Today we have a late treat for you, author J.E. Taylor! Now here's J.E. Taylor on writing a series…
As my bio says, I started writing in 2007 and those first eighteen months provided for some serious prolific prose. I wrote eight full first drafts in that timeframe along with close to a dozen short stories. Twenty years of pent up stories - stories with flushed out plots, three dimensional characters and vivid scenes pieced together in the file cabinet in my mind and when I opened the drawer, man they just rocketed out.
I can still remember the feeling of typing The End on my first book. Exhilaration. Pure and simple. For those that have never taken this on, it’s daunting and getting to the finish line can be just as grueling and satisfying as running a marathon.
But before I could bask in the glow of my accomplishment, before I could take a breath, the characters clamored and demanded I scribe more of their lives and I dove in writing books two and three in my erotic Games Series.
It wasn’t until I finished the series (or so I thought) that I dusted off a novel I began over twenty years ago. That ragged start to a manuscript titled Mirror Lake completely lacked originality. College students trying to flee from a killer in the woods – hmmm – sounds a little too much like Friday the 13th if you ask me.
Well, I re-tooled the plot, throwing in some twists and turns and that initial Friday the 13th-esque plot morphed into Dark Reckoning, a thriller/romance introducing my favorite cocky undercover G-man – Special Agent Steve Williams. I never set out to write another series. However, yet again, the characters wouldn’t leave me be and in the next book I took Steve Williams undercover into a highly profitable drug ring in New York City and threw in a serial killer side story just to complicate things. Thus Vengeance was born.
By this time the characters from both series banged around in the file cabinets of my brain, making such a racket that I had to listen and this created seeds of a very intriguing thought.
The very idea of Special Agent Williams thrown in the same ring with Ty Aris was indeed a thrilling concept – a colossal what if...
Oh yes, I went there.
As Author Poppet said, I went where very few dare to tread. In Hunting Season, I took a compelling crime novel and added a supernatural twist.
Imagine you’re a criminal that successfully hid from the eyes of the law for fifteen years. Into your life comes an FBI agent on the edge - and this Fed knows your identity. He also knows about your family’s unique set of supernatural gifts. Gifts that could help him hunt down a killer. Welcome to Hunting Season.
Still the characters would not let go, they kept rattling around upstairs while I focused on a couple ideas that I’ve had brewing and before I knew it, the seeds of the latest Steve Williams Novel, Georgia Reign, bloomed.
Georgia Reign takes place in the aftermath of Hunting Season and while Hunting Season was by far the most fun to write, Georgia Reign proved to be the most difficult for a variety of reasons. The blood, sweat and tears that went into Georgia Reign paid off when I got the following review from fellow author Gemma Rice:
“Georgia Reign is impossible to ignore or put down. Once you start reading, you are hooked. A good author gets you emotionally invested with the characters, and Taylor is an exceptional thriller author. If you love crime thrillers, you really HAVE to start reading the Steve Williams novels by J.E. Taylor. She takes you on a ride you will never forget. Gripping, disturbing, page turning crime thrillers don't get better than this.” Poppet / Gemma Rice – Author of Seithe, Darkroom and Djinn
As if that’s not enough, here’s the back cover blurb for Georgia Reign.
Special Agent Steve Williams, still reeling from the death of Chris Ryan and his unexpected inheritance, isn’t ready to step back into the line of fire. Relations with his wife are strained at best, and now he’s saddled with a new partner and a not so silent guardian angel.
When his boss calls with news of another case, a serial killer in Atlanta targeting children, it strikes a nerve in Steve. Caught between responsibility and instinct, he makes a choice – a choice he’ll regret forever.
J.E. Taylor is a writer, a publisher, an editor, a manuscript formatter, a mother, a wife and a business analyst, not necessarily in that order. She first sat down to seriously write in February of 2007 after her daughter asked:
“Mom, if you could do anything, what would you do?”
From that moment on, she hasn’t looked back and now her writing resume includes six+ published novels along with several short stories on the virtual shelves including a few within eXcessica anthologies.
In addition to being co-owner of Novel Concept Publishing (www.novelconceptpublishing), Ms. Taylor also moonlights as an Assistant Editor of Allegory (www.allegoryezine.com), an online venue for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. She has been known to edit a book or two and also offers her services judging writing contests for various RWA chapters.
She lives in Connecticut with her husband and two children and during the summer months enjoys her weekends on the shore in southern Maine.
