Some stories creep up on me. They offer me a glimpse of something exciting like a moor spirit flitting across a swamp pretending to illuminate a path. If I’m foolish enough to follow where it leads, chances are equal that I’ll end up on dry ground with a finished book in my hands, or mired hip-deep in a mix of emotions and images that I can’t make sense of.
Repeat Offence, the story of warriors Hiro and Taz, was one of those.
It started with a simple question: Is it still suicide if your death saves thousands of people? And from there grew a story of self-sacrifice and stubbornness that defeated a law Taz and Hiro didn’t even know existed when they went on a midnight raid to end a war.
I hugely enjoyed writing Repeat Offence. And I still like the world I built, even though I sometimes wonder if I could have made more of Taz and Hiro’s story.
But had I added to the story as I heard it, it might have ended up mired in the swamp and on the pile of unfinished stories.
My upcoming release, A Box of Wishes, almost suffered this fate.
It started life as a short Christmas story full of hope and warmth and the scents of coffee and chocolate. But when I had the grand idea to expand it a little to give its heroes, Ryan and Ben, a proper happy ending, I suddenly found myself wondering about the difference between a place to sleep, and a real home.
On the face of it, Ryan and Ben are well suited to each other. Ben, the police detective, is a quiet, steady, steadfast protector. Ryan, the coffee house owner, is an outgoing people person, who gets the most joy in this life from looking out for others.
But my nice, soft, fluffy, antidote-to-the-pandemic love story had unexpected depths. I hadn’t known how Ben, the protector, would react to betrayal. I hadn’t known that Ryan, the caretaker, had scars that went a long way into his past. And I certainly hadn’t anticipated, at least not until I put them into this situation, that those two men, who seemed so ideally suited to each other, had sides to their personalities that made bringing them together like lighting a fire under a powder keg.
Ben and Ryan’s story could have gone in four different ways, and it took me quite a while to work out what story I was actually writing. Holding on to the heart-warming hopefulness of the short story was difficult when faced with ever-increasing mortality figures and political and financial upheavals of the pandemic.
I didn’t want to abandon A Box of Wishes. Even after its fourth iteration, I still loved the characters when they were at their best, and I was trying hard to bring the ends of the story together in a way that kept hold of that warmth the two men have between them.
In the end, I realised that it’s not about where you live and what you do, because a true home requires neither walls nor beams. Just as all the walls and beams in the world will not make a home if the space they enclose is devoid of hopes and dreams.
Am I done with this story? Yes, finally! For the most part, writing A Box of Wishes has been a wonderful journey of discovery. For a while here and there, it’s been a slog. But helping Ben and Ryan to find a home together? That’s always been worth the effort.
A Box of Wishes will be available from my store on October 20th. Lock in your early bird discount by pre-ordering now!
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