Unfettered Unpacked

Hey, everyone! Happy day-after-release-day to you! I’m super excited that my book is now available for download as an e-book from Amazon as well as in paperback form! It seems like I’ve been waiting to get this book out to you forever, but most of the stories weren’t even written three months ago. So, this book has actually been a pretty quick turnaround.

In light of that and some of you, hopefully, taking the leap to buy my book (Thank you!), let’s talk about how I set it up and what you’ll find in each category. First, however, I need to apologize. A few weeks back, I’d mentioned that I was going to include a description of each story in the Table of Contents; I did not do that. When I tried, it made the ToC far too long (over six pages!), so I had to take that part out. I’m sorry. Consider this your guide to all things Unfettered if you’re hesitant to read anything.

I decided to split Unfettered into the six main sections of fiction: Inspirational, Romance, Fantasy, Crime, Sci-Fi, and Horror. As I explained in my author’s note, I did not use the Inspirational category specifically for stories with faith-based content; instead, I adopted a broader meaning of the word, using that section for feel-good stories about friendship and feelings. There are four stories in that section, and each one is quite different from the next. My favorite is the first one; that one was one I specifically wrote for myself with no intention of publishing it. However, when I read over it again during the editing process, I connected with it again and felt compelled to share.

The next section was Romance. I had a difficult time choosing which stories I wanted to use there because there are many stories that had an element of love and romance in them. I think the whole book, in some form or another, could have fit in this section. It appears it’s nearly impossible for me to keep that element out of my writing. However, I finally settled on four stories for that section. There’s one about shadows becoming their own living, breathing race and their two leaders falling in love. There’s one about a book character falling in love with its author; there’s a throwback to the Renaissance period that finds two characters of very different socio-economic backgrounds falling for one another. My personal favorite in that section, however, is the last one. There’s a lot of me in the main female character, and I love her attitude throughout the story.

Then comes Fantasy. This is the longest section of the book, comprised of 11 stories. Now, just because I put them in the fantasy section doesn’t mean that magic or mystical elements are the focus of each story. In fact, I would say that, for the most part, magic isn’t the focus of many of my stories. Instead, each of the stories in the Fantasy section is driven by magic; it’s important, but it’s not the focus. In this section, I love both the first and last stories, and I’ll tell you that if you mostly want to steer clear of magic, they’re fairly safe (as long as you don’t mind fairytale elements). In this section as well, you’ll find two stories that fit together: An Extended Curse and Sleeping “JJ” Beauty. Though you don’t have to read them in order or even both of them if you don’t want to, characters from the first story do appear in the second story briefly.

After Fantasy is Crime. Crime is also a fairly large section, though not as long as Fantasy. Crime contains seven stories, and my favorite is probably the first one. For a long time, when I was considering how I wanted to break up the stories in this book, I had considered doing murder and suspense as the categories instead of Crime and Horror. However, when I began to actually look into dividing them that way, I realized that I only had one story that actually featured a murder. Everything else would have to go into the suspense category because, while it might feature death, the death didn’t happen over the course of the story. In the end, even dividing them this way, the murder story is still my favorite and was probably the easiest story to write during August.

Then, we come to the Sci-Fi section. There are only five stories there, two of which deal with aliens. You’ll find quickly that Sci-Fi is not really my thing. It’s fun to read, and I certainly had a good time writing the five stories in this section. However, writing a full-length Sci-Fi book is probably not in my future. I won’t say never because I don’t want to limit my creativity in any way; if I’m someday inspired to write a full-length Sci-Fi novel, I will do my best. You’ll see, as you get into this section, that I wrote a three-part series here, one that I think my husband would recommend. At least, that seemed to be his favorite part when he read through some of my stories. These can be read individually if you want as the events don’t heavily rely on one another from story to story. However, there will be some character confusion if you don’t read them in order. I’ll leave that all up to you.

The last section of the book is Horror. There are only two stories in this section, but they’re both fairly long. Both of these stories were written a few years ago, and they’re stories I’ve loved for a while now. It was fun to go back over them and see how much my writing has changed, even just in the last few years. I love both of them, so I really can’t choose a favorite. If you pressured me, however, I’d probably say that the last one is the most surprising of the two, even though the first one has a big plot twist, too. You’ll have to let me know which one you think is better.

So, that’s that for my new book. Unfettered is very near and dear to my heart, and I’m glad I was able to put this together and get it out into the world as quickly as I did. I want my next release, however, to be a full-length novel. With NaNoWriMo just around the corner, I think it’s doable; maybe I’ll be publishing again in February or March.

I want to remind you, in case you missed it, that I’ll have a new newsletter coming out tomorrow as well as next week. I’m not sure what all will be included, but there will probably be some new writing in them, so keep your eyes peeled for that. As always, thanks for joining me here week after week and reading what is undoubtedly wild rambling sometimes. It means a lot. Check back next week for a new post, and if you want to get my newsletters, be sure to sign up at the bottom of any page on my website. Thanks again for reading, and I’ll see you here next week. Bye!