Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Irony, Actually

Yesterday, I was talking both on Facebook, and with the man, about my productivity and measurements thereof.

I think I go through this semi-regularly, so you know, it's also very likely that I'm neurotic.

Last week, I wrote about 5,000 words for Book Three of Rainbow Connections and I've already done almost 4,000 for this week.

It never seems like enough, somehow. I always feel like I'm slacking off, I'm not working hard enough, I'm not publishing enough. I'm lazy, worthless, an impostor. I swear, I have impostor syndrome that's so active it ought to have its own secret identity.

So, I'm going over this with the man last night, generally bitching about my lack of productivity. He's sitting there on the sofa watching me with that little smirk like he does when he knows I'm being ridiculous, which - for whatever reason - tends to goad me into longer bouts of self-hatred. It's like I want to prove to him that I'm serious, that any rational adult would run screaming rather than being in a relationship with me.

At the same time, I am aware that I'm being ridiculous.

I may have issues.

After I wrapped up my rant - he didn't say a word, not really - I decided to check email before going to bed.

If you don't know where this is going, it's because you're unfamiliar with dramatic irony (not the Alanis Morissette version, which is just unpleasant coincidence and not irony at all...)

I had an email from my publisher, containing a contract for A Marked Man and A Wanted Woman.

Because, you know, publishing 2 novels a year isn't enough for me.

Contract signed. As usual, you'll know more when I know.


Rough draft 'blurb and tagline

Tagline

His word is his bond; will a beautiful warrior force him to destroy himself to keep his vow?

'blurb

Bastian Hooke, known to the underworld as Mace, is an assassin and a thief. He was the last person expected to carry out great deeds. But comes the Seeress with her prophecy and a sack of gemstones, and Bastian finds himself thrown headfirst into a quest he cannot possibly understand. Sought by a dark sorcerer, surrounded by secrets and lies on all sides, he is charged with the protection of the last of the dragonslayers... the very last thing he meant to do was fall in love.

Catreen An'dello has been divorced from her soul for ten years. Betrayed by her former lover to the dragon, imprisoned inside a living statue and nearly driven mad, she wishes nothing more than to forget. Desperate to ease her guilt and soothe her pain, Catreen drives a demon's bargain with the man who saved her soul.

Can an assassin and a dragonslayer find the strength of will to save the kingdom from destruction?

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

But that Happened Last Year

So, the contract for Blues - offered last week - has been signed. That's moving forward. It'll probably be a few weeks before I have a tentative publication date... altho Torquere is pretty good about not moving the date too much after it's set. In any case, like everything, I'll let you know when I know more details. I've already selected a cover image and I'm ready to go with a lot of the administrative stuff (marketing plans, blurb, back of the book blurb, etc) that I know they'll want from me... helps to have been working with the same publisher for a while. I already know what's expected from me.

Yesterday I was working on Classic, which is book three. It is not the final book of the series, but it is the last book in which Beau and Vin will be main characters. Punked Up will be fronted by Ann-Marie, although at least the first few chapters will have Beau and Vin in them... from the bits of story I have worked on so far, Punked Up will take place about two years after Beau graduates from college. (Classic covers his junior year...)

All that Jazz, which will be told primarily from Hector's point of view, will probably have the boys in cameo roles, and I'm not sure of the timeline just yet. I have a few scenes for that book planned out, but since Hector was already graduated and an "adult" during Roll, he's not as much with the college crowd as Beau and Vin.

Anyway, I was writing Classic, and I did about 1,200 words or so, finished Chapter Two which I may need to go back in and re-write because I sometimes make Vin's grandparents a lot more awful than I want them to be. They are a little awful, and terribly clueless, but they're not abusive, as they sometimes come across in a rough draft. After which, as I tend to do, I posted my word count on my Facebook page.

(side note: I have a real life friend who will not "like" my author page because she hates word counts, step counts, pounds lost, or any other sort of public progress tracking that people do. I'm never quite sure how I feel about this. Conflicted.)

A few minutes after the post went up, I got a somewhat frantic-sounding message from a fan "Did I miss book 2?"

There's a very strange disconnect between writing, editing, and the book actually ending up in a reader's hands.

Just to give you an example of the timeline; in 2013, I started writing Roll in April. I finished it by the second week of June, did the revision in July/August and submitted it at the end of August/beginning of September. I then spent September and October doing a revision of Blood Sight. And November, I started writing Blues. I wrote the majority of the novel during NaNoWriMo and completed the finishing touches in January (taking most of December for vacation and real life stuff...)

Blues was finished its rough draft before I did final edits for Roll.

Roll came out in February 2014, about 10 months after I started writing it. Because I am now balancing two (and possibly three) different novel series, the timeline has altered a bit.

I ended up waiting until June to start the second draft of Blues and sent it in on the 26th of June. It was about 30 days between submission and contract, which is a good turn around.

But for me, stuff that happened in Blues happened in my mental map of last year. I accidentally spoilered a friend of mine on the book because I was so excited about starting Classic that I said "Oh, yeah, well, after the thing with <redacted>, Vin's going to <redacted> and then..." in my mind, Blues is the past and Classic is the now. She said, "What? When did <redacted>? Jeez, spoiler much?"

Oh. Right. Sorry.

