When I rewrote my original Mysterious Warriors book into four instead of one, I quickly realized the third book would be the most work. Why? Because the third book didn't actually exist in the original first. Rather, it was a story line which was talked about, but it was never actually shown.

I started writing Mysterious Warriors: Alone, and then I was having a difficult time writing it for two reasons: going back and forth between the Prophecy Series and Mysterious Warriors books made it difficult to get back into the world of Erde (Mysterious Warriors), and I really wanted to write the fourth book: Redemption. I decided to stop writing Alone, write Redemption, and go back and finish writing Alone. While some may think the process is crazy, and yes, maybe it was, I did finish Redemption before I finished Alone.

In my first draft of Alone, I had empty spaces with a paragraph of outline but not a complete scene. When I edited my first draft, I went through the incomplete scenes and either got rid of them or wrote notes on how I was going to actually write the scene. This technique really helped me finish writing the first draft of Alone.

Redemption, which I knew would be the easiest of the four for me to rewrite, proved to be harder than I anticipated. While the story and ideas continued to come to me, I was diagnosed with tendinitis in my left hand while I was trying to finish writing Redemption. I knew I had issues with my left hand, but I didn't think it was very bad. However, on Christmas Eve 2014, I went to the Christmas Eve candlelight service at my parents' church, and while I was there, I tried to hold the candle in my left hand. Pain kept shooting through my hand and wrist (I had braced my hand at work that day, but I left the brace at work), and I realized something was really wrong with my hand. I went to my doctor and then a specialist who tested the reactions my hand had to different levels of electric currents. The testing didn't hurt, and it determined that I had tendinitis in my left pinky, ring finger, and thumb. I hoped I would have carpel tunnel (since that can be fixed through surgery), but instead I had tendinitis (which cannot be cured).

Now I had to be more careful as I typed and worked. I figured out certain things helped my wrist and hand, while others hurt. I stopped using the mouse on my laptop and used a wireless mouse. Fall 2015, during my classes, I learned about Speech Recognition software on the computer which can be used to help type documents. I also got an ergonomic keyboard and mouse for Christmas 2015, and they have both really helped my hand and stopped the tendinitis from hurting. If you have tendinitis in either, or both, hands make sure you have ergonomic equipment set up for your writing. Also, set up a work space with a desk at a good height (not too tall or short), and a monitor in front of you. These will all help your tendons not inflame from typing.