Some of you know I’m rewriting the last part of Daughters of Suralia, the sequel to The Marann. I was never happy with the original ending, but a few nights ago, inspiration struck. I deleted the last chapter, cut the penultimate chapter in half, and sat up writing until 3 in the morning.
The resulting replacement chapters had my husband bolting out his chair, exclaiming, “Wow! That is beautiful!” You’d think I would be happy, but unfortunately I had no idea what he was going on about. So my first thought was, I don’t feel like getting up to look at another Facebook meme, and I frowned. Well, actually, to be honest, I scowled, but DH (that’s Dear Husband) didn’t see that. I wiped the expression off my face before he turned to face me where I lay on the couch, reading a book.
I’m happy with what I wrote. Now I need to weave it neatly with the other loose ends and finish the book on a satisfying conclusion. That won’t be quite so easy, because when I went racing off into parts unknown, I left several things hanging in the air from the beginning of the last part of the book. Things that need to be resolved, because I hate, loathe, and despise cliffhangers. Things that make me feel like the book is out of control. It’s in uncharted territory. Off the reservation. It’s going to take some time and some thought to bring it back into line.
For the curious (and I assume you are, or you wouldn’t be reading this), Daughters of Suralia is about events taking place during the summer and autumn after the Sural cuts off diplomatic relations with Earth. One might argue he never had a formal relationship with Earth, but whatever you want to call it, at the end of The Marann, it went from that to none. Marianne’s life transitions from that of welcomed outsider to member of the family, and the road is a bit bumpy. New characters appear. Old characters reappear. And like life, events just happen.
Like The Marann, there is no explicit sex. You won’t find erotic romance in Tolari space, at least not at the present time. The Marann is not erotic and doesn’t pretend to be, though that hasn’t stopped some from leveling that at me as an accusation. I can only shrug and shake my head.
Unlike The Marann, there isn’t as much plot. There isn’t meant to be. Daughters of Suralia is a slice of life. Marianne survives and thrives and copes with the alien aspects of Tolari culture. The title is indicative of the focus. How many different ways is it possible to be a daughter of Suralia? Answer: more than you’d think.
While I write Daughters of Suralia, be on the lookout for Into Tolari Space: The First Contact Stories, which I am polishing for a mid-month release.
And now I must get back to saving one of my characters from himself. <grin>
I want to applaud you for not writing erotica. I have read so many books with an interesting premise that degenerated into a very thin plot linking sex scenes. After a while, I find myself skipping them, trying to find the next point where the plot takes up.
That being said, if the scene is important to the story, that is okay too. Recently I read two books: one had two bedroom scenes (both important to the story being told), and the other one skipped the actual act but did the before part and the after part. Both were great books. I put this is the another post but the one with the bedroom scenes was "What I Did For a Duke" and the one with the explicit sex left out was "Morning Comes Softly" by Debbie Macomber. Both were excellent.