Today’s the Day!!

Murder in Color is officially published!

You can find it for sale on Loose Id’s website as of today. I will add links to the novel for Amazon and Nook, as well as other digital sellers as they come available. (Edit: Kobo | Google) As I normally do for novel publications, here’s my list of 6 random things about the book that you might find interesting :)

1) This was the first time I attempted a love triangle or a serial killer. It will be a long (loooong) time before I do either again. When I do, they won’t be in the same novel.

2) A big portion of the ideas in Murder in Color were actually intended for use in a completely different story, one that featured Marona Baino and Lake Meye from Shatter by Glass. However, I came to my senses and realized that mixing and matching M/F and M/M isn’t actually a good thing because the audiences don’t cross over very well. So I scraped the original plan, mined that story heavily for ideas and created a new novel with Salain Dusari as lead.

3) Guess how many characters I had in my original cast of characters that I didn’t use? Four! Four characters that never made it onto the page. Good thing though because they would have been pointless after the novel took a different turn. I cannabalized the poor characters’ names and used them for other people’s last/first names where needed. On the other hand, Calvo’s last name came from a character who had been going to be in that never-to-be-written novel featuring Marona and Lake.

4) Speaking of characters and names…some names remain stagnant from the first word to the last in a story, but others go through many, many iterations until I finally settle on one that seems to fit. For instance, Jevette started as Jevatt, Dana as Danu, Omisto as Amisto and Risso as Brisso. Most of these name changes happen early on while I’m still heavily fiddling with everything from outline to character cast. Once in a while I end up with a name that has to be changed toward the end and it always ends up being a bit of a shock, not because I’m attached to the name, but because I was so used to using it and I have to break myself of the habit.

In this case, the name that gave me trouble was Arman’s. Originally, he was named Remin. I had a couple of alterations to his name at the beginning, but always with Remin at the base. I thought it would be fine, and it was for most of his scenes. However, because I needed to use Brettoni Rhodes (a character taken straight from Shatter by Glass so no changes allowed), it got to be a little too much. Especially given I had to say “Remin and Rhodes” or some variation more than once. So I changed it. Almost made him “Armani” but decided against the third syllable because i felt it made him softer sounding and I wanted both him and Jevette to end a little more succinctly.

5) Finnare Mocaddi originally had a much larger part. I had to scrap his scenes because they added a fourth element to an already difficult-to-write love triangle. Plus, I didn’t like him. He was a pretentious, know-it-all, entitled ass and I hated writing him.

6) I added station names! Wasterli is Baino, Rhodes and Salain’s station. Hangbody is Jevette, Dana and Arman’s station. Wasterli was loosely named after the fact that the station is on the western edge of DaSunder, more north than south, and because they have to deal with the most amount of desert exposure deaths out of any of the stations. Hangbody, on the other hand, was named because of a situation I mentioned in Shatter by Glass where one of the gangs strung up body parts between the buildings in that part of the city. Thus… Hanging body parts=Hangbody. Gross, I know. I’m sorry.

Bonus) My next novel set in DaSunder will feature someone else from Shatter by Glass who never makes an appearance in Murder in Color. It will also bring back sand conjuring, the Nattali gang, and feature an assassin who gets framed for the one murder he doesn’t commit. Hopefully it won’t take me as long to write.