Time Heist’s Dirty, Goopy Birth!

I was over on Goodreads answering some questions about Time Heist’s genesis and thought I might as well share it with ya’ll.

By the way, if you haven’t already, there is still time to sign up to win a free signed copy of Time Heist. Click HERE to do so. It takes practically no time and hey, you could win a free book which doubles really well as a coaster or paperweight. How’s that for multi-functionality.

Time Heist is sort of an accidental baby. It hadn’t been something I set out to do, but hey, I have it now, so might as well love it and try to keep it out of trouble. I learned that parenting technique from my Dad, by the way.

About two years ago, around Christmas, I was writing for my blog WeaklyShortStories, and put down 2 or 3,000 words of what was then referred to as Time Snatch (yes, I know, terrible name. Get your giggles out now).

You done giggling? Okay, good. Let’s carry on.

Time Snatch was my first time serializing a short story. I added to the story 3,000 words at a time, three or four times a week, not really sure where I was going with the whole thing. I had a couple ideas I wanted to explore, and some interesting scenes I wanted to write, but beyond that I didn’t have much in the way of a plot, or story. For me, the purpose of that blog, and Time Snatch, was to put work out there, perfect my process, and learn how to write myself into and out of corners.

At the end of that month, Time Snatch was floating around 30,000 words, which was surprising to me at the time ’cause I’d only meant to throw down about 10,000 words worth of ink. But the fans kept commenting, wanting more, and I’m a glutton for giving the people what they want… and I mean anyt–.

Nevermind.

Well, a lot of readers reached out after that initial blitz asking if I would consider flushing Time Snatch out into a full novel. At the time I was working on my Gods and Children series, but there was something about that world that was yet unformed, aka:I needed to put it aside and let it gestate.

Time Snatch was 1/3 of the way to novel length anyways, so it seemed an easy stretch just to fill it out and make it awesome.

Well, that’s easier said than done. Whereas before I was writing off the cuff, now I felt as though to tell the story the way it deserved to be told, I needed to flush out some concepts.

The more I flushed, the more I found lurking beneath the surface. Somewhere along the way something very interesting happened and I saw a way to connect Time Snatch to my Gods and Children series and presto! Things started made sense. Those niggling doubts about Gods and Children vanished and I had this world simply appear in my skull as if out of the ether (in reality it’d been percolating for quite a bit and was getting a bit burnt).

Through that process The Firstborn Saga was created, which for those of you who don’t know is a trilogy of trilogies. Each trilogy takes place in the same world through the eyes of different characters, with Time Heist (the much betterly named version of Time Snatch) being book one.

Each trilogy will be supplemented with novellas and short stories (which you can keep up to date on by visiting OneLazyRobot.com), with the first Novella, Infinity Lost, which can be thought of as Book 1.5 coming out sometime in early February.

Book Two, Mind Breach, will likely be out in early March, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

Okay, so for those of you with short attention spans here’s the tl:dr version: magic.

Want to learn more about The Firstborn Saga? Sign-up for my NEWSLETTER and you’ll also get a FREE story. Also, for those who don’t know, you can get a FREE story by leaving a review on Amazon of any OneLazyRobot book. Click HERE to see the library.

Click on the pic to get your copy of Time Heist.

Anthony