Vampy Black: Work Continues...

I am still working on Darthaniel's book, editing and revising a couple areas where I am sure he would appreciate the extra work. This is currently at 43,000 words and a fun mix of techy-spy-fiction and paranormal vampire urban fiction. I am in love with the characters and situations here, and the dialog is to die for, just so well laid out and it sounds great. It is one of those books where you don't have to do much with the dialog and it sings to the ears.

Of course, I am putting some work in some parts, and slowing things down in several places to increase tension and savor those moments. I like slowing things down where they need to be slowed down, and getting into all the small things, observations, and actions that seem trivial but actually have a huge impact. There is a balance here between flow and detail, but I am used to writing suspense, tension, and action from my other two series, so I have a good eye for these sorts of scenes.

You can't ever disarm things to start either. Things have to be dangerous. The character shouldn't really have a certain way out. You have to feel as if you are stepping out onto the ice with the character as the reader, and things just get worse and worse. You can't start an action scene by telling people, "things will be okay." Darthaniel gets that, and I love going through his scenes and upping the ante on the danger and tension. It just makes for a great page-flipping experience where you can't wait to see what happens next.

So work continues, and I am hoping to get this editing project done and getting back to work on one of my series or junk-drawer of stalled projects, such as my SCL Project which is hovering between humor and erotic romance. I need to take a look at that one soon and make a decision of where I want it to go, and then forge ahead. For now, I am in editoress mode, and making Darhaniel's book the best I can make it to be.

SCL Project: That Thing? Found It.

Yes, I knew it would come to me. Last post I was taking it a bit slow to find that missing element. Today, it came to me, the plot element that ties together the point-of-view change, why this new character is needed, and how this will work in the end of the book. It was one of those moments where you have to sit there, you know you want this next turn to come, but you want to make it abundantly clear why this is happening.

You may not tell your readers that now, but by the end, they will get it.

It matters because you want to have the 'secret understanding' as you go forward and write what you write. Because if you keep the plot twist in mind before it happens, you can write for it a lot better. It may be less like a formal 'plot twist' but it is more of a 'why this is happening' sort of thing. If readers figure it out ahead of time, great, if not, they will have a fun surprise waiting.

It is also one of those 'sea change' moments that happen in books. I like it when a story turns and you are in a whole new world, it gives us a break and sets things on a different course. This is important with the new character and the PoV change, and having this 'shadow reason' of why this character needs to be involved will help me write everything that comes after the switch. This is my 'hidden roadmap' and I expect to be having a lot of fun writing for it in the chapters that are coming up.

I am up to 14,000 words, so I have made some good progress over this slowdown, but now that I have my motivation and the plot twist planned out, I expect my speed will pick up and I will be writing at an increased rate. I can feel it, and I will be thrilled if things pick up and I have those super-productive days again.

These lulls happen, and you have to power through them. The worst that happens is you stall and quit, and that is always a risk. To avoid that, you open up the story each day, and make small edits and changes - visiting with your story each day is crucial to avoid stalling and abandonment. You need to keep the words and characters in your mind, and you need to be checking in with them every day until you finish and go into editing.

You do make a commitment when you start a project, and part of commitment is giving your story the time it needs, and a little bit of each day to care for it and help it grow. Like plants, children, or anything else that needs care, a story runs into tough parts and stumbles from time to time, and this is where patience and especially sticking with it pays off in the long run.

SCL Project: The Stretch

I've hit a point in my planning and writing where I am still writing through a major point-of-view transition, and I did about a thousand words yesterday on my book. It is a little slower going than I would like to be going, and it is one of those sort-of feeling-it-out areas of the book where you drive a little slower to take in the sights and think about the next leg of the trip.

There are points in any book where you are on the freeway, just speeding along at thousands of words per day. There are other points where you have to slow down on a back road, make plans, and think about the logistics of the rest of the journey. That's where I am. I want to be out on that freeway zipping along, but I know I am in a place where I want to be a little planned and careful, so progress will happen as it happens.

