Truth Is (Stranger Than) Fiction

 At this writing, I have twenty self-published books. In a few weeks, I'll have twenty-one. Yeah, I write (and read) fast. I'm not writing a book a month, plus editing, revising, et cetera, though (although I've come close). You do not want to guess at my mental state or the level of eye strain after that happens!

The truth is—I've been writing for six years, now. Some of you (who've read my blog since the beginning) know that I began writing seriously in my husband's ICU room while he was unconscious and breathing on a vent. I wrote to save my sanity. To get away from the crushing reality that threatened to destroy me at the time. I wrote Adam and Kiarra's story with the sound of air being forced into my husband's lungs and the quiet beep of the monitor close by.

The first twelve books I wrote were about the Saa Thalarr. All twelve of them need to be rewritten, as I was in a learning process then (I've made progress on rewriting Hope and Vengeance, the first one). But that's not really what this blog is about. What it's really about is my characters.

HERE'S THE THING: I've gotten requests from readers, asking for permission to use my characters. Some of those requests aren't very clear as to what they plan to do with my characters should I give permission. Frankly, the whole thing is a little frightening. Therefore, I thought I'd spell all this out as well as I could:

1.       If you have plans to publish any of my characters/races/worlds for personal gain, I will hire an attorney. My characters are certainly products of my imagination (Larentii, Lion Snake shapeshifters, Ra'Ak, etc.) and I don't want to see any of them in anyone else's published book, short story, novella and so on. I will not approve any of those requests.

2.       I (probably) have no control over fan fiction, although I'd prefer that you didn't take my characters out of context or make them do things that their characters would never do (See Stephenie Myers' Twilight series, which turned into a fan fic piece now titled Fifty Shades of Grey). The names are changed, obviously, for the FSOG books, but I've read an excerpt from the original piece, so there you are.

SUMMARY: If you plan to write a fan fic piece for your own personal satisfaction, I really don't have a big problem with that. I've actually written one myself that will never, ever see the light of day, so don't ask. Granted the other author's characters are only in the background, but that's neither here nor there. I sure don't want to upset or step on another author's toes, I just wanted to get the story out of my head. Therefore, if that's what you plan to do, and never intend to publish the story for your own personal gain or twist my races or characters or worlds into something they would never be or make them do things they'd never do (sigh), then go ahead and work it out of your system. I understand writing as therapy all too well.

AND ANOTHER THING:

Please don't send me story ideas or any other ideas (for characters/races/worlds, etc.) I CAN'T USE THEM!!!!! Not only are there legal reasons for this, those are YOUR ideas, not mine, therefore you should write your own story. After all, they are a product of YOUR imagination, not mine, and consequently, nobody will ever know them as well as you do. Writing can be tough at first, but trust me, if you're serious about it, it gets a lot easier as you go along. For me, writing is as natural as breathing, now. So—if there are people holding conversations in your head, and they're a product of your imagination (not mine) then sit down and write it out!

Having said all that, here's an update:

Demon's Dream is coming along, and should hit the projected March 15^th date, if not before (barring unforeseen difficulties). I've also gotten more work done on at least three of the four (so far) God Wars books.

And, if you'd like to meet other fans, speculate, commiserate or verbally trash any characters, story lines, etc., then visit leathveronis.net. There are lots of things going on over there!

Connie

P.S. If you'd like to sign up for the newsletter (where you may get snippets you won't get anywhere else) send an email to joe.scholes68@gmail.com.