Odd Thoughts part 2

One thing I didn’t address in this morning’s post was all of the ideas and suggestions I get from fans of the books.  I get a ton!  Demon Accords and Zone War fans are heavily invested in both series and I’m hugely thankful for that (hello mortgage my old friend).

I read every email, every idea, and eventually every review.  What I don’t do is always respond.  Mostly because while I love how attached readers have become to my characters and universes, I want to be very careful that the story path, plot, character growth and overall arc is my own.  That’s not to say that readers don’t have great ideas, but I’m first and foremost a storyteller, much more so than a writer, and my stories come from deep within, from life experiences, from observations, from watching my children grow, from people I meet, from conversations with my wife, and from trips I take.

So I’m, hmmmm, I guess territorial would be the term, about each story and each series.  So please know that I read every thought but I don’t engage in dialogue because of this need to keep my writing organically my own.  But keep writing, keep reading and keep musing about my stories because that’s the greatest compliment I can receive.