Thoughts on Shalia: A Lot of Grief, a Little Creep, and the Ghost of Oses

By the time Book 3 of Shalia’s Diary rolled around, I knew I had a big task ahead of me…making a nine-month journey from Earth to Kalquor interesting. I had a lot of elements to work with, but how would they gel into a cohesive whole?

For better or worse, Book 3 was the ‘angst’ book, in which Shalia processed a lot of emotional upheaval. She’d just left Earth and the young clan she’d foolishly fallen in sorta-love with. Then she found out she was pregnant, which left her 'oh-woe-is-me' in places. Readers responded accordingly. There were complaints about whiny Shalia and demands that she be with Clan Dusa in the end. Completely understandable. We adored Dusa, Weln, and Esak. It sucked for them to be left in the past. And Shalia…well, it would have been nice if she’d stopped complaining.

Yet I had to look at it from a realistic point of view…or as realistic as one can get in a sci-fi universe I’d made up. Shalia would naturally sob her heart out in her private journal. And she was dealing with a lot between Earth’s demise, leaving Clan Dusa and her Dad Clan, and learning she had an unplanned pregnancy. There was simply no way she was going to be sunshine and rainbows at that time.

Katrina was the foil to Shalia’s bleakness. With her unrepentant libido and live-it-up attitude, Katrina gave us all something to laugh at. I was delighted when she came along with her sex salons and dildo Christmas presents.

Betra was another desperately needed diversion, though he could be as moody as Shalia when it struck him. Maybe that’s what helped draw them together. Besides, Shalia had to have a distraction that would help her ease away from Clan Dusa. And that was all Betra was supposed to be…a distraction, a rebound lover, interesting for his heterosexuality and being chased by an amorous Nobek.

Darn characters with their own agendas.

It became clear pretty quick that Betra and Shalia were going to turn into another doomed love affair. I could tell this was going to become a situation in which they would fight their feelings for each other to no avail. Great. Just what I needed.  I already had things falling into place as far as the ultimate end of Shalia’s story, the clan she would fall for. Yes, even back in Book 3, I knew a little bit about Clan Seot, Shalia’s true soulmates. I was a little ticked off with Betra for being…well, the wonderful guy he was.

I consoled myself with the high drama it would provide the readers when it came time to deal with the impossible love affair. All I could do was hope they didn’t hate me too much when the affair ended.

Then came Oses to make it even worse. Grr. But rawr. If there was ever a Nobek to challenge my adoration for Clan Tranis’ Lidon, it was Oses. I couldn’t even be mad at him for making writing Shalia harder.

There still needed to be more to make the diary work besides baby, heartache, and new lovers. That part was easy, however. Earthers and Kalquorians have a host of threats out there in space. No doubt their shared enemies would be out in full force, ready to capitalize on the disorder left in the wake of war’s end. Tragooms, the ultimate opportunists, began to harass the Pussy ‘Porter on a regular basis, leading to the climactic invasion of those hideous fellows.

With the start of Book 4, Shalia was getting her equilibrium back. Baby coming…okay. Hot lovers she could enjoy for the moment…great. Angst over and done, for the most part. It was the perfect setting for things to go cataclysmically wrong. So they did.

Let me say, had I known how horrific the situation with Little Creep was going to get, I might not have written that book. I consider it one of the best stories (if not the best) in the whole series. For pure tension, it really stands out. But ye gods, the emotional trauma of writing it was huge. To this day, people tell me they cannot re-read Book 4 because it’s just too disturbing for them. It went into some pretty dark places that I haven’t wanted to return to myself.

I went into Book 5 determined to lighten things up after that awful journey with Finiuld. The idea of a ghost story felt fun and different, while dealing with the trauma Shalia and Oses had to face in the wake of their abduction. I certainly breathed a sigh of relief during the writing of that book. It was the one I enjoyed writing the most, probably because of the story that came before it.

By the end of Book 5, I had a solid idea of how Shalia’s Diary would find its ultimate finish. But Shalia had some work to do to make that happen, and it was going to take something major to shake her into the right mindset. It was time for another story that would take us into dark, terrible places. We’ll look at that next time.