Special Guest Post & Giveaway from Cat Connor

Morning, afternoon, evening - or all of the above.

I’m Cat Connor, hanging out here for the day talking about writing a series and killing people - two of my favorite things. (The first is fun, the second cathartic.)

In April, my 5th novel was released by Rebel ePublishers. (The proper launch is May 17 at the Upper Hutt City Library.)  Soundbyte is the 5th in what I call The _byte Series. (We all call it the _byte series, because that’s what it is.)

It’s a series about the life and times of a female FBI agent, Ellie Conway. She is so much fun to write that it never seems like work and it’s hard to believe there now 5-byte novels out there.

Before we get into the whole writing a series thing, let’s clarify something - I did not intend to write a series. I intended to write two books with Ellie as the protagonist. She, however, had other ideas.

There is a lot of joy to be had writing a series, the relationships between characters grow over time and change, and that alone is worth the hours of writing. It becomes a very happy place to be as an author (well for me anyway). Sliding into Ellie’s world and catching up with the team, is the best feeling ever. It’s like being surrounded with old friends.

I have no idea how long the series will be because my crystal ball is on the blink. As long as Ellie is telling me/showing me excerpts from her life, I’ll write them.

In saying that though, sometimes I don’t enjoy writing everything I see. Sometimes it sucks. Bad things happen to good people/characters.

Someone once told me (talking about my work) that she loved me but didn’t trust me. She didn’t trust me because I kill my characters. That comment stuck with me. I liked it. That might be a little screwy, but it’s nice to know people don’t quite know what to expect from me. That gives me a lot of freedom when I’m writing. It’s not all happy endings and riding into the sunset, sometimes there is pain and it takes effort and perseverance to get through it.

There are a few things that will always be in the byte novels - but the characters (apart from Ellie, of course) are not set in stone. I don’t know when I start writing a book who will still be standing at the end. So in a lot of ways it takes me by surprise when someone doesn’t make it, and because I KNOW these characters, it hurts when they die or get hurt. That’s also a product of writing first-person. It’s often hard to step back when something horrible is happening. The line blurs sometimes.

To be fair though they don’t just die, sometimes they up and leave on their own accord. Personally, I prefer characters to die rather than leave.

If you would like a chance to win either an ePub or kindle edition of soundbyte - leave a comment on this blog with two elements/things that are in every byte novel and Ms. Taylor will pick a winner on Monday.

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When you leave a comment - please make sure to leave an email address like: JET at Comcast dot com so I can notify the winner.
Until next time,
Ciao
JET