Vann's Apple

Creating stories are funny things. Like most of the couples in the first eight books, Albrecht and Vann were in my head for a long time. I always knew their backstory and how they wound up in their current circumstances. Like Drystan and Conley’s story, Vann was insistent that I know who and what he was before he became a fallen knight. Though Albrecht was surrounded in mystery at first, he too made sure his tale was told—not that he expected it to turn out well. He’s rather pessimistic.

So, you would have thought that the book would be easy to write. I had their past and I had all these years of crafting what happens after they meet. However, as I wrote the books that came before it a lot of unsuspecting things occurred. Chander did things I hadn’t initially planned on and so did the sentinels. By the time I sat down to put together Vann and Albrecht’s outline I realized that their entire plot no longer worked.

I needed different puzzle pieces to have their story make sense. Luckily it didn’t take me too long to figure out a new path for them. I was in a stellar writing mode then. It was April and I’d already finished Books 3-6 since the start of the year. But I had a trip coming up soon and I had to stop writing to go. I thought it would be a simple matter of returning to them when I got home. As it turned out, I wound up taking nearly a month off even after I snuck up one afternoon on the trip and wrote a whole chapter.

Eventually I forced myself to sit down and get back to my routine of writing. Once I did, the words started flowing again. Vann is such a positive person and I had him in my head waving his pom-poms to cheer me on. Albrecht was more reluctant as he wasn’t sure if things would ever work out for him, but I needed to find his happy ending. If for no other reason than to prove to him he could have a mate and be loved.

After the long project of Alaric and Chander, these two were like a breath of fresh air. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you I fell hard for them. I had fun with them as well despite how difficult some of the scenes were to write. One of the more entertaining aspects was their outings and I remember when my editor Hope got a hold of it, I was asked how in the world I came up with the dancing class scene. I don’t know where the idea originated, but I wanted these two to experience a lot. When I thought about how sentinels would react to learning something new in a group of their peers it occurred to me that they would attack it. As you can imagine I chuckled my way through the entire thing.

What I also found was a profound love for the entire Daray household. Trust me, every one of those Skeleton Lords is going to get a book. In fact, I already know their mates and I’m anxious to get to each of their story numbers on my spreadsheet. (I spread them out simply because I want to be able to visit their condo for as long as possible!)

These guys don’t have a long playlist of their own but the sentinel songs I mentioned in the post about Sentinel’s Dagger were what got me through a lot of it.

“Man In the Box” by Alice in Chains (the only song Albrecht claims)

“Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats (Vann is crazy)

“Back To Black” by Amy Winehouse