On sequels

It may seem insane to be working on sequels to a book that hasn’t been published yet, but that’s where I am right now. When I was writing Venus, I didn’t think of sequels–I was too caught up in the story. But when I got to the end, I felt bereft! I couldn’t spend any more time with my characters, and I’d spent so much time and effort creating them, and the town they lived in. I wanted to go back there! Fortunately, I’d endowed the hero with three brothers (without actually planning it out–I swear). The first sequel, working title Wedding Bell Blues, was an easy one to plot out. The hero and heroine of Venus wanted to get married, which meant reintroducing all the characters I’d created before, along with the brothers. Actually, it wasn’t all that easy. I had to get help from my “plotting workshop” compadres to get it all planned out, but it’s now done, waiting for my final edits before I send it off to be looked at. Right now, I’m working on sequel 2, working title Be My Baby. Much harder, as it turns out. But hey, I still get to hang out with all the folks in Konigsburg, Texas, my make-believe town. I’ve even got plans for sequel 3, since I’ve still got one more brother to take care of. I think that’s the origin of sequels, really. You fall in love with your characters and you don’t want to leave them. Or you want to know what happens to them after you write The End. Or you think you’ve left them with unfinished business that really needs to be cleared up. I’m sure writers like Jo Beverley and Julia Quinn are much more systematic than that, but not me. I just want to stick around in Konigsburg.

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Venus is Coming

Right now my first novel, Venus in Blue Jeans, is working its way through the publishing process at Samhain Publishing. I’ve got a tentative blurb, that looks like this:

Coming off a broken engagement to a lying charmer, all bookstore-owner Docia Kent wants is a fling, not a long-term romance. And for her fabulously wealthy and fabulously nosy parents to butt out of her life for a while. The Texas Hill Country town of Konigsburg looks like the perfect place to get both. Especially when she gets a look at long, tall country-vet Cal Toleffson.

Cal has other plans for Docia. One glance at the six-foot version of Botticelli’s Venus, and he knows he’s looking at the woman of his dreams. Now if he can just fend off the eccentric characters of Konigsburg long enough to convince her romance isn’t such a bad idea.

One night of mind-blowing sex isn’t the only thing that leaves them both stunned. Cal may not be as innocent as he seems. While someone else is up to no good, putting both Docia’s bookstore and her life in danger!” Once again she finds her trust tested—was she ever meant to have a happily ever, after all?

I started writing Venus almost two years ago–two years of critique groups (thanks, guys!), contests, and submissions until Venus was contracted by Samhain this summer. It’s due out in January and I’ll try to keep everyone posted of its progress on this blog. But it’s been a long, sort of see-sawing journey, sometimes euphoric, frequently not (in one contest I got a 93, a 98, and a 54–since there was no discrepancy judging, I was out of luck!). Anyway, come January, Venus should be gracing the electronic shelves and everybody else can see what I’ve been obsessing over all this time.

 

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Site is Up!

Well sort of! http://www.megbenjamin.com/ is supposed to be up. All the files are there and I can see it through the console at my ISP, but the site itself isn’t yet coming up in my browser. I’m hopeful it will be there soon, though. And then I’ll talk about it. Until then, Hello, World!

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