In honour of “Leo”, the second latest installment of the series, being released one year ago today, I thought I would take you all through the chaos and whimsy that is my longest book series, and what the future holds for it.
When I first set out to write this series, it wasn’t going to be a series at all. In fact, I wrote the second book in the series, “Cora”, first, and it was supposed to be a standalone novel. I also wasn’t alone writing “Cora”, since it was a collaboration with one of my friends that consulted on the project, and Cora was actually supposed to be modeled off his dream girl. However, as I was writing the book, I fell in love with the characters, and decided there was more I wanted to do with them.
As a result, I started plotting “Jack” mere days after I released “Cora”, and I quickly dove right into writing. As a matter of fact, I wrote “Jack” in seventy four days, which I think is the quickest I’ve ever written a novel. And though it isn’t a reflection on how while they’re written, “Jack” is my favourite novel in the series, just because of what I did with Jack’s character, and how deeply I connected to Cora.
After “Jack”, I started writing “Leo”, with the intention of wanting to give Jack and Cora their happy ending. Around the time that “Leo” was in the planning and then writing stages, I started thinking about adding a spinoff series to the anthology, which is based off of their daughter’s love story. However, I wanted to get the main trilogy done before I added a bunch of other books that weren’t part of the main story. Truthfully, as I got to the end of writing “Leo”, I wasn’t that interested in writing it, because it was the characters being at a different stage of life than I was and one that I’m not entirely interested in. I’m still happy with how the novel turned out, but it definitely felt like I was forcing myself to finish it.
Something I really wanted to do was add a prequel to the series talking about Jack’s first relationship with a girl named Selena, and thus the book, “Selena”, was born. Now, I wish I would’ve written this one first, because I had to go back through the entire “Cora” book and redo the outline so that pieces of “Selena” fit better, since the novels have events occuring at the same time. Despite the challenge of going back and setting things up, I really enjoyed writing “Selena”, especially the second part that’s in her perspective, because just like Cora, I really connected to Selena’s character.
Once “Selena” was done, I definitely needed a break from writing for this series, and that catches us up to now. I don’t have any plans of returning to the series for a while, since there are other novels that are definitely capturing my attention. However, I had a plan of doing a trilogy for Jack and Cora’s daughter, Emma, and then a spinoff for Cora’s brother. I also have a number of very short chapters following Jack’s childhood and how he met Cora, so I definitely want to come back and use those. I do want to come back to the series, I’m just not sure when that’s going to happen, especially because I have my 2024 lineup picked out already. Granted, I had no intentions of writing “Jack”, and it ended up being one of my favourite novels I’ve written, so who knows? Maybe I’ll be adding another book to The Cora Anthology this year after. If you’re interested in any of the books I mentioned, you can find them here: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0BL975P49?binding=paperback&qid=1703698531&sr=1-2&ref=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_pc_tpbk
