That Eden Movie Deal...

This has been the giant white elephant in the room for me for a long while now.  Something I've avoided talking about and just kind of let die.  Because it kind of sucks to talk about.  And it's all SUPER complicated.

You know that The Eden Trilogy started out as a standalone novel titled EDEN.  It was one book and I had no plans to turn it into a trilogy.  And then THIS happened.  Eden got optioned by the producer of the Twilight Saga.

So, what happened after all the hype, and all the articles, and all the awesome?

Well, everyone wanted Eden turned into a trilogy.  So I spent a lot of time deciding if I could do it.  And then I decided that I could.  Then, everyone wanted to see it traditionally published.  I hesitantly said okay.  From there, everyone helped me find an agent who we thought would be a good fit, because you need a literary agent before you get a traditional publisher.  So we found one.

This agent and I spent nine months reworking Eden into what would be book one in a trilogy.  There were some changes I knew the story could benefit from anyway, and we needed to set up new elements that would support a book two and book three.  So we spent a lot of time doing this.

Meanwhile, this whole time, the producers are breathing down my neck, asking when I would have a finished manuscript so that they could start getting a screenplay worked on.  They teased me about different actors they had talked to about being in it, but never telling me who...

During these nine months, it was becoming apparent that me and this agent didn't see eye to eye on what should happen in my story.  They wanted one thing, I wanted another.

We weren't a good fit.

But we rolled forward.

Finally, I sent this agent what I thought would be the FINAL round of edits.  And then didn't hear from them for two months.  My emails were ignored and unanswered.  The producers were practically breathing fire at me for the first month of waiting.

So, I sent one last, very demanding email.  I had to know what was going on.

Explanations were given, and I won't go into all of the reasons, some were their own, some I think were due to the bad fit, but in the end, the bottom line was that this agent thought it best we parted ways.

Which was VERY okay by me.

I went back to the producers and said "this is what's going on.  Now what?"

Come to find out, during the last month of silence and waiting, the production company I was signed with dissolved.  And they dropped ALL their projects.

All of them.  Including EDEN.

So there I was, with this finished, re-vamped manuscript, no more movie deal, no more agent.

So what's a girl to do?

Shake it off and move on.

I republished EDEN as THE BANE, and gave you all the awesome news that there was going to be a trilogy.  Despite everything that happened, I'm glad that it did.  Because it was an amazing experience writing books 2 and 3.  I LOVE Eve, and Avian, and West, and Royce, and everyone else.  In fact, THE EVE may be my favorite book I've written.  Maybe.

And even though the movie didn't happen, it was still AMAZING to get as far as I did.  Most authors will never have their book optioned and it was even more amazing because back then, in 2011, there were almost NO self-published books that got optioned.  So I will forever be grateful for the experience.  I have no hard feelings, I still have a good relationship with most everyone involved.

So there you have it, the full story, the full explanation.

Thank you for supporting me and for loving the Eden trilogy.  Thank you for demanding more books.  I'm so grateful that you did.