mcfrankauthor:

This postis sponsored by Scandal gifs. Scandal is one thing that hugely inspired andmotivated me while I was writing Everything I Do, so now you all get to sufferalong with me.

I have abook coming out in about 15 days. It’s a reimagining of Robin Hood’s storytitled Everything I Do. Everything I Do is perfect for fans of Robin Hood, femaleassassins, girls masquerading as boys, strong friendships, groups of boys andslow burn romance. Also, it’s the first book in a series.

This is only the second time I write or rather split a huge story into aserial format of series, because I have written and outlined many series, buteach book had its own story, and they all followed a bigger one. But EverythingI Do is the first part of a bigger story. The next book will follow the samecharacters as they continue on their journey to stay alive, conquer their enemiesand hopefully kiss a few times in between? One can only hope.

The only other books I’ve written in this format is the No Ordinary Starseries (No Ordinary Star, No Plain Rebel, No Vain Loss) about a fire-hotromance among the stars  in a frozenworld with no Christmas.

 Here is how out of a single idea for a single book (more on that later),I created an entire series. (I say “created” because the books have alreadybeen written, but not edited yet).

I had the whole entire story in my head before I started writing thefirst book. I don’t know if other authors do it differently, but that’s theonly way I can do series.I outline the whole series but roughly. The first book or two in greatdetail, the rest just in scenes and characters. This will become my seriesbible.Just like they taught us in science lab, I dissect the plot and discoverwhat the true story is. I fix it so that it flows nicely, and then I find themain turning points/events of the bigger plot. If you are like me, you mightwant to stop them at a point that’s half closure, half cliffhanger, which meansyou reveal something big that creates more questions, so that readers arehungry for the next installment.

Example:

My Robin Hood series, Outlaws:

Book 1: Stops at the discovery of the first big secret.

Book 2: Stops right after a tragic event.

Book 3: Stops at the resolution of a major conflict.

Book 4: Stops at the reveal of the final big secret.

Book 5: Stops at the resolution of the bigger and final conflict of theentire story.

These might change as I edit them, and I’m sorry that they’re vague, butthey might give you an idea of how to split the big plot into books.

Then I start outlining each book in detail. If you want, you can onlyoutline one book, but if you’re like me and you can’t escape the outpour ofideas, it saves time to outline all the books as they come to you, so that youcan write them one after the other.Then I write. I write the books continuously, as one story, and thenseparate them into smaller installments. The reason I do that is that after Iseparate them, I need to add chapters at the beginning and end. Little chapterat the end: helping the reader have closure, although the story is not ended.Little chapter at the beginning: reminding the reader of the happenings of theprevious book, in case it’s been months since its release.The series bible has to contain everything and has to be consultedconstantly: world-building, names, families, character history, charactertraits, titles (if you’re writing historical or fantasy), period details and soon. I also keep track of what secrets are out and what the characters aren’tsupposed to know yet. And of course I keep track of their memories because Ilove my flashbacks, especially when they’re torturing my heroes (and the readers, of course). 

So as I said, this story was already written, and I only now rewroteit.

How and why was it written already, M? you might ask.

Here’s a little secret: I am republishing Everything I Do. This is notthe first time it’s been published. I published it a few years ago, and itstayed live for less than 2 months. And here is why I unpublished it back then:

1. It wasn’t ready for the world. It simply didn’t meet the high standardsI wanted to present to my readers, and below are the reasons why.

2. I had written it while my family and I were going through the ordeal ofhospitals and treatments and the lot, because my dad was sick, and I completed itright after I lost him. It was the thing that kept me sane during that hellishtime, and I literally only kept going because I had this dream of putting itout there into the world (I had researched self-publishing and traditionalpublishing beforehand and made my decision, otherwise I might have doubtedwhether my judgement there was at fault too). Anyway, to put it mildly, I wasn’tat my best, I was really stressed, depressed and every other –essed in thebook, and nor was I thinking straight during those months/years. When the fogcleared out, I realized that neither my book nor I were ready for the world, soI took it down and waited a year until I felt better.

3. My mental health (as one might expect after reading the above) was at anall-time low. Again, I didn’t have the energy or judgement to do the book orthe marketing plan that should have accompanied it justice. *You will see fromwhat I wrote above that writing literally saved my life. And I’m glad I took thatgiant step of faith and published when I did, because I learned a LOT of thingswhich I wouldn’t have learned if I hadn’t done it, but it wasn’t time. Not yet.

