Andromeda’s Fall – Initial Idea

For NaNoWriMo, I am writing a book titled Andromeda’s Fall. This is the first book of the Shadowcat Nation series, and is a follow-on to my short story – Hannah’s Fate – in the Here, Kitty Kitty anthology. I have been itching to put pen to paper on this particular book. I had originally planned to start it when I’d finished the last book of the Svatura series. But I’ve very close on that, and NaNoWriMo was too good opportunity to sink my teeth into this story to ignore.

If you’ve seen or heard me answer the question about the initial inspiration for my first book – Blue Violet, you’ll know that it started with a single scene. With that one, it was a falcon up in the trees watching people below her play in a forest. They are suddenly attacked, and she swoops down, shifts, and saves them. Little did they know their friend was a shifter. Bit of a shock, that.

Much like with Blue Violet, this book idea started from a single scene. For this once, I pictured a female cougar shifter sitting on a rock in the moonlight. She’s on some sort of watch or patrol, protecting her people. A male cougar shifter finds her there – he’s her future love interest – but she’s annoyed that he found her. That’s it. That’s entirely where I started with this. Apparently I have a thing for female shifter protectors at night in a forest. Ha!

Originally, this was going to be my short story for the anthology, but I liked the initial idea so much I decided it needed to be a full book. So instead I wrote Hannah’s Fate for the short story. I made up a different situation to introduce the Shadowcat Nation world as well as my main characters for book #1. I ended up being just as happy with that story as I am with this book so far. In fact, writing that story really helped me get the world itself built in my head before I ever started writing Andromeda’s Fall. I may just have to do that again in the future – start out a series with a short story.

Can’t wait to introduce this new series and new world to my readers!!! Watch this blog for a sneak peak at Andromeda’s Fall sometime this month.