Angels with Attitude - Michelle Rowen

ANGEL WITH ATTITUDE had a very slow birth and began life as something very different than how it ended up.

The summer of 2004, I was mourning the loss of the television series "Angel." :-) At that time I was obsessed with writing urban fantasy and I was mulling over an idea for a series, a la Jim Butcher or Laurell K. Hamilton. I had just bought an old anthology from a garage sale called "Vampire Detectives" because the cover amused me. Really, check it out. I read a couple of the stories, and thought: Detectives. Hmm. Interesting. Angel (the vampire) was a detective. That was a good series with lots of story potential. But I couldn't have a vampire detective. That had been done already.

Then I thought about his name, "Angel," and then thought what about an angel, no, a "fallen" angel, who becomes a detective to help humans out and hopefully earn enough brownie points to regain entry to Heaven. Cool! I wrote it as a short story for a workshop I was in and the concept went over pretty well. That short story is currently available on my website.

Nanowrimo (Nanowrimo.org) was just about to start. I signed up and wrote 50K of wandering, aimless drivel. The character didn't feel right. It didn't make any sense that she was a private investigator. My secondary characters were taking over. It was a big honkin mess. Then I got "The Call" for my first book, BITTEN & SMITTEN. "What else are you working on?" the editors wanted to know. "Oh, a book about a fallen angel. Love interest's a demon," I told them. "We love that idea," they said. "We want that as book two."So, back to square one. Since my first book is about an "Everygal" who becomes a vampire, I figured my angel should be an Everygal too. So no more detective. But she goes out of her way to do "good deeds" to earn her brownie points. Also, now it had to be a comedy romance. The detective version was way darker. There was a bit of romance between her and the demon love interest, but it wasn't happy. And since it was supposedly the first book in a "series," it didn't have an HEA ending.

So I sent my fallen angel (now making ends meet working at a Niagara Falls motel as a maid) on a quest to retrieve the Key to Heaven with a sexy Tempter demon and a talking rat. All of which (except for the rat, but a girl needs a sidekick!) existed in the detective version, only this time it felt more fun and interesting. I enjoyed writing it this time because all the pieces fell into place this time.

I wrote it in first person, then when it was finished, I realized that it should have been written in third. Instead of accepting it the way it was, I decided to plunge in and change the point of view. Note: I do not recommend trying to do this if you want to keep your sanity intact.

When I finished, I felt the story line was a little too wacky. Luckily my editor thought it was just right. And now my tale of angels, demons, witches, magic and the Underworld has fallen to earth two years after its original inception.

Michelle