How Aven’s Dream (now the Darkly Dreaming Series) Came About
Aven’s Dream, originally titled Alessa’s Dream, was the very first book I ever finished. I talk about it in detail on The Ever Series page. Writing Aven's Dream was possibly the most fun I’ve had writing. I wrote late at night, around 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. every night, for two months. After 60 days, I had written a novel, then the second book in the series, with plans for a third. Discouragement ensued when I sent it out to literary agencies, and eventually it sat untouched on my hard drive before becoming all but a relic when I got a new computer.
After I finished The Ever Series, I had a moment of nostalgia for Alessa’s Dream and decided to pull it from the ashes and take a look. In April of 2014, I started the exhaustive process of rewriting a 400-pages-plus novel. There was a lot of serendipity going on during that rewrite. Some inspiration came from a random e-mail my mom sent me about people with high empathy. Major scenes that hadn’t existed in the original book started to fall into place.
The characters and tone of the novel changed during the course of the rewrite, and by the end, I had a completely different book on my hands. Suddenly a book that I had never expected to see the light of day was one I desperately wanted to get out there. At the same time, I didn’t want The Ever Series to influence its reception or vice versa, so I took on the original name of my protagonist, Alessa James, and she became Aven Casey (no relation to Ever Casey). ;-)
Will Kincaid, the H of Aven’s Dream, is the original blond god of hotness of my now trio of blond gods of hotness.
After all that, I decided to split Aven's Dream into three distinct parts of The Darkly Dreaming Series. I rewrote significant portions (again) and turned it into a serial. The story has changed a lot over the years, and I think it finally got to the point where I wanted it to go!
Aven’s Dream, originally titled Alessa’s Dream, was the very first book I ever finished. I talk about it in detail on The Ever Series page. Writing Aven's Dream was possibly the most fun I’ve had writing. I wrote late at night, around 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. every night, for two months. After 60 days, I had written a novel, then the second book in the series, with plans for a third. Discouragement ensued when I sent it out to literary agencies, and eventually it sat untouched on my hard drive before becoming all but a relic when I got a new computer.
After I finished The Ever Series, I had a moment of nostalgia for Alessa’s Dream and decided to pull it from the ashes and take a look. In April of 2014, I started the exhaustive process of rewriting a 400-pages-plus novel. There was a lot of serendipity going on during that rewrite. Some inspiration came from a random e-mail my mom sent me about people with high empathy. Major scenes that hadn’t existed in the original book started to fall into place.
The characters and tone of the novel changed during the course of the rewrite, and by the end, I had a completely different book on my hands. Suddenly a book that I had never expected to see the light of day was one I desperately wanted to get out there. At the same time, I didn’t want The Ever Series to influence its reception or vice versa, so I took on the original name of my protagonist, Alessa James, and she became Aven Casey (no relation to Ever Casey). ;-)
Will Kincaid, the H of Aven’s Dream, is the original blond god of hotness of my now trio of blond gods of hotness.
After all that, I decided to split Aven's Dream into three distinct parts of The Darkly Dreaming Series. I rewrote significant portions (again) and turned it into a serial. The story has changed a lot over the years, and I think it finally got to the point where I wanted it to go!