It is also there is a certain something that I feel is missing from the chapter but I don't know what. It will come to me, but if I speed through it I feel I am going to miss it and regret not putting it in where later on it becomes clear to me. I have a great plan, and I could write through that, but sometimes the intimacy of the situation demands a little think-time when you are in the middle of the chapter, so think-time I shall take.

The danger is stopping and getting hung up. I feel if it drags on for more than a couple days, I am just going to say, "more important to move on," and hit the road again. You have to put a limit on your dawdling and inaction, because you are in this to finish, and finish you must. So there is a point where I will just get back to my original plan and just go.

Yes, that's why it is nice to have a plan. I have this outlined by chapter, so even if I get totally stuck, there is work waiting for me to do where I won't have to think about where the plot goes next. That work is done. I just have to write.

So that's were we are, I have a cover comp'ed up, and the book is about a quarter of the way there. It is going to take two or three more huge pushes to finish up, I can envision this one going a full 50K, but we shall see.

More soon, and stay tuned.

SCL Project: That Critical Moment

There comes a point in every book where as a writer you need to make a leap of faith.

I am there with my SCL project.

Now, I am beginning a major point-of-view transition in the narrative, and it has to feel right. I am adding a chapter in here so it is not such a sudden jump, but I needed this space to setup the PoV switch better. I want to avoid those WTF questions, yet keep the element of surprise fresh and not telegraphed.

So I need to do a bit of in-character thinking before the jump. This needs to be setup the right way, so I am partly working this out and partly feeling it out as I go.

I am also considering going back and writing a more steamy scene in the chapter previous to this one, it is steamy enough, and I am wondering if the heat needs to be continued or left on a low boil. It depends on how long the book is, of course, and what genre I want to put it in, so leaving it a low boil keeps me in more of a romance-thriller genre than it does an erotic-romance genre. I can always write in more sex since I have the situation and room to run if I so choose.

Yes, I have the chapters planned out in a loose outline. No, I don't have to follow them to the letter.

I am toy with the idea of a parallel narrative as well, switching back to the primary character every other chapter after the B-side story is introduced and given a chance to run for a while. We will see, I want to establish my second plot line firmly before switching back and forth between characters. It sounds like a fun idea, but the primary character and plot is very strong, and I don't want that taking away from the 'Alice in Wonderland' trip with the B-side that is to come shortly.

Just by typing this I have had some great ideas. I will let those simmer and I shall think about them for a while before committing to them. Sometimes just thinking through a project in a post like this leads to some great ideas.

So yes, I am approaching that 'big decision' moment, and it is looking more and more like I shall follow my heart and go with what I wanted to do in the first place. More progress reports and thoughts soon as work picks back up on this one.

SCL Project: 11,000 Words In...

Wow, what a day.

I just did another 4,000 words in my SCL Project, and I am feeling this project may not be suitable for a general audience anymore. I hit my first romantic scene, and now I am having doubts if this is going to be a mainstream project.

I may have to move this to another blog, or I may just keep it here and keep the new going. Or I may move my previous YA book into horror/action & adventure and leave everything here.

What happened is a romance scene that got a bit pulse-pounding for me, and my fans know how I like to write them so I'm sitting here in a post-spicy scene haze wondering what I am going to do. I don't want to edit it down because it is perfect for this life and this book. It is also very true to the tone I want to set for the lifestyle depicted in the book.

Oh, the pains of keeping it real I suppose.

I have some work to do and reorganization in my library. So changes are in order, this blog will be for works published under my name. My YA books? I won't tell you the name, since I want no crossover between these accounts. Amazon is very sensitive about this, so I need to make these changes.

So my self-help books may make their home here, which is good because they are great collections of Wednesday Workshop articles, edited and cleaned up to last the test of time. I have a couple more in the works, and that is a fun series that helps the writing community.

