Splitting 1 book into two – did I get what I wanted to say ‘out there’?

Welcome.

As you can see we are doing a blog tour here today and I’m thrilled for two reasons. First of all this is my first guest–ever and I’ve known the Terri for a while, and I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to have her here today.

Please welcome, Terri Rochenski Author of the Eye of the Soul

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This two book series started out as a single book titled Pool of Souls. It was a project three years in the making, one who’s last third to write took forever.

I procrastinated. Set it aside for months on end, hoping my muse & the characters in my head would take control. They didn’t.

Finally, I decided it was time to just finish already – force the words and confrontations. Using NaNo ’11 as a spring board, I buckled down and focused on finishing. Without taking my usual time to plan, plot, and outline like an OCD maniac high on caffeine, I scribbled away, anxious to finally write ‘The End’.

Elated that I finished (the end of December that year rather than NaNo’s end), I posted the final chapters on my writer’s forum. The feedback I received was ‘rushed’. I had skipped over so much tension, so much conflict, that the true telling of my story suffered, the last half was a brief overview of events.

At the story’s center was a natural stopping point, one that would have made it much too easy for a reader to put the book down without feeling compelled THAT INSTANT to speed on toward the end. It was the first part of the story’s natural ending of one journey, and the beginning of another.

Pool of Souls, I realized, had no business being a single book. Unlike most series, this story was a two-parter, not three. Could I have added fat & fluff to make it fall into the norm?

Sure.

Did I want to? Heck no.

I’m a woman of few words, even less when I write. I like to think my story telling is precise and to the point, not clogged up with paragraphs we readers love to skip over in search of excitement. So I dove into the 2^nd half, determined to flesh out everything I had missed in my race to finish.

Did I succeed in telling the whole story of Hyla’s physical and spiritual journey?

We shall soon see, won’t we?

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