Thirteen years after publishing I, Claudia, my historical fiction novel about Pontius Pilate and his wife Claudia Procula, I decided to return to Ancient Rome and rewrite their story. I thought I was revising a single novel. Instead, Claudia and Pilate’s story grew into an entire series. One that will take them from the political intrigues of Rome and the dangerous ambitions of Sejanus to Judea, Herod and Herodias, Barabbas, and eventually the trial and crucifixion of Yeshua (Jesus). Getting there, however, required me to throw out a lot of words, rethink almost everything, and trust my extremely inconvenient pantser writing process.

Why I Decided to Rewrite I, Claudia

I am not a chill person. I push myself hard. I compete with myself and other people. I just hide it well. This year has been a challenge for me, since I’ve been endlessly reworking my novel, I, Claudia.

This November, that long rewrite will finally become The Dream Diviner, the first book in a new historical series about Pontius Pilate and his wife, Claudia.

My writing process, which is called Pantsing 2.0, does not help me. I can’t plan in-depth to save my life, I can’t follow an outline, I have to sit down, write, watch the story unfold in front of me, make bad choices, then go back and restructure it all several times, to bring out what the story is really about. (Once I know!) The result is great; the process, not so much! This slows me down a lot, so while my dream self releases two to three books a year, my actual self releases one or two.

So, here is what I’ve been doing for the last year, for those who are interested.

In 2013, I released I, Claudia, a novel about Pontius Pilate and his wife. Since earlier books always show less skill than later ones, I happen to care immensely about having a good reputation as an excellent writer, and I adore that period in history, I decided to rewrite it. (This will be my third rewrite, since I also released an earlier version of that novel at sixteen years old! And it wasn’t half bad.)

So I did.

How One Book Became a Series

By March, after a bunch of false starts (how many characters do I include? Is it first or third person?…) I had a draft for a 120k novel set in Rome and Judea. And I hit a snag. When I read it, it felt rushed. Nobody had time to breathe. A lot happened in a short amount of time. The first half felt disconnected from the second half. That’s when I realized… this needs to be a book series, not a stand-alone novel.

We need to meet Lucius Pilate and Claudia when they are young, watch them fall in love and navigate Roman politics, watch them move to Judea and deal with angst and subplots there, THEN meet Yeshua (Jesus) and go through His ministry, death, and resurrection alongside them. That way, everyone gets the time and space for character development, and by the time we deal with Yeshua/Jesus, we know who Claudia and Pilate are as people and are eager to see them change and grow.

Once I knew that, I completely ditched that draft (I stuck it in a folder for later; I always save things, even if I wind up abandoning all those words when Better Ideas Come Along) and started again. Deciding to just focus on their time in Rome, I wrote a draft with a villainous Oracle in it, but quickly realized she was superfluous and taking away from the actual story, which had to be centered on Pilate, Claudia, and their eventual enemy, Sejanus. Maybe you have heard of him. Total ruthless bad-ass, who had everyone terrified of him in Rome, who was slowly taking over from Tiberius (who never wanted to be emperor in the first place and would rather be sunning himself on beaches in Crete). Once I knew who the villain was, everything else fell into place.

Claudia is no longer the daughter of a vintner; she is now a high-placed illegitimate daughter in the emperor’s household. Pilate is an up-and-coming, strategic-thinking Praetorian with Ideas about how to improve procedures. And they get caught up in rebel attacks, assassination attempts, and discover a treasonous plot that they may or may not be able to stop in time.

I’m excited about it, and in my final round of edits. I hope to release it in November, and I hope you’ll come along on this journey with me as I move from the demon-laden streets of San Francisco to the dingy alleys of Ancient Rome.

What the New Claudia Chronicles Will Be About

I already have plans for book two percolating in the back of my mind, about their arrival in Judea and an immediate political crisis, since Herod’s eyes go wandering to his brother’s wife, Herodias, while she is on a diplomatic visit to Caesarea. (This nearly caused a war, and later escalated into one with Herod’s ex-father-in-law.)

I am not sure how many books will be in this series; it depends on the plots and which ones layer on top of each other well. So far, my broad structure is Book One (Claudia, Pilate, Sejanus), Book Two (Herod, Herodias), Book Three (Yeshua/Jesus starts his ministry, alongside the rise of the zealot leader Barabbas), Book Four (Yeshua/Jesus’s trial, execution, and resurrection). Book Five (the Samaritan uprising, Herod’s ex-FIL invades). But all of that is subject to change because… pantser.

Coming Soon: The Dream Diviner

Book I in The Claudia Chronicles Series

Claudia Procula has always dreamed differently than other girls. Her visions arrive in symbols, layered and urgent, like messages from a god she doesn’t know. As stepdaughter to Emperor Tiberius and sister to the moralistic Drusus, Claudia moves through Rome’s most treacherous circles, where one wrong word ends lives.

When she falls for Lucius Pontius Pilate, a Praetorian soldier far below her station, she begins to suspect her dreams are warning her about the people closest to her, including the terrifyingly powerful Praetorian Prefect Sejanus. But decoding a prophecy you don’t understand, in time to stop a catastrophe you can’t yet see, may be the most dangerous thing a woman in Rome can do…

If you are not already part of my mailing list, please join up; my mailing list subscribers will get sneak peaks, a chance to sign up for an ARC, a cover reveal, to read the first chapter ahead of everyone else, and more fun stuff!

If you feel thus inclined, praying for me would also be appreciated. It has been a hard year, emotionally and spiritually, but also one of great personal growth.

I will be blogging about interesting topics in the weeks leading up to November to go along with the book, including what I’ve learned about how Ancient Jews thought. A few of them “blew my mind,” and hopefully will entertain you as well!

See you soon!