Anyway, my current schedule looks like this:


  • Write Classic (tentatively finish around the 1st of October...)
  • Start looking over the short stories for Coming Together:Among the Stars (August 15th - Sept 30th) Yes, I realize this runs consecutively with writing Classic, but it should be okay, since I'm just in the selection process here...
  • Second draft of Howling Bitch in October
  • November (NaNoWriMo) write Sins of Angels
  • Edit Wanted Woman in December (assuming that A Marked Man is picked up, because there's no point in editing book 2 if book 1 doesn't have a home yet...)
  • Also, edit and compile stories for Coming Together during December, turn in.
  • January 2015, finish writing Sins of Angels if it's not done yet
  • February get in final edits of Howling Bitch for publication in March

At some point, I may wish to get a life...

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Eagerly Awaited Sequels

It's official. Roll's sequel, Blues, has been accepted for publication.

I'm not sure of the timeline at present; last year, I submitted Roll at the tail end of August for a February publication date; this year I've submitted Blues at the end of June... we'll see where I fit in on the calendar. I'll let y'all know as soon as I know.

Here's the rough draft 'blurb

College is supposed to be about finding yourself. Sometimes, you lose everything else. Rising sophomore Beau Watkins gave up everything to be with his boyfriend, Vin Reyes. Beau is disowned by his father, tormented by his brother, is rapidly running out of money, and suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. On top of that, his boyfriend seems to see him as little more than a live-in maid. 
Troubled by word of his missing father and fighting nightmares of his own, Vin turns to alcohol to drown his pain. What's worse, a handsome transfer student is a little too interested in Beau. When Vin and Beau's happily-ever-after turns into a train wreck of drinking problems, resentment, insecurity, jealousy, and violence, they both try to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives. 

I already have an idea of what I want the cover to look like, so that should be easy enough.

For fans, I'll let you know a few secrets:

- Vin's family plays a much greater role in Blues, letting readers get a glimpse of the past, plus the reasons why his grandparents kept everything hidden from him.
- Beau discovers one of the reasons college sucks; you still have to keep your grades up while dealing with emotional turmoil.
- There are a few scenes where the ever-popular Hector has the spotlight, paving the way toward Hector's own novel, All That Jazz
- Ann-Marie fans will be happy to see that she has as big a role as ever; helping to keep her friends centered and stable. She's an extraordinarily strong woman, not in the Hollywood, shoot-first and never-ask-questions way, but smart, practical, and there for her friends. She also has her own novel coming up, Punked Up.
- I've already started work on the third book in the main trilogy, Classic, which will follow Beau off to a semester abroad...

The Schedule:

The plan is to finish Classic by mid to late September, then go back and edit Howling Bitch (book 2, Demoniac Codex) which will be published by Vamptasy on March 17th. That will bring me through... I should be done with that by the end of October, so then I'll set NaNoWriMo aside for writing Sins of Angels, Demoniac Codex, Book Three.

In the meanwhile, because I am horribly crazy, I've dragged out an old drawer story, Marked Man, and edited it thoroughly. I sent it off to a publisher, divided into two novels (the original draft of Marked Man was over 180,000 words, which is 3 times as long as Roll, just for point of reference.) I cut out some extraneous material and divided the remainder into two 75,000 word novels, A Marked Man and A Wanted Woman, under the series title The Forging of Souls.

Here's the rough blurb for book one, A Marked Man

Bastian Hooke, known to the underworld as Mace, is an assassin and a thief. He was the last person expected to carry out great deeds. But comes the Seeress with her prophecy and a sack of gemstones, and Bastian finds himself thrown headfirst into a quest he cannot possibly understand. Sought by a dark sorcerer, surrounded by secrets and lies on all sides, he is charged with the protection of the last of the dragonslayers... the very last thing he meant to do was fall in love.
Catreen An'dello has been divorced from her soul for ten years. Betrayed by her former lover to the dragon, imprisoned inside a living statue and nearly driven mad, she wishes nothing more than to forget. Desperate to ease her guilt and soothe her pain, Catreen drives a demon's bargain with the man who saved her soul. 
Can an assassin and a dragonslayer find the strength of will to save the kingdom from destruction?

The plan - provided, of course, that my publisher is interested in this book - is to release both books a few months apart, so Part One in, say,  July 2015, and then Part Two in November of that same year. (those are example dates, as the novel hasn't been accepted yet... )

That'll put me at December, and I'll probably take a few weeks off to do holiday stuff. I have a number of short stories slated for fall publication, including Fair Games, my first independent lesbian story. I'm pretty excited about this one, it'll be in the sequel to Duty & Desire, which is entitled For Love of a Soldier.

* fact about Fair Games, the introduction scene is taken almost verbatim from something that happened to me, quite a number of years ago....

So, that's me and my writing schedule up to the end of the year...

Other things; 

I'm doing my first publisher sponsored book-signing in September! Rose Caraway, Kristina Wright, and I will be at The Fountainhead Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia on the 19th, from 12:30 - 2:30 pm. If you're local to Richmond, please stop by, I'd love to meet fans. I'm very excited about this...

After that, I'm going to the Mid-Atlantic Erotica Writer's Retreat for the weekend, which will involve a lot of wine, a lot of erotica writers, and probably NOT a lot of actual writing... (I'm also bringing my Cards Against Humanity Deck... and seriously thinking about bringing a video recorder, because honestly, someone should film that...)

At some point, Rose is doing audiobooks for all of us who are writing for Sexy Librarian, which will include my zombie short story, Dead in the Water. I'll post that link as soon as it's available, because y'all want to hear that. (especially my friend Elliot, who has been nagging me for YEARS to read my work out loud... which you don't want me to do because I suck at reading out loud.)

Oh, and the deadline for submitting a sci-fi erotica story is coming up Real Soon Now, so if you're interested in doing that, please, please get on it!