Sunday Snippet: The Maybe This Is How It Happens Edition

It’s August 11.  Summer is nearly over. How did that happen? I’ve been married for 51 years! How did that happen? Grandboy is 12 and he’s back in school. How did that happen? I’ve got 16 published novels and another two on the way in October and January, plus I’m contracted to write four more books for Tule. Whew–how did that happen? I’ll be 71 next  month, how the hell did that happen?

Can you tell I’m a little overwhelmed with… well, life stuff and work stuff and writing stuff at the moment? I am, yet I go on ahead and do what needs doing because don’t we all? The last couple of weeks, it’s been all about the writing… I turned in the first draft of Book 4 in the Walkers of River’s Edge series a week ago, Book 2 in that series released this week, and I just on finished doing author review on Book 3 of that series. Now I’m in discovery for Book 1 in the new Dykemans of River’s Edge series coming in 2025 and 2026.

People ask me all the time, “How do you do it? How do you write all those stories? Where do you get your ideas?” In an ironic twist, a couple of weeks ago, as Husband and I were watching another episode of All Creatures Great and Small, I turned to him and said, “How did Herriot do it? How did he write all these amazing stories that keep us glued to the screen from this tiny town in England?”

He graciously replied, “The same way do you do it. One book at a time.”

You know, I wouldn’t dare to compare my storytelling to someone like James Herriot, but like him, I am a series writer. I didn’t know that about  myself when I first starting writing. Not even after writing the four Women of Willow Bay books. It wasn’t until I created River’s Edge that I figured out I don’t want to leave my characters and settings. I’m happy to invent new stories and new people to populate my little town on the Ohio River, but I really hate leaving the people  and setting I’ve already created. So I think the answer to Where do I get my ideas? might be that they’re seeds, sown in the previous books.

Let me try to explain because, man, I’d love to have a really good answer next time someone asks. When I started writing the Four Irish Brothers Winery series for Tule Publishing (See? Never turn an opportunity to promote), I had the four brothers in my head. By the way, I guess I need to preface this with the fact that I have people in my head clamoring to get out all the time. If I can give them a story, I’ll let them out, but otherwise, they have to go to the back of the line. Anyway, The Flaherty brothers, all four of them, were knocking around in there, tripping over each other to have their story told. Conor shouted loudest, so his story came first, although in the birth order, he was third in line.

But as I wrote his story, the seeds of his older brother Sean’s story were scattered—Megan, the mayor, who was thirty-seven and had never been married suddenly began to develop, as did Tierney, a female firefighter on the River’s Edge Fire Department. When we met Conor’s love interest, attorney Samantha Hayes, we also  discovered that Sean, who was a high-powered attorney in Chicago, might not be all that thrilled with big-city life. In Sean’s book, Conor and Sam’s wedding happened and when it did, we not only saw Sean and Megan’s happily-ever-after, we also got a hint that Aidan’s glamorous life in LA might not be all that glamorous and that Brendan shared a special friendship with Tierney.

The next series in River’s Edge came from characters in the Flaherty brothers’ books. Those books featured my hometown first responders, The Lange Brothers and through them we met The Weaver Sisters, and then The Walkers of River’s Edge, whose stories are currently being released.

See how that works? As I watch the continuing thread unspool throughout the episodes of All Creatures Great and Small, I realized that is what makes a series happen. The unbroken filament that runs through each episode is the story of the town and its people, and that’s what pulls you in. You want to know what will happen next to the characters even though each episode has a definite beginning, middle, and end.

So, for me, it’s the setting and the characters in the previous story that drives the next one. It’s the little town of River’s Edge; it’s the winery; it’s Mac’s Riverside Diner, the River Walk, and the Ohio River. For readers, it’s a yearning to go back to see what’s up with Mac and Carly, to watch the Flaherty family grow, to find out who else is falling in love, to meet more of the townsfolk, and to feel a part of River’s Edge.

It’s the same for me. As I said, I just finished the last book in my latest River’s Edge series, The Walkers of River’s Edge. Jack, Joe, Cameron, and Annabelle all  get their own story in this current series, and we meet new characters as their stories progress. We’re getting hints about the next series as the Dykeman family makes cameos in the current books. Their stories are next, and Beth Dykeman and her hero, rodeo cowboy Del Foster, will bring a little something new to River’s Edge.

I’m not sure I’ve answered my own question, but maybe it simply is that stories breed more characters and characters breed more stories. May it continue.

Gratitude for this week: Swimming in the lake with Son and Grandboy; the lake dishwasher is fixed (Thank you, Husband) and the new fridge for the lake comes tomorrow; release and reviews of Make It Real have been great; got the author review done on the CE for Made for Mistletoe, weather has been delightfully Michigan cool here.

Stay well, enjoy the late-summer sun, be kind, and always, mes amis, stay grateful!