4. I didn’t have any beta readers at the time. I had no idea how to findthem, and if I had known then what I know now (that you just go up to peopleonline and ask them to read your book) I would have crawled into a hole anddied. I wasn’t in a place where I could talk to anyone, online or otherwise. Thepain was too raw. (It still is, but I’ve learned to handle it. Most days. –read Conversations With an Empty Chair if you want to get seriously bummed out.)

5. This is the most important one: I changed the characters a LOT and added a TON more plot. The book used to be a huge book, that compressed/summarized the whole story, but didn’t do it justice. It glossed over some facts, and stopped far too abruptly. It also gave zero backstory. It wasn’t what I had wanted to do, butback then it had seemed to me impossible that I would be able to publish onebook, let alone many, as in a series. I wasn’t satisfied with it, but I thought it was the only way. Now,after years of experience, I am taking the time to explore my characters andtheir development, to savor the story and add a ton of romance (yay), and thus I rewrote thebook at my leisure. As I was writing, it came out even bigger (I added characters and so many more scenes) and so I have split it into 5 parts so far. More might be coming!

6. My editor sucked. I’m so sorry, but it was true. I lacked the experienceand the strength to let them go and look for another, but I knew as I wasworking on the previous version, that I had no help from them. And that’s ok,it happens. BUT it’s not ok if you don’t fix it. If you don’t fire the wrongperson and look for the right. I learned that the hard way.

After all that, I’m sure that instead of wondering why I unpublished it,you must be wondering why I republished it. Well, I didn’t. I rewrote it. Fromscratch. It took me a few years, and more than 10 drafts. Why?

I just loved it so much, I had to give it another go.

I had learned so much and put it to good use during the releases of myother books, that I felt not only ready to recreate and rerelease the mostimportant book of my life into the world, but to also help other authors bysharing what I’d learned. That’s why I created the Author-Reader Connection TheBook Robin Hoods, and that’s why I gave it this name.

So that I could celebrate this industry, the self-publishing industry,for what it is for many of us: A place of second chances.

And by second chances I don’t just mean the gift to be able to reupload theinterior file of your book after fixing a minortypo that slipped through, because you are the publisher and the books areprinted on demand. I don’t just mean the huge opportunity I got, to unpublishmy book with all its mistakes, to unpublish the version of my book I wasn’tproud of, and have all the time I wanted to rewrite it. Those are hugeblessings in themselves, but we’re still not into the biggest one ofself-publishing.

It’s not a forgiving industry, and I expect to pay for my mistake inuploading this book for those two months when it wasn’t ready dearly. It’s acut-throat industry, make no mistake about it. People have committed suicide becauseof failure and massive bullying, people (including myself) have beenplagiarized, sued, and all that fun stuff. People, writers, authors, havefallen through the cracks, unnoticed. BUT.

Self-publishing gave us a chance. A second chance, or, as in my case,our only chance. That’s why I felt I owed it to both myself and my readers toget back up and try my hand at this wonderful story I carried in my head oncemore. Even if people judge me. Even if no one cares. Even if it turns out to bea horrible book again (which I don’t think it is, based on my betas’ andreviewers’ opinions anyway). Even if… a thousand ifs.

 Here iswhat inspired Everything I Do:

LossPainMy ownmental health struggle and the urge to share it with othersMy beloved,tortured country that suffers under the thumb of corrupt and ruthless rulersTheredeeming grace of second chancesAlso, catsand Scandal and Kdrama.

Life doesn’t always give us second chances. In fact, they are rare andfew in-between. But when we have one, we should be thankful and gather ourstrength to do our best one more time. “Fail again, fail better.” Andwho knows? You might not fail at all!

I am so grateful to be given a second chance with my RobinHood book. I’m planning a tell-all blog post, so that I can share my wholestory, but this is the most important thing: The ancient Greek poets said thatOpportunity was a woman who had hair only in the front of her face. You shouldgrab her as she’s coming, or the minute she’s gone you have no way of catchingher.

That’s what I’m doing. Thank God for second chances andmercy. The rest is in His hands.

Thanks for reading,

~M.

Want to check out Everything I Do?

Kindle

Hardback

Goodreads.

Read all the Robin Hood WIP diaries

Read all my Robin Hood WIP snippets