Here's a little fun back story about #starwars Episode II. When I first started seriously writing books, my goal was to write for the Star Wars Expanded Universe. The very first book I wrote was a novel length prequel to SW Ep 2. I naively thought I could just send it off to the editors of Del Rey Books and that would be it. I'd be on my way to fame and stardom. (1/-) #IanWatchesStarWars
Obviously that's not how it actually works, and the editor I contacted politely said so. She couldn't accept unsolicited work. I had to be invited to write for them. So, in my continued naiveté, I asked what it took to be invited. She said I had to be popular and write in a style that would appeal to fans of the SWEU. Some authors might have given up at that point, but I took it as a challenge. (2/-) #IanWatchesStarWars
So I set aside my Star Wars fanfic (which is what it really was) and wrote my first superhero novel, which eventually became Just Cause and the first book in what is now a 24+ book series, the Just Cause Universe. It's popular. And it's definitely written in a style that would appeal to SWEU fans. The SWEU editors still haven't reached out to me, though. Their loss is my gain. (3/-) #IanWatchesStarWars
Would I write for them now if they asked me to? I would honestly have to think it over. I love my superheroes and have even invited a few select authors to create material for the JCU. If the Star Wars people reached out to me, I might take pity on them to say they had to write stuff that would be popular and enjoyed by JCU fans. 😜 (4/-) #IanWatchesStarWars
@ianthealy Ah, will do! (I am currently shrinking back from the work of cutting the ties of my novel length Walking Dead SF AU with the actual TWD franchise that I have considered publishing.) Would you mind sharing how many hours it took to edit your book for publishing?
@lovesdaryl TBH I don't recall. I essentially had to rewrite it from page 1. My generic answer about how long it takes me to write a book applies here, which is: "However long it takes."
@lovesdaryl And to be fair, I've written about 40 books, so that's as accurate an answer as I can give.
@ianthealy 😳 That would be seven months for me, and I have no experience at all with editing, so probably longer.
Thank you!
As for that novel-length SWEU fanfic? I eventually edited it and rewrote all the Star Wars references out of it and published it as a pretty dang good space opera, called Assassin. If you're curious, you can find it here. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D9Y7CJQ It's not Star Wars, but I'm winking pretty broadly the entire time. They're NOT Jedi, they're Watchmen. *wink wink* (5/5) #IanWatchesStarWars #cosobooks #cosowriters #WritingCommunity