Monthly Archives: February 2017

Water–Finished!

I just finished Water and sent it off to the publisher: Zarra Knightley Publishing. 48K words in total.

Grimaulkin is in editing. Hopefully that’ll be done by the end of March so I can have it by June and run with it this summer and fall.

I’m now released and working on Grimaulkin Tempted, book two of Grimaulkin’s series. I’ll write it out the way it’ll come out, and then I’ll edit for a YA audience.

Not sure what’s happening with War Mage. I think it’ll be at an editor’s at some point. Depending on how those edits come out, I might just scrap the whole series. Grimaulkin is my real baby. So’s Casey Donovan, who I think will put in an appearance during Brothers as Virgo.

What a relief!

Scorpio

So I was struggling with Scorpio. No offense, but I’ve never had good luck with Scorpios, either as friends or in a relationship. The story I first wrote was the “origin” story. It wasn’t that great, and it was way too short.

I talked with a friend who suggested I take the story and put it as a prologue, and rewrite Scorpio. Scorpios are very much into taboo subjects: incest, kinks, etc. I could have fun with him. They’re also stalkers, possessive, and easily jealous. So I’m rewriting it as a contemporary story (well, Summer 1972), just after protests for LBGT rights started.

I think it’s coming out a lot better, but it’s still kind of short. I have 8K words in it (after three days of near constant writing) and have to come up with 12K more, or at least 7K to reach the same as the other novellas. We’ve also been discussing covers. It’s going to have four covers–one for each of the signs, and one for Water, which will combine all of the signs into one omnibus. The three covers I’ve seen are pretty awesome, and I’m really happy with our cover designer.

Grimaulkin is at the editor as we speak. It’s on track to get rewritten for March as necessary. Scorpio, however, I don’t think I’ll get done by March 1. I already told the publisher and he said we’ll work with it.

Also, I’ve been having trouble with Scrivener. I have the story on my iCloud drive, which I can access on two computers: my Mac that’s located in the cellar, and my Windows computer that is located upstairs in my office. However, when I change anything on the Windows computer, it doesn’t register when I open it on the Mac. Cancer, I had rewritten a bit, but none of the changes showed up on the Mac version. It looks like I have to do all my work on the Mac, save it on the iCloud and do the compile on the iCloud drive, then hopefully open the .doc on my Windows computer. I’m wondering if Scrivener is more complicated than it’s worth, especially when I have to convert it to a .doc in order to send it to the editor. And then when the editor sends it back, I have to try and find the parts she’s talking about in Scrivener to correct. I love Scrivener as a writing tool. But as an editing tool, not so much.

Work vs. Play

35K words. That’s all Water has. I need more sex, more story in Scorpio. That’s what I’ll work on this week.

I just finished Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. This is the second book I read that believes that creativity is magic. (The first one, The Inspired Writer by Bryan Hutchinson I thought was better.) Big Magic sounds a lot like The Artist’s Way. Between the “woe is me because of the success of Eat Pray Love” are some nuggets of interesting thought. However, I don’t care much for her Trickster vs Martyr stereotypes of the typical artist. I believe that we are combinations of the two. I don’t want to be Bugs Bunny, but she makes it seem that it’s better for the artist to be that way. Mind you, I don’t like suffering for my art, either.

Water I have been suffering for. Grimaulkin is more fun. Grimaulkin’s voice has been with me for 10 years,  Water, for three months. I have to come up with three distinct voices at that.Water has a deadline. Grimaulkin, not so much. Water stresses me out. Grimaulkin 2 is the one I really want to write. I feel like I keep getting tugged away from the “work” of Water and pushed toward the “play” of Grimaulkin. I honestly thought Water would be fun. But maybe it’s the idea that I have a genre I have to fit myself into. I have rules I have to follow.

Maybe my muse is more of a trickster than I like to believe. I never believed in flogging the muse, because that scares her and makes her retreat into a corner, never to speak again.  But maybe I should work a little bit on Grimaulkin 2, because that’s where she wants to be, and leave Water for a couple of days to let her stew over it. I have a scene in mind, but that’s all it is, a scene, no story.

I have until the end of the month for Water, but my hope was to get it done while on my vacation/recovery from surgery. Tomorrow is another snow day, so I’ll be home working on…something.

 

1/2 done

Water’s stories are done, now all I need to do is drop the sex into them. So far it’s 30K, so I have to come up with another 30K to make it worthwhile. My research thus far has been pretty sad–most of the stories are the same, and the stories are more into the story than the sex. There’s only so many ways to describe the sexual act, though I don’t normally get beyond the vanilla. Other BDSM is just weird to me.

I got the cover for Water, and it’s very nicely done. I’m not putting it up here because a couple of things still need to be changed.

Haven’t been writing much otherwise, unfortunately. Been feeling depressed and angry about my eyesight, though it has gotten better over the past couple of weeks. I go on vacation next week, so my plan is to finish Water by the end of the two weeks. 30K in two weeks? Yeah, sure.