I’ve been working like a crazy person for the last two weeks, and finally it’s finished. I’ve written the final draft of what I hope will be the first in a new series of books for the lovely people at Blushing Books!

I think it’s the most concentrated period of writing I’ve ever done. Time restraints have forced me to sit down and bloody well write this thing. No sitting and pondering the deep meaning of every single word choice – just prop myself up in the corner of the sofa, move the cat from my notes, open up Word and go for it. I edited as I wrote, often going back mid-chapter to tweak, re-word and often hit the delete key with so much force that I think it won’t work properly now.

Previously, I had a completed, imperfect MS and then went back to redraft the whole thing as a unit. This time, it’s been a constant process of editing as I went along. I’m not sure which is the most useful way to handle editing and re-drafting, or whether I can manage this editing style when I have to return to a 5000 word a week schedule, rather than 40000 words in 50+ hours of one week like I’ve done this time.

I’m glad this book is done. It works as a stand alone story, as well as leading into a bigger cast of characters. I have 20000 words of the second in the series, which had been intended to be the first. That’s been sitting on my hard drive for about a year and will need a bit of a re-write to make it fit with what I’ve established in this, but it does give me an impetus to finish it now. I was stuck – it’s far more sexually explicit than the stuff I’ve written before,a nod there’s a big shift away from just spanking to more bdsm and power exchange stuff. I think I needed a lead-in to it, which is what the first novel is.  What that toys with, the second will jump straight into.

I’ve popped my bdsm cherry, so to speak, and now I’m ready to explore!