Train Wreck

When a writer sets out to begin a story, they generally have some notion about plot and characters, if not exactly all the details. Of course, there are unexpected changes that crop up. But for the most part, the story proceeds along the original lines.

Until it doesn't.

Back in my early writing days, I planned a little trilogy. It wasn't anything exciting...three sisters who go to Camelot to find husbands among the Knights of the Round Table. On the whole, except for the historical aspects, the idea was pretty basic romance fluff.

I sat down at the computer to rough in the story with a little prologue. My thought was to use the prologue for each of the three stories to tie them together.

Uh-huh.

Well, that didn't work. The moment I set the characters on paper, they seized the story and ran with it. I never got that train back on the track despite my best efforts to wrestle it back in place. No...every time I thought I might have a way to regain control, a new character would pop up, seize a plot point and bat the entire story off in the woods or dunk it down to the dungeons.

Impossible.

Finally, I conceded. My simple idea turned into a wild romp through the halls of Camelot, peopled by offbeat characters and a cast of thousands. Dragons, fairies, firebirds, trolls...no oddity or weirdness was too much.

So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. The characters did it. In a cave. In the woods. In a pond. In the Abbey. Even in Sher Wood Forest. And so on.

Flowers of Camelot. Sexy strangeness galore. Chrysanthemum, Honeysuckle, Daffodil, Magnolia and Larkspur. Or if you prefer print, Carnal Camelot and Lust in Camelot. Available on Wednesday.

anny