RISE OF THE SNOWMEN
A Deadly Holidays Novel

Dec 15th 2020
(gay romance/fantasy adventure)
55k words
Amazon Link

As is my tradition, here are a few interesting tidbits about working on this novel!

1) This novel was supposed to be a novella. (Angry writer face!) It was supposed to be only around 37k in order to match up with Those Bloody Christmas Elves. But, as you can see, this novel decided it was not satisfied with 37k words. Which, honestly, I’m still not sure why. WHY?!

So there I am, telling everyone I’m working on a novella and they kept saying: “Still?? How long is this novella??”

Me: *mumble, mumble* “almost 55k” *mumble*

2) The character of Mandy was originally modeled after the children collectively in my daughter’s kindergarten class because that’s how old she was when I was writing Those Bloody Christmas Elves. My intention was to age her one year each year so I had a clear research path to knowing exactly how children that age would act.

Whelp, that didn’t work, because here we are nearly three years later and Mandy has only grown one year in that time. If I keep this up, by the time I publish Christmas is Cancelled, my daughter will be in college or something.

3) Like Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, I wrote this novel in two parts, broken up by a few years. If you can guess exactly where I stopped and then restarted, I’ll give you fake internet points as a reward :) (Hint: I don’t write linearly XD)

4) Perie Wolford, who did the cover for Those Bloody Christmas Elves, has also done the cover for Rise of the Snowmen. He’s absolutely amazing! And I adore how he managed to capture all the different tonal elements of the stories–the actual danger/adventure; the ridiculous Christmas elements that are still portrayed in a serious manner throughout; the characters themselves.

5) I always choose a different notebook for each project. With certain connected stories, that notebook carries through to each of the stories. For my Christmas series with Greg and Taylor I have this floppy, teal notebook that has gold balls across it. I originally chose it because it was greenish and reminded me of ornaments.

It now has the completed outline for Christmas is Cancelled in it, which may or may not be longer than Rise of the Snowmen, given it’s got a planned 17 sections/chapters.

Also, it’s really, really hard to write about snow when it’s summer.

I hope you give Rise of the Snowmen a chance this holiday season! It’s a bit dark; it’s a bit dangerous; but there’s still holiday spirit and Christmas presents and a lovely romance that just keeps figuring itself out!

~Emmi