“Worlds Collide” Is Ready For Submission

I’m currently doing a final read through of the story I’ve entitled “Worlds Collide” prior to submitting it to The Wild Rose Press for consideration. With my previous stories I’ve always found this a rather tedious task but with this one my attitude seems different. Perhaps it’s because the story has taken me so long to uncover.

Justin’s story has been simmering ever since I wrote “Worlds Apart” over ten years ago. I even had a chapter in “Worlds Apart” which highlighted the angst he was suffering, with the intention of developing this later into his story. However this never saw the light of day back then as I was advised it had little to do with Raven and Greg’s romance. Which of course it didn’t.

It’s almost been two years since I started writing “Worlds Collide”. Two years of irregular attention as I allowed other things to impact on my time. Occasionally I had flashes of inspiration forging the story forward only to then be struck with weeks or even months of nothing. My muse deserted me frequently, or more correctly, kept leading me in other directions, to other stories.

Being a pantser – writing by the seat of my pants – my stories are written in a  random manner, although generally following some vague chronological guideline, and then ‘put together’ afterwards. Because portions of Justin’s story are so “old” to me, its been great reading through the whole story as a reader, rather than the usual need checking for grammatical errors, typos, cliches, too-often used words etc.

I hope my readers will enjoy this story too. It is longer than my previous ones, sitting at about 85,000 words. I’ve enjoyed weaving in parts of Worlds Apart – the importance of the relationship between Justin and Raven – something which causes Nicole no end of jealousy – the wedding of Brad and Joy, and a little touch of the culture of the New Zealand Maori. Initially keen to incorporate some of American Nicole’s impressions of New Zealand when she flies to meet Justin in Auckland at the end of the story, I realised this would be superfluous to their story. They had already declared their love for each other and finally the force that was keeping them apart had been dealt with. Having them take a tourist trip around New Zealand, or even around a small portion of Auckland would add exactly nothing to the mix.

“Worlds Collide” is one of my stories where my promised “taste of New Zealand” has had to come from the cause of Justin and Nicole’s angst rather than a geographical setting. I trust my readers will find this equally distinctive and out of the ordinary.