Most authors know that the story they set out to write and the story they end up writing are never exactly the same. No matter whether you’re a plotter or a pantser, life happens, and things change. Sometimes, the story just doesn’t work, and when that happens, you have to go back and figure out why. Writing involves putting words down, but it also means research, character development, rereading what’s been written, editing, and rewriting some more until the piece is as good as you can possibly make it.
Listen to the Stones was or rather is no different. My visit to the Standing Stones of Calanais touched a creative spark in me that I rediscovered only a few years ago–my love of fantasy. I had written a couple of novels dealing with mild paranormal, specifically reincarnation, but I’d only attempted a fantasy with its own mythos with Atonement. Looking at the stones, walking amongst them, and touching them set off a creative chain reaction I hadn’t expected. I had to write about this place and introduce it to my readers to it since I was sure that many, like me, had never heard of it and didn’t know such places existed.
My original plan was to write a winter love story set on the Isle of Lewis and Harris. My cover artist, who indulges all of my flights of fancy and changes of mind, had created a cover for that book, but as I started working on it, I realized that there was more paranormal in it than simple romance should have.
I was only a half-dozen chapters into the story when I realized it wasn’t working for me. The story needed to be more than a romance novel. So, I set it aside and worked on something else.
When Love at the Pickleback was finished, Listen to the Stones called me back, and I realized that the story needed to be about the incredible stones themselves, and how they’d come to be there, cursed as it were. So, I decided the focus should be on breaking the curse and releasing the souls trapped within the stones. The information provided at the site claimed the folktale was that the people living on the island had been turned to stone for refusing to accept Christianity.
That was all well and good, but I wanted something more, something that would allow me to create two souls separated by time and circumstance, making the book fit much better into the Timless Love series. Once again, my outstanding cover artist rose to the challenge and created a cover similar to the one for Beneath the Ashes my book which deals with lovers separated by the volcanic eruption at Pompeii and reunited in a new timeline.
So, I went back, reworked the beginning, and created a mythology of my own that explained where the stones originated and why the souls had been trapped within the rocks. I researched and drew from Celtic, Scottish, Irish, and Norse mythologies. I learned all I could about paganism, druidism, Wicca, witchcraft, and the supernatural as it affected Scotland. The more I discovered, the more amazed I was.
The story flowed from my fingertips. I fleshed out the characters and brought them to life, but as I wrote, new ideas flooded me, ideas that invaded my dreams and stayed with me long after. As I neared the end of the novel, I realized it would be a monster to publish. It was close to 700 pages! The cost of the paperback would be prohibitive and even the ebook would be expensive. So, I did what any other author would do. I went back to the beginning with the intention to slash and burn. I was frustrated. There was so much that needed to be kept for the story to make sense. At one point, I simply closed the file and went on to something else.
That’s when I decided to focus on A Case of Mistaken Identity, the first book in my Evie Chambers Mysteries series. I’d wanted to do something about the Empress of Ireland for years, and this seemed the perfect time since it was also NANOWRIMO. A shorter book in a month worked for me. I kept the story light and as factual as possible. It was well received, and i have several ideas for the next books in the series.
By then, the holidays were upon us and writing took a back seat. But, the stones kept calling to me. I discussed the matter with my best friend and sounding board, and she proposed making the book into a series. Initially, I couldn’t see how it could be done, but then, little by little, the idea grew. Each section would have to have its own focus. It would need to somehow be a complete story onto itself, like the books in The Harvester Files were, and yet it would need to be a stepping stone into the greater story, much like The Lord of the Rings, Outlander, and Harry Potter books. The focus would be on the fantasy aspects, so that I wouldn’t have to worry about getting the characters together right away. I could bring them along, tease at their connections, and embroiled my readers in my hero and heroine’s dilemma, giving my villain a voice as well. After all, if you’re going to have good and evil do battle, the reader needs to see evil for what it is.
Once I accepted the idea, I set about figuring out how to make it work. It would involve adding context, rearranging and moving some of what I’d already written, and delving more deeply into the fantasy aspect of the story, and as always researching everything to make in probable if not believable.
In the end, I did some brainstorming and came up with the four sections of the story, giving each one a separate title under the umbrella name Listen to the Stones. So, here we have the book descrition for the first four books of the series:
True love is the most powerful magic in the universe. For ten millennia, the world has waited but now, the time of reckoning approaches. When it arrives, the Chosen One will have a chance to break a curse and reverse an eons old spell. The choice is hers, to be made using free will, the gift given to all by the Mother of the Gods. If she makes the right choice, she’ll save her world; the wrong one will doom them all. But to do so, she has to believe in herself, her psychic abilities, magic, and the power of love.
“You must fulfill your destiny, find true love, and break the curse.” Those were Marina Fraser Robertson Mitchell’s grandmother’s last words, but Nana hadn’t been well for a long time. She’d lived in a fantasy world, filled with delusions, no doubt brought on by her unusual beliefs and the recollection of the folk tales she used to read to her as a child.
