When I was about 11, maybe 12, I decided I wanted to be a writer. In my twenties I was rejected by enough publishers that I gave up by my thirties. From then until about eight years ago I wrote fanfic and just wrote for myself. Then I ‘met’ Frankie and Christopher, and Ursa and Leo, and all the other characters that they brought with them. (We’re not even going to talk about Mano right now. Don’t get me started.)

I was so excited when I was able to get all my books published.

I was blissfully unaware how brutal the publishing game really is.

You see, I was published by a small publishing house that really didn’t have the money or desire to work with authors and help them succeed. Their goal was to grab up as many authors and books as possible and feather their catalog.

Of course having books sell would be great for them, but they weren’t interested in being inconvenienced to actually do anything to promote their authors.

I found myself in a trap.

I couldn’t write in the worlds I created and publish anything without going through my publisher ….who was doing nothing to help me put books in front of readers. The only thing they would allow were short stories but everything else with the characters/words was theirs.

Until the rights for those books reverted back to me.

For the past 18 months I have been fighting to get the rights back.

During that time I really tried to write other stories in other worlds, but my heart and mind always veered back to these unfinished, abandoned characters and stories. I did manage to get a few short works out, and I enjoyed writing them.

But I have missed the original stories.

Last Friday I got the long awaited notification that the rights to the books are not back in my control.

That means I can move forward again!

In the next few months I plan to re-release the stories and begin putting out new material. It has been far-far too long, but I hope my readers understand that I was not willing to hand over any more of my work to an organization that wasn’t going to work as hard for me as I worked for them to provide writing. Moving forward I’ll be writing for myself and my readers and there won’t be any middle-man in the way of my creativity.

This might be a little too much behind the curtain, but I thought those who have been looking for new material question what I’ve been up to and why I haven’t been releasing new stories about the gang.

I have a few things right away for you all.

1) A fun pre-story with Christopher that provides a little history.

2) A ‘false start’ (cut scenes + different direction the story would have gone) for Lies that Blind

3) A very cute scene with Marcie and Mano that didn’t get included in the Christmas Special (because I had to keep the word count down in order to avoid getting in trouble with the publisher)

4) Some additional cut scenes from various stories that may or may not be included in upcoming stories, but I’m going to share early with people who subscribe to my mailing list.

Good News <tm>