GENREALITY

Warrior Spirit

A little over a year ago, I picked up the first novel in a new action adventure series featuring a female archeologist named Annja Creed as the main character.  I had noticed them while poking through the SF/Fantasy section of my local bookstore.  I’d never heard of the author before, one Alex Archer, but the story looked interesting and on a whim I decided to give it a shot.

That simple little act actually turned out to have a rather large impact on my career.

I enjoyed DESTINY, the first book in the Rogue Angel series from Worldwide Library very much.  The story was an interesting mix of adventure, action, and mysticism, with the main character, Annja Creed, stumbling upon a shattered sword that once belonged to Joan of Arc.  The sword resembles itself before her eyes and bonds to her in some mystical way, allowing her to draw it out of nothingness whenever she has need of it.  Of course, being the bearer of the sword is no picnic, as Annja soon realizes when she finds herself drawn into situation after situation that forces her to play guardian for the innocent and unwary.

The Forbidden City

Intrigued, I went out and bought the next several books in the series, whipping through them fairly quickly.  By doing so, I discovered a couple of things.  Each volume was, in fact, a stand alone product.  You could pick up any book in the series and still be able to figure out what was going on.  You didn’t feel that you were at a disadvantage for not reading the prior volumes, which I thought was a nice touch.  (I found out later this was a specific requirement for the writers working on the series, which makes total sense from a marketing standpoint and a good move by the publisher.)  I also discovered that Alex Archer was, in fact, a pseudonym for the team of writers putting out the series.

At the time I began reading them, the Rogue Angel books were being written by three individual writers.  If you read them closely, you could tell the difference between volumes – one writer tended to be more circumspect in his fight scenes while another seemed to enjoy the blood and guts of a good sword fight, little things like that – but as a whole they were remarkably cohesive given the situation.  I was impressed that three different people could write the same characters with such a similar voice and wondered if I could do the same.

As I pondered that, the desire to write for the Rogue Angel series began to grow in the back of my head.  I was under contract to write a couple of original novels of my own over the next few years, but something about the series – be it the characters, the setting, or the tone – made me want to try my hand at it.

After some heavy thought, I got in touch with my agent and told him I wanted to send in a proposal and give it a shot.

To make a long story short, a couple of months later I was holding a contract in my hands to write THE LOST TOMB and YIN & YANG, my first two novels in the Rogue Angel series.

Gabriel's Horn

The writing time on each was rather short, only a handful of months, and I quickly discovered that writing in someone else’s world was tougher than I thought.  Not only did I have to get the background details right, but I had to find the right tone for the character and the right combination of theme and tone for the books themselves.  The product had to fit in seamlessly with the volumes that had come before and still be original and entertaining.

But I can honestly say that when I turned in that first volume, which focuses on Annja’s search for the legendary tomb of the Mongol warlord, Genghis Khan, I was pretty damned satisfied.  Writing for the series was everything I had expected it to be – both challenging and entertaining at the same time.

This week I’m putting the finishing touches on my second book for the series, YIN & YANG.  I’ve also submitted a proposal to write several more books featuring Annja Creed, which was greeted with enthusiasm by the publisher.    Looks like I’ll be sharing adventures with Annja for at least another year, maybe more and I couldn’t be happier.  Taking that chance has helped me discover another outlet for my creative endeavors, has helped put food on the table and money in the bank (which is always a nice thing) and has allowed me to stretch my writing talents to show that I’m capable of fitting into an already established universe as seamlessly as those who had gone before.

And that makes all the effort worthwhile.