Ramblings of an Australian Writer

I have finished my Nano novel. It feels very strange right now, to have a Saturday night with nothing to write - although that's not exactly true, I do have things to write, I'm just taking a wee break - so I've been faffing with Paint Shop Pro instead.

The novel, being book two in my Archangels in love series, clocked in on its first draft at 72503 words. Phew. I suspect this will grow when I get to the editing. I know there's things I need to expand on and things I need to clarify. Right now, though, I'm mentally exhausted and I know it will come out as 'argle blargle wargle' and that would be very bad indeed. No one wants to buy a novel that has random gibberish peppered throughout the text. Like book one, it ended on a cliffhanger of sorts, as I know what I'm doing with book three, but I need to take a breather.

Even though my brain is saying, "Write, write, write!" I will, you silly muscle, just not tonight, omg. I am tiiiiired.

Overall, though, the story I wrote is the one I wanted to tell and it went down some paths I didn't think it would, but those will be clarified and expanded as required in my edits.

I'm also exhausted because not just has November been Nano month, it's also been medical month and I've had at least three appointments with a specialist/doctor/dental surgeon of some sort every week. For that reason alone, I'll be glad when November's over.

Anyhoo. Book first draft finished. YAY!

I've been pretty quiet on the blogging front here the last several weeks, and I apologise for that. Things have been all varieties of hectic, so I haven't had the energy or the time to participate in things I enjoy that I normally would, like Six Sentence Sunday or Thursday Thirteen.

It's been a period of medical specialists and treatments and I think November is going to be pretty much eaten up by this. I've got at least two different things each week and it doesn't look to be calming down once we get into December, either. I'm hopeful that it will eventually calm down, because, if nothing else, I like my sleep!

I have managed to get quite a bit done in Nanowrimo this year, which is good. I'm writing book two of my Archangels series, this one I'm grappling with the title too. I have a feeling that every book in this series is going to be accompanied by a zillion different titles before I settle on one that suits the individual book. At the moment, the working title is Beings of Light and Dark, which is also a homage to one of my favourite novels by Roger Zelazny, but I don't know if it will stay that. I'm already looking at it and wrinkling my nose, which is not a good sign for the survival of that title. I fear its days are numbered.

In between writing and medical stuff, I've been absorbed by Tetris. That's about the extent of my brain power. However, I've been very, very lucky in that my physio is awesome and happily geeks out with me during my appointments over books and TV. My GP continues to be awesome, and the educator at the Diabetes Clinic is fantastic, too.

I'm glad to say that my CT scan and X-ray came up clear, so this means that the issues in my knees are as we first thought, soft tissue related. I just hope I don't have to have another MRI, as I hate enclosed spaces and the MRI is like a machine version of a tomb, in my opinion. I hate them. And I'm just putting it out there, universe: no alien probes for me, mmkay? Kthx.

I've hit a really enjoyable part in the novel, and writing this is great fun, so I'm really excited about the whole writing procedure at the moment. I had my fears that this book would actually hit the 50K word mark, but now I think it will get to my planned minimum word count of 70K words. If it goes over that, even better.

There's not really a lot else to report. It's warming up here as we move towards summer and I'm dreading it, as it's been pretty humid already and humidity is the worst thing, don't you think? It's like breathing water. I hate it. I can cope with the heat of the Aussie summer, but the humidity, ugh. Do not want!

Hope you're all doing well and I hope we'll all touch base with each other real soon.

Oh, and I'm at Four Strong Women on the 2nd of December, so do come and say hi and commiserate with me about having noisy and unruly neighbours!

Today is a good day.

Even though I had a blood test done this morning (a regular thing - it never gets less unpleasant), nothing was going to ruin my good mood. And why such a good mood? I woke up to a lovely email from Dreamspinner Press, offering me a contract for the first novel in The Archangel Chronicles.

So No Quarter, the novel that went through over thirteen title changes, has a home and will be published in ebook, paperback and audio book in the first quarter of 2012. Yes, I am excite!

