Spread love. It's The Brooklyn Way.

, Des. Eight months to write your first post! Hey, put on the brakes.

Congratulations on finishing your novel.

Hello!

I also love cats! Mine is sleeping right next to me as I type. So cute.

Good luck on your novel!

welcome to the cooler, I'm sami. I live in texas, northern. I have a cat, myself.

Hey there! I'm Andrew, I live in Ohio, and we've got two cats. Or they've got us. Hard to tell, really...

Hello and welcome! I love cats too!

Ah, well, good to have that cleared up.

Meh, it's worth it. They're good company. And death on wheels to intruding vermin, on the rare occasion that bugs or mice get in.

Hello from another cat lover. I have one, a complete wimp, that no one except my other half and me ever see.
Congrats and good luck with your novel.

Hey, Desiree,

Cool to meet a fellow thriller writer. I'm doing a thriller as my first fiction work -- I decided to do a series. It's easier to think of a series than a bunch of completely new stories each time. I'm still unpublished, but if not coming down to the wire, I can at least see the end of the tunnel. Perhaps we will see each other in the beta read forum. How far along are you? What is your protagonist?

Oh, yeah. Cats definitely have you. "My" cat just visited from next door one day, he sat down on the chair, and fell asleep. A couple years later the neighbors moved away but the cat stayed. He's still asleep on the chair - just a lot fatter. I've heard it said. Dogs have owners, cats have staff.

Desiree,

I like the description of Logan . . . spot on!

Have you considered a story arc for the series?

At some point along the way, I think I was still writing the first one, I realized I didn't know what to write about after the second book. I had a bunch of titles that had been brain stormed, but they were just empty titles. So I looked at each title and gave it a story idea - a phrase or sentence, no more. Then I juggled them around until I liked the story arc of the series. Also, I noted that there was some missing pieces.

For example, what is now going to be the fifth book is modeled after The Empire Strikes Back in the Star Wars series. Not the story, but that the bad guy starts out kicking my protagonists butt. This would be the same as the second disaster in a book story arc. So she gets her but kicked and is floundering around from bad spot to bad spot, to eventually blow up the metaphorical death star and wins in the end.

If I hadn't done the overall series arc I wouldn't have seen that there was a place to have her flounder like you do in a book after the second disaster.

Of course, if you choose to do this, the number of books in the arc is totally up to you. I have the first nine books laid out in my series arc. It is much less stressful now that I know what each book will generally be about.

When you are ready for beta readers, post it on the beta reader thread and PM me. I am always open to an exchange of beta reading.

Cool, send me an email at drjasonstanley [at] gmail . com.

[SIZE=+1]About my books. It is an ongoing series with a modest story arc covering the first nine books. They are intended to be quick beach reads so are short at around 60,000 words. At the moment with about 12,000 words, I am just getting a good start on book four.

[/SIZE]

• [SIZE=+1]The story line is a young women witnesses her brother and cousin's murder - she swears vengeance but is not prepared for it. So after three years of severe training in the assassin arts she returns and gets the bad guys (book one). [/SIZE]
• [SIZE=+1]Killing the drug kingpin in the hood and some of his top guys leaves a vacuum that she gets sucked into along with a nasty boyfriend of her bestie becomes a serious problem. The aftermath of the drug wars is she and her two best friends wind up as accidental madams of the street hookers in the hood (book two).[/SIZE]
• [SIZE=+1]Someone kills one of her street girls in an attempt to push her out of business. Big mistake and big surprise, the bad guy works for a crime syndicate from out of the area. They used to run the drugs in the hood and are trying to get back in. It turns out they use slave prostitutes bought from overseas. Our girl and friends free the women, shoot the bad guys and find out there are a lot more women held in slave prostitution by the crime ring (book three).[/SIZE]
• [SIZE=+1]Oh my, how does our hero and her friends free those women held in slavery prostitution? That is the book I'm writing now (book four).[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1]
The underlying theme of the series is solidarity and support between friends (the protagonist and her two life-long besties), and women's emancipation (yes even with the prostitution).

There is violence. The protagonist is a martial arts type of girl and usually has to open a can of whop-ass on some jerk and she does shoot people. But they are all bad and deserve it. There is profanity with the f-bomb sprinkled throughout the book. The hero has an active sex life, but it all innuendo - there are no graphic sex scenes.

I am co-writing with my wife[/SIZE].