Writing for the Love

Fantasy Author Shayla Cole I'm pleased to introduce Shayla Cole, fantasy author of the Livinity trilogy. Visit her all-new website: www.shaylacole.com And I know what you're thinking... Shayla Cole looks a lot like Bria Burton . That's because Shayla Cole is me! I now have a nom de plume for Livinity . What's a Nom de Plume? It's a fancy way of saying "pen name." A pen name is a name an author uses in place of their real name. Why a Pen Name? I'm not using the name Shayla Cole for privacy reasons. I don't mind that people will know that Shayla Cole and Bria Burton are the same person. The main reason I'm using a pen name is to separate my epic fantasy novels ( Livinity trilogy and anything related to Livinity ) from my other writing projects. Explain this one more time... Shayla Cole is my new nom de plume for all things related to my epic fantasy trilogy,  Livinity . All other writing remains under my re...

In a world called Livinity... I'd rather not mention how long ago I started writing my epic fantasy trilogy.... cough, cough, since 2001, cough, hack ... Back then I had the idea that I was writing a single fantasy novel. It wasn't until Livinity won a First Place award in 2011 for Unpublished Fantasy novel that I decided to take the advice of agent Nicole Resciniti of the Seymour Agency and split the book into two. The single novel was too long, and agents like herself would have trouble placing it with a publisher. As I went about splitting up the completed novel, I realized that I had more to tell. That included adding scenes to the first and second books, and expanding the story to create enough content for a trilogy. It's taken a lot of time. Book One: Done I LOVE writing in this world. I spent a lot of time editing scenes to improve world-building, as that was a weak point in early drafts. When I completed the latest draft of Book One in the tri...