The SCL Project? Full steam ahead, and I made a lot of good progress today. No changes in content, and I am free now to write this how I want it to be and envision it.

Vampy Black? I shall have updates on this soon. I hit another issue and want to work through it before I share more. More soon and stay tuned.

SCL Project: 7,000 Words In...

Just a 'keeping it real' status update for my SCL Project, and I am 7,000 words into this. Oh my Goddess, I cannot believe how fun writing this book is for me.

I have gotten a lot of feedback about how I write, and this book is a result of what people said they like to see. It is also what I like to write, and I just feel so totally at-home writing in this style and on this subject.

To those of you that follow my reviews, the characters and style will be very familiar to you.

I have a couple major decisions coming up where I will need to make choices. One is on sexual content, how much and how graphic. There is another decision I will have to make that will require me to be very brave or very stupid and possibly both. I am saving making them until the last few words before I have to make them. The sexual content choice is coming up very quickly, within a chapter of where I am, and I shall see what I decide.

That second brave/stupid decision that comes later though, and I am agonizing over this. To be true to my vision, I need to go forward with how I envisioned this to be written. This means being brave/stupid and taking a huge chance. I guess I will get to this when I get to it, and I can put it off just a little longer.

I think what is fascinating to me about this project is that I am seeing a character I know from an entirely new side, and I am also meeting the people around this person. It is a fascinating world I knew little about or even explored in my reviews, and now I am getting to know this person a lot better through what he is going through. It is like 'knowing' someone online, and then the experience of meeting them in person.

Your perspective changes, and you start making opinions about them based on something other than a label or a simple statement of fact. In this case, I am really liking this character, and diving into this world with them is a fascinating and eye-opening experience. Someone you thought of as 'simple' is becoming wonderfully complex, and in that you start to realize things about yourself as well.

The story? Right out of a movie and I love it. It is one of those books you write and feel alive again, and I hope this comes across for readers as well.

More news soon, and the chase continues...

SCL Project: Work Begins

I don't believe in shelving an idea, because they rot. You either start it fresh, or throw it away.

So over the weekend a new novel project hit me, and I dived in.

I started by making the cover, and it sang to me. I just started throwing together pieces of the sample images I could find and I built a mock-up that made me smile. I also came up with a title that absolutely rocks, it nails what the book is about and it encapsulates the plot of the book perfectly.

Once I had the cover, I started throwing around the ideas.

It took a while, I knew what I wanted the book to be about, and I knew the general plot. I mentioned this to Darthaniel, and he came up with a totally different plot he thought the book should be about. His ideas has a lot of merit, so I took them and mixed them with my ideas, and now the book is perfect.

The book is so fun, and it has things in it that people universally say they love in my writing. It also has characters familiar to some, so this should be a treat for my fans.

I do have a choice to make, and it's pretty big.

Mainstream or erotic-romance?

This is a big choice for many reasons, well two actually, so I am diving in and holding off my decision for as long as possible. Is the book strong enough to sail without the sex? It certainly is. Would it be really, really fun with some spicy scenes added? It would in fact, fit perfectly.

Now even with straight romance you have a lot of leeway in spicy content, and then you can go to erotic romance, and then straight erotica. I am not doing this as straight erotica since it is not entirely about sex, but it is set in a world where writing the sex out would feel artificial and sterilized.

So there will be sex in the book. How explicit this will be is going to have to be a decision I make. It will also be a very tough decision if I do what I am planning on doing with the narrative. This is my second agonizing choice, but one I know readers will love since I do it all the time. Just not in this way.

And I completed 4,000 words today in the first two chapters, and the story starts off with a bang.

And I shall keep writing until I have to make that choice.

I am still editing Vampy Black, and I hope to get that done and back to Darthaniel soon. But the idea struck me, and it carried through to an amazing start I am super happy with. I will share more when I get work done and things get towards release, but this is going to be a fun one.

For now, I shall call this the SCL project, and keep you updated with as much information as I can. More soon.