Back at it...

After spending the last three months studying for the Texas Bar Exam, I finally have time to do some writing and reading.  I won't know my results until early November and in the meantime, I will be looking for a job as well as spending time with my kiddos before school starts in late August.  I realize that I haven't been on here in about a month despite having the last fifteen days off.  I have read about five books and swam a lot.

Now, I am spending some serious time on the sequel and smaller book in the Caged Beauty Series. Instead of writing the sequel and then writing one of the smaller books, I have been writing them concurrently.   Since they deal with a similar timeline of events, the larger book is from the perspective of Kathryn and the smaller book is from Alex's POV. I find it interesting to write from a male perspective, and I hope to humanize Alex so that he is still considered great but less perfect and has some depth of character as he deals with the situation he is in.

I had some moments in The Swallow that Alex was jealous and got angry when Kathryn explained about her relationship with Evan, but some beta-readers said he was too angry. So I toned it down some, and although I love him in the book, he does seem wonderful, but it is really from Kathryn's POV, and she is smitten with him from their first meeting.

But I've written a considerable amount in each book that I am contemplating putting them together and using both POV. There are other books that I've read that have done this, and I personally like it in a secondary book, but I struggle with deciding if the reader will want to read the Alex's POV after or before.

I wonder about the first book being from just Kathryn's POV and then switching it up in the 2nd book. I know it has been done by other successfully, but I need to figure out if I should keep them separate or merge the two story.

Together they are roughly the size of the first book, but I am not finished writing The Bluebird, which is the second book in the series. I know that other series are usually three books, but at this point, I can't see dragging it out much longer. The Swallow was originally written as one book, and I broke it up because I changed the story dramatically to add more conflict. It got boring for me, and I just didn't see getting it all in one book any longer.

Anyway, I will try to update more frequently as I write and read. Enjoy the rest of your summer and keep reading!

Isabelle