Squawk Radio

Hey, Geralyn Dawson is here! How cool is that? Welcome, Geralyn! !@#$% those bathing suits. You look great in a chicken suit! (Oh, and you were warned in advance about my propensity for profanity, right?)

Okay, first things first. Number one, I commented at length about my cover for THE RING ON HER FINGER below, if anyone's interested in that. And number two, I'll blog at length on Odyssey of the Mind in a coupla days, but I know you guys will be interested to hear about my son's team's placement. In spite of scenery that got broken during shipping, a team member who was sick the day of their long-term problem performance, and two--count 'em TWO--technical glitches with their main vehicle, our guys finished, among 51 teams in their division from all over the world {drum roll please} in NINTH PLACE! Yaaaaaaaay! We are SO !@#$%ing proud of them.

Like I said, more soon, but we have a guest blogger, and I am fascinated to hear of her experiences. Especially since we're both at HQN now. (It is obviously a publisher with excellent taste.)

Now then. I find Geralyn's (and I'VE always pronounced her name correctly, even though I'VE never even been formally introduced) comments about writing a series particularly interesting, since my most recent book, JUST LIKE A MAN, was the first of a series I never planned to write. And I, too, am moving from one publisher to another with the continuation of it. For me, though, the choice to continue the series (or rather, make one book into a series) came about because of secondary characters who kept stumbling into the action, people who were SUPPOSED to be there to simply further the story, but who instead demanded their own.

But now I'm worried about being able to do justice to them all, especially the woman who will be the heroine of the final book. So far, she's been kinda morally ambiguous, and the hero I have planned for her is a tad, um, evil. So my question for Geralyn (and the other Squawkers who have written connected series, for that matter) is: Have you ever worried about writing yourself into a corner on a series? Especially those that have spanned years? All four of my books will get wrapped up pretty quickly, but still. I've done connected series for Desire, but those books were pretty short, and the plots fairly straightforward. With this one, I'm concerned that I'm going to have too many loose ends to tie up in the last book, or, heaven forbid, I'll be completely without resolution. How did you guys handle it?

Help me, Obi-Squawk Kenobis! You're my only hope!