The Soul of the Earth is Now Available in Paperback!

It’s only been two months since I released the paperback for The Light of Eternity, but I’ve decided to put out this series’ paperbacks as quickly as possible. I wanted to catch up so that when the third book goes live in December, people can get the digital and paperback copies at the same time. (It’s the first time I’ll be doing a simultaneous release!)

To that end, I would like to talk a little more about the development of the Eternity’s Empire series. I know I’ve been spending a lot of time on it with the individual chapters releasing every other month. But the sheer amount of research that has gone into the series means I have a lot of notes to share.

This series has always been full of surprises.

My biggest confession is that I originally planned an entirely different ending for the series. When I first sat down to write, I envisioned a long series of trials that ended in the rewinding of time. I hadn’t quite worked out the logistics, but I know it would have involved recruiting a number of time goddesses. This is something Chronos never could have done on her own.

But I abandoned the idea for a number of reasons. The first was that it simply felt too much like a cheat. Time loops that erase the consequences of characters’ actions can work, but they have to be treated delicately. My original plan would have erased a significant chunk of the series’ action and that sat ill with me. If readers are going to invest five or more books worth of time on my characters, the least I can do is make that investment worthwhile.

The second reason I abandoned my original ending was that it would have cast a lot of potential gloom on certain romantic relationships, and that’s something I want to avoid at all costs. Too much lesbian fiction ends with either sad endings or bittersweet endings, and I feel like my characters really deserve happy endings, even if they have to fight tooth and nail for them.

But ultimately, the main reason I abandoned my original ending was that the story presented a scenario that I liked much better, and I simply couldn’t resist going for it. As a result, the unwinding of time happened much sooner than anticipated, and with much different results.

When a door opens, go through it!

I mentioned in my last series of behind the scenes posts that I write this series almost entirely off plan. Which might make you wonder just when it jumped the track. The answer is at the beginning of chapter six (Soul of the Earth). I had some inkling it was going to happen prior to that. Enough to at least modify the ending of chapter five (Dark Rituals) to prepare for the new course. But it wasn’t until I started chapter six that I abandoned my original outline.

Lots of writers lament when their characters and plots deviate from their plans. I’m guilty of the same. It’s hard to watch your carefully laid foundation crumble. Especially when any attempt to save it turns into a huge headache.

But I’ve long believed in walking through any doors that open themselves to me. Often my characters have a better understanding of who they are and where they want to go than I do. And I’ve learned not to question it. As long as I can see the benefit in walking the new path, I tend to dive right in.

In this case, I’m happy I dove off the beaten path and never looked back. Perhaps the funnest thing about rolling with this change was getting to play around in a world that was actively changing. A world in which my characters knew they could act without severe consequences. Seeing who stuck to the rules and who took advantage gave me a lot of insight into each character’s personality. And it also allowed me to raise the stakes in interesting ways. Erica might not need to pay her massive credit card bill, for example, but one wrong move and she might accidentally cease to exist!

More fun with covers!

As I mentioned previously, I make all of the covers for the Eternity’s Empire series. It has really pushed me to learn my way around Photoshop again. Though the most challenging part of making a cover is often gathering the base images from various stock photo sites. Sometimes I can’t find what I really want. But often I stumble upon something I wasn’t really looking for that ends up working better.

For the second book I focused less on objects and more on the atmosphere of each chapter. I tried to choose images that either matched a specific scene or embodied the chapter’s overall theme. Which led to some really interesting covers. Sun Goddess’s Gambit and Crumbling Reality might just be my favorite of the bunch.

The only one that really tripped me up was Warrior’s Folly. I had already used the perfect image for it on Guardian’s Oath and I didn’t want the two covers to be overly similar, or people might get them mixed up. The chess pieces seemed clever at the time, but it’s actually the only cover in the series I dislike.

Of course, when it came time to choose the final cover it was easy. Featuring Shima / Gaea was the best way to make the cover a twin for the first book. And I used the base image of the sixth chapter so that it would once again be grounded in the original concepts.

If you’re enjoying this peek behind the scenes of the making of Eternity’s Empire, be sure to join me on Friday for another round of concept art reveals! And don’t forget to grab your copy of this shiny new paperback!

Pick up your copy of the paperback today!

The war is centuries old,
the tangle impossibly complex.

Shima Watson thought she was an innocent bystander caught in a power struggle beyond her ability to influence. Until the awakening of her dormant powers triggered a series of latent memories.

Now the guardians of Aeternitas know the truth. But the truth can’t reverse the damage.

Poised on the brink of war, the guardians of Aeternitas must now work with the same people who hunted them mere hours before. But the alliance is tenuous at best. And it seems not all their former enemies are interested in working together.

Time is running out; but if the threat of war can’t unite them, what else can?

Fans of Sailor Moon and Stargate will enjoy this clever mythological mashup. Grab your copy today!

This book contains chapters 6-10 of the Eternity’s Empire saga (Soul of the Earth, Guardian’s Oath, Crumbling Reality, Warrior’s Folly, and Sun Goddess’s Gambit), previously published separately.