Story Behind the Story - Beyond Reckless

Stats – Sent book idea to Amber Quill Press & received approval 9/7/10, Submitted & received contract offer 9/12/10, Published 11/28/10

Little known fact – This is ‘The Challenge’ book. Shawn Lane and I both had ideas for short stories, and we challenged each other to write them in a week. Shawn finished Manfred’s Curse a couple days before me, but I still managed to finish Beyond Reckless in a week. I don’t like to admit that she beat me, instead I go with the ‘we were both winners’ line. *insert sparkly happy smile*

Extremely little known fact – I finally got to use my invitation to submit to Amber Quill Press with this book. I had received an invite back in 2009, and was super geeked about it, but I had other contracted books on my to-write list at the time. The owner of AQP was very cool and understanding, and left the invite open-ended.

How did I get the idea for the book – I saw a submissions call from All Romance eBooks for a free short story competition for books between 2,000-3,000 words. That night, Rys and Martin popped into my head, and I thought maybe I could smoosh them down to 3k words. Then I rechecked the sub call and realized it was for paranormal stories (should have guessed, as the contest was to run around Halloween). I was bummed, since I knew I couldn’t do characters, smex, historical setting and paranormal in less than 3k words. I mentioned it to Shawn, who gave me a series of nudges that started like this - ‘Can you make it at least 5k?’ (5,000 words is the min length for Amber Quill). And while Shawn was nudging me, I was nudging her to write a short story. The challenge was thrown down, and a week later I had finished Beyond Reckless. It came it at 6,000 words, with no smooshing needed.

If I could edit the book now, what would I change (if anything)? – Um…nothing. I really like how the book turned out. It was my first non-sequel short story, and it was super fun to write. That’s not to say I have plans for any more stand-alone short stories, but in this instance, the short format fit the book idea.

Misc Stuff – Thanks to a nudge from another friend, I’m mulling over the idea of a prequel for Rys and Martin, a story that would cover how they met and became a couple. I even have notes already for the book, but it’s not completely fleshed out yet. Adrenalin-junkie Rys is tons of fun to write, so I have a feeling the muse won’t take too long to finish figuring out the book.

That's the story behind the story for Beyond Reckless. Any questions? Ask away *g*