Anniversary for Vicious Circle + Launching the Prequel
Hello creatives!
I’ve been reflecting a lot on the last year and how I’ve done so much in 12 months.
I published Vicious Circle, which has taken a lifetime to write and will consume much of my creative energy for the rest of my life.
I’ve written, produced, and directed my first short film based on a few scenes from the book. I’ll do a longer post with my learnings later.
I’ve written a prequel novel that takes place 3 years before the opening scene to Vicious Circle. It’s called Honest Lies and pre-orders will be available Oct 27th, 2024 which is the 1 year anniversary of Vicious Circle (happy book birthday!). The prequel will be released July 26, 2024.
Why a prequel instead of a sequel?
Well, for starters, I started the process of filing a few trademarks for Vicious Circle as a book and tv/film adaptation. Books are only granted trademarks when they are a series and there’s sort of a “hurry up and wait” timeline associated with filing a trademark. A friend recommended I do a prequel instead of a sequel because of how intimidating writing a a sequel felt. I want to get the next step of the story right and do the characters justice.
With a prequel, most of the story was already laid out with a definitive end. There are scenes in the prequel that the characters mention in passing in Vicious Circle. It’s easier to write with a pre-determined goal than to jump head first into the messy middle of the series which is still forming itself in many ways despite me always having a clear end to the series in mind. At any rate, it’s been fun to explore where the characters were before they all really knew each other and before their lives turned upside down.
To further alleviate the fear of publishing something subpar, I decided to keep the prequel as a novella, giving each of the narrating characters from Vicious Circle 1-2 chapters in the prequel and give a surprise character their own POV before calling it done. Setting these boundaries is honestly very freeing. I don’t want to publish because I have to, I want to publish because I want to. These characters have lived with me for so long that I need to do right by them. They feel like people to me. Probably because I’ve embedded them with pieces of myself and people I’ve crossed paths with over the years.
What I've learned about my writing style.
Since I’ve been writing and re-writing since literally elementary school, I thought I’d share some things I’ve learned about my writing style.
I can't sit down and write every day. Some writers can do this and it works for them, but it has never worked for me. I need time to breathe between writing sessions. When I do sit down to write, I write in 6+ hour sprints and then don't touch it for weeks, sometimes months. I’ll often go back and be pleasantly surprised at what I had written! I’ll sometimes think “Oh, did I write that? I’m a creative genius!”
I like to think through the plot and the implications down the road. I think this is the biggest reason why I write in sprints, because the plot to me isn’t just a device for shock value or to push an arbitrary arc along. This is a world. I try to think through how I can build on details across multiple books. This is the biggest reason why Vicious Circle is 150,000 words. There are a lot of "background" details in the book that will have ongoing impact across the series. Like the multiple references to an Elixir shortage. Faction jumping. I won’t give away too many hints, but you get the picture. I do get the feeling that the rest of the series will be more in line with genre conventions hovering between 75,000 and 90,000 words though. Especially since this prequel has taught me that I can write a lot tighter. I’m hoping important details don’t get lost in the sauce by the beta readers though.
I look at real world parallels to draw inspiration. I think growing up in such a small town and then moving to New York City has made me a very persistent people watcher. Add in the fact that a through line in my career has been research, strategy and insights and you get a recipe for insatiable curiosity. Local issues ladder up to become patterns in global problems. This is something I hope to show across the Vicious Circle series. I can tell when a reader talks to me and they love the story at face value versus when a reader understands some of the themes I was trying to convey. I appreciate both and I think it shows that Vicious Circle is the type of book that everyone will get what they want out of it, much like life.
Sometimes I add details to characters' stories or to the Vicious Circle world building with no idea how I'm going flesh it out later. While I plan all I can before a writing sprint, sometimes the story and characters have a mind of their own and they say stuff or mention stuff that feels right even if I have no idea where it’s going. I hope to fill it in as I go. There's one chapter in the prequel that was a total surprise to me yet it perfectly fit with the details I added to not one but two characters' backstories in Vicious Circle. A similar situation has happened in one of the very rough scenes I’ve written out for the sequel based on flippant comments a few characters make in Vicious Circle but the bigger backstory has developed larger plot implications. These moments in my writing are the most fun.
The many iterations of Vicious Circle.
As I mentioned, the story of Vicious Circle has had many many iterations over the years and I’ve been sitting on these juicy behind the scenes fun facts for far too long. I'll share a few of the bigger ones here:
Ellie was going to be a triplet with an older brother. It made things way too complicated. She also had the most name changes out of all the characters. The triplets were originally named Madison, Allison, and Emerson. Elizabeth was chosen as a neutral name for an upper middle class family. Only after publishing it have I seen a bunch of books with main characters named Elizabeth which I now kind of regret. Legit at the very last second I had to change her last name too from Elizabeth Rhodes to Elizabeth Reid because I saw another book in the scifi/fantasy genre with a character named Elizabeth Rhodes which made me nervous. Better to be safe than sorry.
Dalton was at one point Japanese American because of Yumi in Code Lyoko. This changed because in high school because I watched a lot of BBC and the humor influenced me to write an English character. As I got into college, I realized I shouldn't write a character from a culture I didn't have at least some relationship with. Hence, he's still half American so it can cover up any mistakes from English/UK culture.
Josefina at one point was a white girl named Jacqueline. I realized in the second to last revision of the book that her family had very strong loyalties to each other, which is much more common in hispanic cultures than white American culture. So, I changed her name to Josefina and her sister's name from Catherine to Catalina and added a few details where they speak in Spanish.
The Robbins brothers were always around, but Isaiah was at one point their cousin. Their relationship felt more like brothers so I made that change. Their family history is something I'm looking forward to explore a little more. I've hinted at things that I’m excited to see if readers piece together.
Alice Ezumah's name is pronounced "Uh-lees" not "Ah-liss". She’s one of my favorite secondary characters that will have a growing role as the series progresses.
There were originally like 20 characters with points of view chapters. Some versions of them will be met in future books as side characters. Many were consolidated into one character because they lacked purpose in the plot or I didn't know how to make them feel real on their own. I have sketches of some of them still in a journal from 7th grade somewhere I think.
This blog has gotten long so I’ll stop here. Stay tuned for more fun announcements and ramblings as I grow into calling myself a published author and filmmaker.
Until Next Time,
Rochele