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Hello you glorious creatures,
Happy May! I can’t believe we’re only a month away from the release of Jayne #3 – THE KEEPER OF FLAMES! The final copyedit comes this week, and then it will go into the system, with the print books being available for ordering very soon. And if you can believe it, I am currently editing book 4, THE PROPHECY OF WIND. It feels so strange to be past the halfway mark of this series I dreamed up so many years ago, and even wilder, Rachel and I are just plotted book 5 and a couple more Guardian stories! Things are drawing to a head for our girl Jayne. She’s not the bright, fresh ingenue she was, but a seasoned warrior with the world's fate on her shoulders. It’s an incredible transition, this character growth. Very heady stuff.
Speaking of transitions, I thought I’d give you some backstory today, just for fun.
When I first conceived the Jayne series, it was meant to be a lighter, funnier thriller series. Not magical, not fantasy. I saw a real job opening for a librarian for the CIA. I *felt* that in my bones: this would make a GREAT series. Jayne would be a cross between Rory Gilmore (of Gilmore Girls fame,) that clever, comical, heart-wrenching show, and Carrie Matheson of Homeland, albeit with less crying and much less dying. I also knew that no matter what, I didn’t have the time and mental energy to write it all myself. At the time, I was already writing one book a year as J.T. Ellison, and one book a year co-writing with Catherine Coulter. A third meant one thing only: I had to bring in my own co-writer. This felt like a logical step to me; so many authors reached down the ladder to help pull me up, I saw an opportunity to do the same.
I have always been blessed to have access to talented friends. With the idea of a CIA librarian series in mind, I sat down with my right hand at the time, Amy Kerr, and we built Jayne from the ground up. Her snark. Her love of pop culture. Her frustration at not growing up with a mother. In this first iteration, she was raised by her grandmother in a small Tennessee town and was the elder sister to an adorable sprite named Bianca. She felt intense guilt for wanting to stake her claim and move to Nashville to start her own life, and naturally, that was magnified when she was recruited to be a librarian for the CIA—and actually be trained as an undercover operative. We pulled together a comprehensive proposal and synopsis of the first few books, wrote the introductory chapters, and gave it to my agent. He passed it to my publisher. They were less than thrilled. I’d built a name doing a different kind of book, and this didn’t fit their profile of what they saw for my career path. It was a blow, but these things happen in publishing.
We talked long and hard about whether to maybe try doing it on our own through Two Tales, but it felt like too big of a commitment at the time. Jayne was shelved. Amy eventually moved on to another position (boo!) But this idea just would not leave me alone.
Over a year later, the day I hosted a writers' brunch at my house, things changed. We were meant to work in the morning then have the brunch, and of course, as happens when 20 writers get together, we didn’t want to work. We wanted to talk. Only two people sat down and banged out their pages, and one of them was fantasy writer Alisha Klapheke. The thing with co-writing—you need someone of a similar nature when it comes to work ethic. I watched her getting her words done in the maelstrom of this party and thought, Hmm. I admire this work ethic. I’d like to work with her someday. And OHMYGODWHATIFJAYNEWASMAGIC!?!?!?!
I got goosebumps from head to toe. It was one of those capital M moments when you know you’re right on the money; when your gut, your heart, and your head all sing the hallelujah chorus at the same time.
I approached Alisha with the idea and she was game to give it a go. We redesigned the series, plotted out six books, and reframed Jayne’s backstory—absent parents still, but now she was the younger sister who was protected and cherished by the elder. Their grandmother was nonexistent (and there’s a reason for that…stay tuned.)
When Alisha decided to return to the world of epic fantasy after the first book, I could hardly complain. It’s hard to write outside your regular genre, and her world was calling with such intensity she couldn’t dare ignore it. (Her newest book is out, by the way. Go get it!)
Enter R.L. Perez. Rachel has shepherded these books from the 2nd on, developed the Guardians series to handle some of the spin-off back story that needs to be told but isn’t right for the main series, and has turned into quite the writing partner. She, too, has her own series, her own worlds to work in, which you can see here. But that’s proving to be a great companion to the writing of these books. I’m able to give you two novels and two short stories this year because she’s been working her tail off, taking the outlines we create together and giving me awesome drafted work to play with.
All of this to say, I am incredibly grateful to the women who’ve helped get Jayne to this point in her career. They are epically talented, and I’m lucky to be able to work with them, to chat, zoom, have coffee and queso dates, and otherwise watch them grow into incredibly talented individuals on their own terms. Thank you, friends!
And with that… bright blessings for a lovely summer to come, and onward.
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