Writing Outside My Comfort Zone

I confess: I’m not into fan fiction. It’s just not my thing. I’ve always been the kind of writer who likes to create my own world and characters. As a reader, I’ve just never explored all the fan fiction out there.

But I am a fan of several series. I adore Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache series and Deanna Raybourn’s Lady Julia Grey series. I’m also a huge fan of Marina Adair’s St. Helena Vineyard series. Full disclosure, Marina is a friend and I started reading the series soon after we became friends on Twitter. (Who says you can’t become real friends over social media?)

We’ve kept up with one another over the years and just last year we actually met in person at the annual Romance Writer’s of America Conference.

When I read the news about Marina’s “Autumn in the Vineyard” being optioned by Hallmark and going into production for THIS fall, I was thrilled and almost felt like it was happening to me. (It turns out I wasn’t the only writer friend who felt that way.)  When success comes to good people, there is much rejoicing among other writers.

In true Marina fashion, she spread the love around. She decided that for the launch of the movie she was going to have 20 of her author friends write novellas for the St. Helena Vineyard Kindle World. (Kindle World is Amazon’s answer to fan-fiction.) When I received the email, there was no question in my mind, I wanted to pursue this.

I’ve been involved in anthologies and other group promo efforts or publishing ventures and I’ve learned some lessons the hard way. I approach these projects with caution. But I know Marina is a class act and surmised that the writers included would be a fantastic group to work with—and they were. We all worked hard at promoting. But even before publication, we formed strong bonds. Our novellas had to be written and edited in six to eight weeks. We were all writing furiously, sharing names of editors and cover designers. Some of us were doing writing sprints, checking in with one another every hour. We were the kind of community every writer craves.

Not only were the other writers a supportive bunch, but Marina herself was always available for a chat if we ran into problems with plot or anything else.

I looked at this opportunity as a way to spread my wings a bit. I am mostly a mystery writer. I write a scrapbooking-themed cozy mystery series and new craft retreat mystery series. I wanted to write a romance in Marina’s world, while maintaining my brand. I decided on plenty of heat, but no graphic sex scenes. I wanted my cozy mystery readers to come along with me for the ride. For the record, I have nothing against a great sex scene, I just thought it would be too big of a switch for most of my readers.

The next decision was that my main female character would be a weaver and fiber artist. Because I’ve written about crafters in my other books, this is the second decision I made to keep this romance novella in my brand.

Marina gave us the freedom to do what we wanted. All heat levels were welcome. Any level of her character’s involvement was also welcome.

My character Joey, ”Josefina” Roma is a friend of Marina’s character Shane, the local animal rescuer, though Shane never makes an appearance in “The Beekeeper’s Bride.” We know about their friendship through mentions. And Shane’s husband Jonah is the sheriff.  My characters have circumstance to get to know him.

One of my favorite characters from Marina’s series, Clovis,  does a walk on bit.  Great fun.

Marina has created an interesting community to write about. There are five books in the original series and three in a spin-off  St. Helena Hero series. It ‘s rich and varied series, with fabulous characters. Why not continue writing in this world?

I might. I certainly would like to write more about that characters I created in this story—but I’d definitely have to do it in Marina’s Kindle World—one of the drawbacks to the publishing agreement is that you can’t take your characters outside of the world.

At this point,  it’s the only drawback I’ve found in the whole experience. The writers were great to work with and Amazon was organized and efficient.

I’m not certain how much we earned in sales or even how many books were sold. But we had high enough Kindle Worlds rating that a number of us can now call ourselves “Kindle Worlds Bestseller.” But the hard sales figures have yet to come trickling in. A new Kindle Worlds icon sits on my sales dashboard, but it’s too early yet for those results.

With an experience like this,  I found that sales are really beside the point. Meeting and working with the other writers, challenging  myself to go beyond my comfort zone, and just being associated with Marina Adair and her world,  was worth every frantic  minute I spent writing “The Beekeeper’s Bride. “

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Mollie Cox Bryan is the author of the Agatha-award nominated Cumberland Creek Mysteries and the new series: “Cora Crafts Mysteries.” The first book is DEATH AMONG THE DOILIES. She’s also penned a historical fiction: MEMORY OF LIGHT: AN AFTERMATH OF GETTYSBURG. She’s also the author of the Kindle Worlds bestselling THE BEEKEEPER’S BRIDE, A ST. HELENA VINEYARD KINDLE WORLD novella.

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips