Very Nice Funerals

Starting the Second Book

~ Jenny ~ 27 Comments

Writing a series has been eye-opening in many ways, but the biggest surprise is how fast the second and third books go. Well, went. This is just our second series, so stay tuned.

The thing I’m realizing now, as we start Very Nice Funerals, is how this has shifted the romance plot for me. Writing stand-alone, the lovers meet, work out a relationship, and commit. That worked for me until I did the Liz/Vince series and realized that the interesting stuff happens after the okay-let’s-do-this ending. Now they’re together. The hard stuff starts. I had a great time with that in the Liz/Vince books, showing how they tentatively got in deeper with each other, trying to navigate their issues and their needs. It was so much more interesting that my standard romance plot (although I really do not know how I’d arc that further in a second Liz/Vince series, so I’m still cogitating on that.)

But the Rose/Max relationship is even more off the wall than Liz and Vince. Continue reading →

State of the Collaboration, October 24, 2023

~ Jenny ~ 5 Comments

I’m slowing Bob down on both Rocky Start and Very Nice Funerals because I cannot get a handle on Rose and the Max-and-Rose relationship/romance. This goes back to the differences in the way we write, and also, I think, to the chaos my own life has been in, which is settling down some now and which I plan to have completely calm (about the house and all the external stuff) by Nov. 1. So it’s a plan.

Right now, in VNF, Rose is suddenly the recipient of a lot of proposals since there’s the possibility of big money in her future. And there’s a serial killer. Yeah, it’s a Crusie-Mayer.