But if there was such a thing as a curse, Nana’s words were prophetic. Marina’s life has consisted of one overwhelming loss after another. Added to the sense of failure is the fact that she feels as if she doesn’t belong here. She spends her days battling fears and phobias, trying to downplay the way she can hear the thoughts of others, and her nights fighting off monsters in recurring nightmares that threaten her sanity. But these bad dreams feel more like memories than imaginings. At the heart of them, amidst the horror, are strange standing stones that speak to her in an ancient language, a faceless lover, and a red-eyed creature who terrifies her.
When she loses the last thing she holds dear and her world is crumbling beneath her, she’s distraught, convinced that she should never have been born. But things aren’t as dismal as she believes. Changes are happening within her, some as frightening as they are liberating. The answer may be within reach—an inheritance from a great-uncle she never knew existed. To claim it, she has to return to the Scottish island where she was born, but can she do so? Can she face the thought of living on an island, surrounded by deep water, the thing that terrifies her most?
A firm believer in mysticism and reincarnation, archeologist and novelist Jerome Morrison can’t deny the power of the mysterious stone circle near Fraser Hall, stones that speak to him. The last few years, a woman has haunted his dreams, a woman he loves above all others, a woman he’s convinced was his in another lifetime but was lost to him. Now, he must find her, positive that his future lies with hers. But discovering that everything he knew about himself is a lie confounds the situation. When the dreams stop and strange things begin to happen to him, there’s a sense of urgency he can’t dismiss. Discovering that his mystery woman is none other than Marina Fraser, heir to the Fraser estate and the land on which the mysterious stones sit, comes as a shock, especially when she doesn’t recognize him and there is another, one who triggers powerful feels of hatred within him, vying for her attention, her love, and her land. How can he convince her that they are meant to be together when she doesn’t trust him or recall the love they once shared?
There’s a war coming, one they must fight united. The future is at stake, and time is running out. Each side must muster their forces for the final battle. Fueled by the hatred and greed in the world, evil has grown stronger than the gods anticipated. Three will fight, two will survive, but which two? The answer lies with the Standing Stones on the Fraser estate.
Will these two lost souls find true love, or will the demon-demigod’s rage and power keep them apart? Only as one can they prevent him from dooming the world to a living hell.
Each episode of the story has its own title. They are: The Awakening, The Homecoming, The Bonding, and The Reckoning. As she frequently does, my cover artist, Melinda de Ross has outdone heself with new covers for the series that fit my vision so well that it is as if she’s climbed inside my heart and soul to create them. The first book, The Awakening is almost ready and will go up for pre-sale in a few days. Watch for the Cover Reveal when it does, but here is the book description to tease your reading tastebuds.
Book Description for The Awakening, Book One of Listen to the Stones:
An only child raised by a secretive, single mother who forever mourned the loss of the man she loved and an Irish grandmother who espoused a strange blend of Christianity and paganism, Marina Fraser Robertson Mitchell has eschewed all beliefs in magic and fantasy that made up a great deal of her early life, but doing so hasn’t stopped the vicious nightmares about monsters and a deep water phobia that have haunted her for years.
As her thirtieth birthday approaches, changes are happening within her, alterations to her personality that lead to psychic abilities she neither wants nor understands. She’s convinced that she’s on the verge of madness, an insanity brought on by some form of physical illness or mental illness inherited from her maternal grandmother.
When her ex-husband sends over three boxes and a footlocker that were misplaced after her mother’s passing, Marina discovers that everything she knows about herself is a lie. While her mother’s letter gives her some explanations, it doesn’t explain her ESP, her sense that she doesn’t belong here, and her phantom lover. She has more questions than answers.
At the suggestion of her neighbor, a friendly, elderly woman with a cat named Rosie, Marina visits a psychic on her thirtieth birthday, but that only increases her confusion. The unusual woman greets her with the words, my lady, and exhorts her to accept herself for who and what she is. She warns her that the choices she makes from now on will determine who wins the final battle for the fate of the world. Shaken, Marina leaves, well aware of that those words are similar to those her grandmother spouted in her dying days.
As the nightmares she’s suffered so long continue, she searches for answers and a reprieve, an escape from a life in which she has lost everything that matters. Her prayers may be answered when she discovers that she has inherited property on the Isle of Lewis and Harris, the place where she suspects the standing stones from her dreams are located, stones that speak to her in the dead of night, and may hold the answer to her future.
But can she accept what she’s becoming? Does she dare return to the place where she was born, a place her mother fled in fear? Everything she knows about herself is a lie. Is the truth waiting for her there? She has a choice to make. Will she make the right one? Only time will tell.
Watch for scenes from the story over the next few weeks along with the Cover Reveal and the pre-order date for The Awakening.
Living the Dream 