About The Undying
Eden and I met on a writing site called TheNextBigWriter.com back in 2006. We were tentative friends and we both attended group AIM chats with other members of that community. In November of that year, we both decided to NaNoWriMo (Nation Novel Writer’s month). I worked on one of my Elburon novels while she started a Romantic suspense novel called Here With Me. I helped her with plot and character development via AIM, and pushed her into getting the 50,000 words done for the month. She got to the word goal just in time, but, the novel was only half finished. I wasn’t about to get only half a novel, so I pushed her to finish and by Jan 3, 2007, she had a completed novel, and I was supper happy to get the whole story. We kept talking AIM (Almost nightly, I think we both have some strange form of OCD) and from there, our characters and plots started to mingle as we talked into the wee hours of the morning. I don’t know when it happened, but at some point, we decided to write a series of romances together based on the premise of Here With Me.
That’s how it all started. I am a fantasy writer by nature with heavy romantic tendencies, so it was easy for me to slip into the romance genera, but, my characters would never fully flesh out for me. There always seemed like there was something missing. Then Eden suggested I just write my characters with the fantasy flare I’d first envisioned them with, and bam, magic started to happen. Meanwhile, Eden was having the darnedest time trying to get Mica’s and Emma’s Dragon story written. She attempted several false starts, and we were both frustrated. I wanted a story, and she wanted happy characters. Then, by some miracle of Christmas or the New Year in 2009 (Yes, it’s been that long) we both picked up the same paranormal Romance at the bookstore. (No, I will not tell you which one.) Eden, being afraid of magic and all things fantastical in her own writing, suggested that one of the characters have a really long life span, and the Undying Males were born from there.
That same day (almost that second) I stated Undying Savage with Donovan and Haven, and Eden started Undying Dragon with Mica and Emma. The world has blown up into something huge, and I have to admit that it is mostly my fault because these stories breed like rabbits in my imagination. I finish one, and two more come to mind. Usually because there is some male or female character I think needs a mate by the end of the story I am currently working on.
The novel/Short Story count has held stable for the last few weeks, and I am hoping to keep it that way. There are some novels I am writing solo, and Eden is doing the same, and there are some novels we will co-writing. We get along for the most part, and we are able to resolve issues without too much arguing and tears. We have a good working relationship, and it gets better with each conflict we resolve together. It’s almost like a marriage, yikes! But honestly, I love to work with Eden, and I am pretty sure she feels the same way about me.
Now, if we could only manage to find a way to have a weekend getaway in Chicago again. No kids, no husbands, just two writers and their laptops. Sounds like heaven, yes, I think it does, too. We’ll have to figure out how to make it work.
This is a place to chronicle the writing, editing, selling and then marketing of the Undying Series. The blog author reads as Haven or Seren. Haven is one of the characters in the Undying series. She is the life-bond of the powerful and deadly Quinn Donovan. Haven is one of my favorite characters, so I used her name to help create the blog dedicated to the world Eden Ashe and I made for her. Seren is also one of the characters of the Undying series. She is the life-bond of the powerful Adrian Cage. She is one of Eden’s favorite characters, so she will use Seren’s name to help me chronicle this mad porject.
We hope this blog does at least one of two things.
We are also hopping it will show the difficulty in which a writer has to go through to become a published author. We say we will because we do believe the words of Yoda: Do or do not, there is no try.
For us, writing has a few key ingredients that have to be all mixed together to make an author. Raw talent, the ability to learn the craft, skin thicker than an Elephant’s behind, and more stubbornness than a mule. It’s a tough business, but we will make it because we said we will.