The Endurance Series
I have been working on and thinking about this series for the last few years. I have written and re-written the first book. I have started and re-started the second book. I also realized there will be a fourth book (which I need to contact Bookin’ It Designs for that cover). I have second, third, and fourth guessed the books and the whole series. I have spent countless hours and sleepless nights watching races and researching. I wanted to get it right. As right as I possible could.
One of the things that has plagued me about the series is how much racing do I add because understanding endurance racing is not as easy as understanding other types of racing. How much information about the type of cars and the type of racing and the rules do I include?
I saw an author say that she planned to write an F1 romance even though she’d never seen a race or knew anything about it.
I saw another author say that her hockey romance simply had the mention of the hero being a hockey player once upon a time and that there’s no actual hockey in the book.
I’ve read books with the sports being very well detailed, on the ice or the field, with research, and others with the sports being fluffed off and secondary or even deeper in the background.
So, how much do readers want? I think it varies, honestly.
It’s a fine line to walk for me. I don’t want the racing to be in the background, but I also don’t want to bore readers with it. I want the characters affected by it. It’s a risky profession and I want that noted in this series and in all racing series I write. Part of the overarching theme is the aftermath and fallout from a terrible wreck involving best friends and how it touches everyone and everything around them.
One of the best reviews I got for the first book in the Stick Shift Motorsports (when the first book was titled Stick Shift), was when someone said ‘The author seems to know what she’s talking about. I think she’s actually been to a race‘. I had been to many races by that point. It’s been important to me from the start to make sure I’m as authentic as possible while also taking a few liberties because after all, I do write romantic fiction. There’s always going to be exaggeration in how characters act or interact, but I try not to downplay what happens on a track. The locations of race shops will also be at liberty, too, but they had to be to fit the stories and how the characters interact.
Now… This series is going to be handled a little differently than others. Endurance racing doesn’t happen every single week the way Nascar does. The tracks and race dates are still all over. There are different endurance racing series (IMSA (International Motor Sports Association), FIA WEC (Federation Internationale de l’Automobile World Endurance Championship), European Le Mans series, Asian Le Mans series, and others…)
I’m basing my Endurance series on IMSA… The season starts in January at Daytona with the first race being the Rolex 24 at Daytona and then travels through the year to 11 tracks across the country. Unlike Nascar, endurance cars are broken into classes and there will be a winning team in each class. There’s also driver categorization and this covers all drivers in all racing series… Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Moving from one to the other is based on race results, series participation, career progression, experience, and consistency. They are then reviewed by the governing body, generally the FIA, and upgraded. Making a move, say from Bronze to Gold would mean the driver is transitioning from amateur to professional with podium finishes.
Teams have multiple drivers for one car, as well. Per the IMSA website “A minimum of two drivers are required for every race – with up to three to five drivers used’ in the…longer endurance races at Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen, and Road Atlanta. Those races are respectively 24 hours at Daytona, 12 hours of Sebring, 6 hours at Watkins Glen, and 10 hours at Road Atlanta.
So, these are the things that I try to understand and keep in mind. How much do I include? How much is relevant to the story I am trying to tell?
All That Glitters happens at the start of the season, before Daytona. I don’t actually show any racing in this book, but there’s plenty of drama and angst about racing fueling it. It also ends on a cliffhanger and it won’t be resolved until book four. There will also be snippets of internal monologue from the MMC in book one peppered here and there in book 2, All That Burns and in book 3, All That Echoes. It’ll be important but how I’m going to do it, I don’t know.
All the books will be released on race weekends and I’m still working out the finer details. All That Burns will likely be the 12 Hours of Sebring which is in mid-March, but All That Echoes will likely be in mid-June, with All That Endures in mid-October.
I really want to put these books in print and create a bundle when they’re all finished. They will be a wide release because KU doesn’t do well for me.
All That Glitters ties in Checkered Curves, Stick Shift Motorsports book 3, which still needs some serious help, but I’m determined to work out all those kinks. I don’t have a release date for it, yet, but it’ll be soon because yeah…
I didn’t answer all the questions. I didn’t give as many details here as I could have, maybe should have. But I gave what I felt needed to be given…
Releases throughout the year.
Cliffhanger at the end of All That Glitters because it had to be done…
Four books.
Angst on and off the track.
All That Glitters connection to Stick Shift Motorsports series.
Work on this series has been so different. It’s been a labor of love as well as just a labor of craft. I have questioned myself, up one side and down the other, about whether I have the skills to make it work. This is truly something I’ve been so excited and terrified to write and give to you.
I hope I do it justice.
Lissa
