Going back - Going Forward

Have I mentioned that I’m working on the fourth Dark Elves book? Maybe. Have I mentioned that it’s really weird for me? Maybe not.

The elves, for reasons I’m sure are obvious, hold a special place in my heart. It’s the series that started me off as an author and it covers a few of my main loves as a reader: epic fantasy, sex and elves.  OK, maybe not so much “epic” but  it’s got the feel of an epic. At least in my head. There’s a whole world there that I’ve only skimmed the surface of. Some of that world will be introduced in this book as well as the two more that I have planned.

Thus part of the reason for my blog entry. The first three Dark Elves books were very much me feeling it out. Both the story and this writing thing. I was learning about myself and them as I went along. Salin, Krael, Radin and Savous were rather nice to me, however, and led me along. *snort* Not hard to follow the sexual escapades of gorgeous elves, huh? But it’s been awhile–over a year–since I’ve actively watched them.

So imagine my surprise when I get to Jarak, the hero of book four. Those who’ve read the series will remember him as Salin’s young squire from book one. Well, Jarak’s all grown up now. I knew that going into it. What I didn’t quite realize is that all the elves had grown. After what happened in book 3, they’ve gone through quite an evolution! Here I thought I was just going to write another elf story and it turns out that I’ve got to figure out how these changes have affected them. Lots more work than I’d originally intended! (*points at self* lazy writer)

In my philosophic moments, I liken the elves’ growth to my own. I re-read books one through three in preparation for writing book four. I was very pleased to find that I still enjoyed them–although I did have a few fits wanting to fix word usage. But I did see that I have grown as a writer. OK, it’s only been two years, but I’ve done quite a bit in that two years. The whole Heaven Sent series was written since DE3, along with a few other stories. I laughed at my own tentative poking at m/m in the first elf books. I seem to have gotten over that. I was amazed at some of the sexual situations I dumped my heroines into. My my! But I was also gratified to realize that I had put in some very real relationships and that those relationships gave me a wealth to build on. This book hasn’t been so much what to write as how to write it so that it doesn’t drone on and become boring! There are some characters who I wanted to show but decided ultimately against because that just would have added yet another layer which, in this case, might have been interesting but was unnecessary.

Anyway, the first readable draft of book 4–Dark Elves IV: Dissent (I think that’s the title, but it may change)–will be done and sent to beta readers. I don’t know when it’ll be released, but I think it’ll be sometime this year.

To the fans of the series, I hope you enjoy the  continued growth of my black-skinned devils.

Written by Jet Mykles

Jet is a writer of sexual fantasy with a firm belief that all men are at least partially gay, that vampires are just people with a liquid diet and shapeshifters live on every block.
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