Eden Ashe

His name is Kian, and he’s making my life hell.  He started as a nice, normal hero three years ago, and then, a month ago, he decided to turn my world upside down. His story, Here With Me, was my very first NaNoWriMo experience and I still love his story. When I started it, he was a human hitman, and he finished the novel as a human hitman. However, I couldn’t get his brother, Micah, to fit into a normal human existance, and Micah is the eventual reason the Undying world was created. I needed a world that was big enough and dark enough to make Micah, and more importantly, his pixie Emma, work. So what turned Kian into a bastard? Oh, let me count the ways.

When I first wrote HWM, I was still in charge of the stories and the characters in my head. Micah and Emma (of course, right?) changed all of that. They refused to be one dimensional characters, their reasoning being if *I* didn’t know them and love them, how could I expect anyone else to? So I dove into the Undying world, and learned how to really make my characters as dark as I wanted them to be, until finally, Kian decided it was time for me to go back and edit his story. Only he didn’t want to be a human anymore. Oh no, that was too normal for him and, he declared, for me, as well, knowing I’d never be satisfied writing about nice, simple characters ever again. I really hate it when my characters know me better than I know them. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Anyway, once Kian decided I was where he wanted me, he made my head split open again because this time, he not only didn’t want to be human, he wanted to be something epic. Something huge, something not done in a romance novel  yet. Something that is going to seriously test my creativity and ability, and let them–he and his brothers and sisters–be exactly what I’d been wanting to do for years and never thought I could pull off.

No, I’m not going to tell you what they are. Not yet, anyway.

So what’s my problem with Kian? Well, he’s using his new-found power against me. Never mind that he’s the one who wanted the story darker, which was great in theory, but he doesn’t see why that should mean his Isabel is in more danger this time around. Oh no, if he could, he’d probably just skip the entire story and settle nice and comfy in bed with her, naked, for all 80,000 words.  So much does he not want me to put her in danger, EVER, that I can’t seem to write this chapter for them. It’s driving me nuts–no, it’s gone past that, and straight to me wanting to knock my head against the keyboard for awhile. It is seriously frustrating me, but I am determined not to give up. The story is done, it won’t take too much editing to make it fit into this new world, and I am determined to have it ready for submission within the next couple of months. I promised my crit group, and they’re right. The story is good, but it’s time to take my writing to the next level if I’m serious about it.

And I really, really want to be serious about it. That means I have to be stronger than my characters. It means shutting everyone else in my head up so I can concentrate on what I need to do, or none of them will ever have their stories told. Even stubborn bastard, pain-in-the-ass Kian Sorrow.

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