I was doing. I have a strange process as a writer. I plot loosely and then write, but it isn’t until about 50% that the characters really form into TRUE people for me. I then go back to the beginning and sculpt the story that I already have to reflect their now very lifelike personalities.

Destroyed was harder. I was forcing myself to not go so dark. To focus more on the light as I want to deliver a range of books as a story teller and not be pigeon holed completely into Dark Erotica. That being said, my passion, my skills lie in the dark. I will NEVER be able to write a flufftastic college romance. That isn’t me and I don’t think my readers want that from me anyway. 

So, I opened a fresh page in my notebook and went nuts. Roan Fox morphed from someone I didn’t know, into a scary dude with a serious past. Hazel evolved into a character I will love to write–strong, bold, beautifully soft personality but a fierce friend. 

And now…. FINALLY, after a waste of 60,000 words, I know where I want to go with the book. I took the limitations off myself and allowed my imagination freedom. And it feels great. I don’t know why I stifled myself before, but I paid the price. 

Destroyed is being written from scratch–starting today. I’m scared about my rapidly approaching deadline, but now that the characters are evolved I should be able to write fairly fast. 

With regards to the level of darkness involved? I would say Tears of Tess was GREY (about 60-70% dark) Quintessentially Q was BLACK (about 80-90% dark) whereas Destroyed will be more like LIGHT GREY (40-50% dark) it deals with a lot of issues that I hope I portray correctly; it has damaged people who don’t think they’re damaged; it deals with the silver lining in all things that look ruined beyond repair. There isn’t kidnapping or rape, so it’s not dark in that respect, but it is dark with the mental journey they go through. 

I think… if I pull off the story that is now vivid in my head, it will be good and I’ll be proud of Roan and Hazel. But for now, I need to stop writing this blog post and get writing on this book!!! 

Thank you so much for all your amazing support. 

Pepper