A genre that is secretly the one I'm most geeked about is paranormal. I can get lost in paranormal as the characters defy everything from science to law, creating worlds where fairies, vampires and werewolves do more than show of their powers. They show they have feelings, that they can fall in love and have a broken heart, too. I started Steel Roses almost three years ago with just a concept. Thoughts of different things I shared with a few trusted friends.
A tale of two friends where one dies and the other lives who becomes committed to protecting and providing for the woman his best friend leaves behind. Yet, he's not fully dead. He's caught in between life and death, fighting his way back to her. Then guess what? I see a book that is penned not exactly like that, but similar enough and I stop. Yes, I stop. I move along quietly to other bodies of work like my usual urban and urban romance reads. I do well with some of those and not so well with others.
However, anytime I was at a crossroad of where to go next, Steel Roses would pop back up. Everytime it did, I would dive back into it, changing the backstory, working in new conflict, changing the landscape of how life of the human runs into the life of one from another world. A world I passionately called Etan. Etan, a place where a group of paranormal beings are cast down to earth, forcing them to live amongst humans. Humans who have no regard for the beauty of life.
But then Diesel meets Rose and it's nothing like that. It's a connection, one he can't explain.
One that if he acted on it, life as he knows it and his kind may be exposed, endangered and exist no more.
Sounds exciting, right? So why I have not completed it? Fear, that's why. Fear that it won't be good enough. Fear the paranormal junkies like myself will dissect and rip it apart. Fear that it will be a waste of time. But then Covid 19 happened. It not only happened to me but the world. Yes, the world, reminding me that I only have this time and that time is now. So, I spoke to my fear and told it to flee from me. I have to.
I only have now and now is my time to deliver this from my vault of unfinished, creative babies only I have had a chance to fully indulge in. And you only have now, this day and this time. If you are like me, operating out of fear because you feel others won't like it or receive it, guess what? You won't know until you know and to get there, you must just do it. The time is NOW.
Comments