Hey everyone! Feeling good? Fantastic!

It’s Saturday morning, and I just sneaked out of bed needing to get some ideas on paper. Well, no, not really. The cats were driving me crazy and I just took a flight.

Since I’m up already, I thought I could as well do something I haven’t done in a while. Rant. About…? Hm, not sure. I don’t want to bore you for the next ten minutes. So how about…tada…a really sweet Sideshow Bob in my novel? His name is actually Quinn, and believe me the guy gave me more trouble than a stray dog in your backyard.

He only appears a few times at the beginning of LOVING YOUR LIES. In the first three or four chapters, to be precise. As the name Sideshow Bob signifies, he’s not a main character, let alone the hero. But, he came first, and when I started the novel, I was so ready to write a sexy guy. Bad luck… I introduced him as young enough to be attractive to young adults, and I poured all my favorite qualities into him. Smart, perfectly built, black hair, dominant (he’s a cop) but at the same time sensitive enough to break through the protective walls of a seventeen-year-old. I loved everything about him, even the name.

But soon I realized what a bad mistake I’d made. I wrote him so lovely that I couldn’t let go of him when it was time. The man just wanted to stay in the book, and hell, he even tried to become a rival to the actual hero, Julian. That gave me some sleepless nights. Finally I decided if I wanted to get my neck out of the noose for the sake of the story I had planned out, I had to go cold turkey on him.

In the original draft, Quinn made another appearance somewhere past the middle of the book. A personal one. But knowing better, I wrote him out. And when my critique partners whined that I couldn’t leave him back in London just like that after I made the man sexy enough to make your mouth water, I rewrote parts of him in the beginning, too. I altered his behavior and changed his dialogue. Can you imagine how hard it is to push a demanding figure like him back into the lines? It was like I had a permanent argument with him inside my mind, me telling him he can’t do that, and he leaning in close, cocking a brow, and saying, “What are you willing to bet?”

Well, sometimes it’s good to be the God of your characters, because in the end he had to back down. But I think I let him be sweet enough to make an impact on the readers. And they still send me messages, telling me they almost drooled over him… Mission comleted.

Enjoy the read!

Piper