Returning to Stronghold

Well now that Dealing With Discipline is out I am back to focusing on Stronghold!  Although of course I am also spending some time writing Seduction by Spanking, the third book of the Domestic Discipline Quartet.  But the main focus is on Stronghold!  Which will be out sometime this fall, depending on how fast I can write it.  

The first several chapters are already written and Adam and Angel are developing wonderfully as characters.  I hope you've all enjoyed the teasers I've already posted on the blog, hopefully should have another one in a couple of weeks =)  

It's kind of funny, I originally based Adam and Angel off of hubby and me, but the more I write the farther they get away from being anything like hubby and me.  Which is good.  They have their own lives and their own problems and so they're developing differently, but it's kind of fascinating for me so see what traits of mine Angel holds onto and how she's different.  She's also not quite the way I originally planned her to be... but I think she's become more interesting.

Originally my character outline for her was similar to Jessica and Hilary's.  Lives in an apartment (although by herself), has a best friend that she spends a lot of time talking to, works in an office building... blah blah blah.  Her other close friends were mostly going to be guys and she was going to be a little nerdy, read a lot, play video games and be a tomboy, very similar to me.  Then as I started writing her, she started insisting on some changes that I had to go back and make.  She's keeping the best friend, but she's now living in a house with three of her guy friends who are all gamers.  She doesn't work in an office, she makes costume pieces which she sells on Etsy and teaches women's self-defense classes, and occasionally substitute teaches at the ballroom dance studio her parents own.  She's much more of a free spirit.

Which, really, makes her even more of a good match for Adam.  I'm learning more about him as I write too, although if you've read the Venus Quartet then you already know the basics.  His self-contained and overly controlled little world needs a bit of a good shake-up as far as I'm concerned, and Angel is just the one to give it to him.  

At the moment my goal is to have this out before Halloween, but that will also depend on Adam and Angel.  Lately I've noticed that my characters have gotten much more involved in the story lines than ever before which means they sometimes take unexpected turns that I hadn't planned on - especially when one of the characters is as dominant as Adam or as unpredictable as Angel (who has already had me change quite a bit about her).  So we'll see... but I'm hopeful that it won't take more than a couple months of dedicated writing =)