Remember when I said I had a pilot chapter? Well... Here's some news...

Hi everyone,

You all know I'm not much of a blogger. When a post from me shows up, it usually means disaster has struck and a chapter of Plot Twist in Paradise is going to be late or early… or actually on time. So if you saw this and your stomach dropped a little, you can relax. Nothing's late. Nothing's broken. Not yet, at least.

Remember my last blog post, when I told you my muse was standing over me with a riding crop and wouldn't let me rest? I said I'd see how far I could get with that pilot chapter, and that I'd keep going if I found solid footing?

Well, it seems like I found it. That one chapter has turned into a few, and there's another one partially done with the cursor blinking at me. The story even has a working title now: There's Something About Jessica. Working titles and I don't have the most loyal relationship, so we'll see if this one sticks.

I'm pantsing this story, the same way I did with The Girl I Undressed, which anyone who followed Plot Twist in Paradise will find pretty funny, since that one was mapped out from start to finish. This time I knew there was going to be no map. My muse, it turns out, had other ideas.

Here's what I really want to tell everyone…

When I wrote The Girl I Undressed, I kept everything around it vague on purpose. I never named the city. The story lived almost entirely between its two main characters, and only two other people ever really made it onto the page. One of them was barely there at all and still left a mark on both the main characters. That story didn't need a world around it. It only needed its main characters, and I'm not sure why, but I thought it was the right thing to do at the time.

Then, somewhere around Chapter 2 of this new story, things started to feel familiar. I'd be in the middle of a scene and get this little tug, like walking down a road you're sure you've been on before. I couldn't put my finger on it at first, so I just let those thoughts go. Then I caught my muse with her riding crop tucked under her arm and a map in her hands, a map of a city I never named, and I realized she'd been walking me back there the whole time. This story lives in the same world as The Girl I Undressed.

And now my muse has ideas. Well… so do I.

The biggest question that kept coming back to me was: what if this world is bigger than TGIU? What if it holds stories about more than just the characters from TGIU, or even the ones I'm writing about now? A home for a lot of the stories I want to tell, with people living their own lives in their own corners of it, and every so often you turn a page and… Well… I'm not going to finish that sentence. Mostly because I haven't figured out how to finish it myself yet. But the idea makes me ridiculously excited, so I had to talk about it.

Before anyone's hopes run too far ahead: this isn't a sequel to TGIU. I know I've said in the past that I would write a sequel, but this isn't it. This one is its own story with its own people. How long it ends up being is something my brain and my heart are going to have to fight out. Usually, it's my heart that wins.

To everyone who loved The Girl I Undressed, thank you, truly. I still can't quite believe how many of you took those characters to heart and gave them so much love and warmth. It has meant more to me than I'll ever manage to say in a blog post, and it's a big part of why I'm this excited now. I can't wait to show you who else lives in that world.

I'll probably share some more of my thoughts soon. The next chapter is waiting, and my muse is tapping that riding crop against her palm, so I'd better go.

Love,
Emma

P.S. there's another song on repeat as I try to tackle this story... Here are some lyrics

Oh, her eyes, her eyes
Make the stars look like they're not shinin'
Her hair, her hair
Falls perfectly without her tryin'
She's so beautiful and I tell her everyday
Yeah, I know, I know
When I compliment her, she won't believe me
And it's so, it's so
Sad to think that she don't see what I see
But every time she asks me, "Do I look okay?"
I say
When I see your face
There's not a thing that I would change
'Cause you're amazing
Just the way you are
And when you smile
The whole world stops and stares for a while
'Cause girl, you're amazing
Just the way you are
Yeah