It's a good six months for me in terms of releases. I have Long Road Back coming out in December, as part of the Dreamspinner Press Christmas Advent Calender daily-dose anthology, and preordering for the full anthology is already up, at a special price of $39.99. Individual stories will be available for purchase in December.

Now, to finish City of Jade (which is looking infinitely more doable than it was a few weeks ago), and November, being Nano month, will be devoted to book two of my Archangels in love series. I'll also be doing reading and research for a historical, hopefully novel length, to submit to the Roman period call at Riptide Publishing. So I'm feeling pretty good about things right now.

Don't forget, the Erotica Apocrypha anthology is now available, in both ebook and paperback format, too.

And today's shirt of lulz is 'Cirque du Llama.'

Six sentences from a work in progress novel, the sequel to City of Gold. Where the first story takes place entirely in Constantinople in the year 1131AD, the sequel, City of Jade, takes place on the Silk Road, from Constantinople to Chang'an, China, now modern-day Xi'an.

*~*~*

"I did not know you had that," Gallienus said in surprise.

"I hunted often when my homeland was at peace." Misahuen's eyes were narrowed, his entire focus on the riders thundering towards them.

"Are you skilled?"

"Skilled enough."

Gallienus nodded, returning his attention to the riders and when they were in range, he gave the command.


Other Six Sundays.

From No Quarter.

Gabriel looked around, taking in the shape of the land, the glint of sunlight on water on the river in the distance. It was quiet, save for the sounds of birds and small animals who made their home here in the greenery of the hills near Xi'an and he felt instantly more relaxed and at peace.

"Beautiful spot," Gabriel sat down on the grass, lying back and leaning on his elbows. "Should take you to Mt Aspiring in New Zealand one of these days. That's my favourite place to relax and commune with nature. It's... beautiful, although beautiful isn't a strong enough word for how lovely it is."


Other Six Sentence Sundays.

The Archangels novel has gone through so many title changes, it's ridiculous. So, as it FINALLY has a title, thanks to the genius 4am brain of meredith_shayne, here's the thirteen titles it had before achieving it's current title. (I'm sure there were more than thirteen, fyi, just that these are the ones I kept a record of!)

In order, from oldest to what it is now, finally, fixed! And I bet both meredith_shayne and jerusalemorbust breathe a sigh of relief, as I've been bemoaning titles to them both for... um. Months. >_<

1. Silver and Gold.
Chosen because Gabriel's power manifests as silver light and Michael's manifests as gold light.

2. Unexpected Destinies.
Yeah... no.

3. Craving to Entwine.
Saying it out loud made me cringe. A blog that my Noble editor Bonnie linked to had a piece about how if you can say your title out loud without wincing or cringing, that's the one to use. And it's true. This... was not the one to use.

4. Masquerade of Stars.
Doesn't fit this first novel, but it does fit the final novel in the trilogy so at least there's that.

5. The Coming War.
Which sounds good, but the story is about more than an approaching war.

6. Flying for Lovers.
Also made me cringe, but might be reused for a short story or something. Something that isn't so plotty as this.

7. Hope Remains.
Cringeworthy.

8. In Silver and Gold.
I recycled and added a word and decided... no.

9. Uprising.
This was a solid contender for quite a while. I actually went back to it after discarding title #10.

10. Wings of Desire.
Which is a really awesome German film, and I love it, film and title both, but it didn't really feel right to me for this book.

11. Genesis.
Suggested by meredith_shayne, while we were brainstorming, and I liked it but it still didn't really feel right.

12. Angels Speak in Dark and Light.
Too close to one of my all time favourite novels, Creatures of Light and Dark by Roger Zelazny for me. So, no.

13. No Quarter.
HALLELUJAH. It immediately resonated with me. This was meredith_shayne's 4am brainstorm, and her thoughts matched mine as soon as I saw it. No quarter is given in wars/battles between angels and demons; no quarter is given in love, when it's the possessive, primitive sort of love that Michael and Gabriel have. It's also the title of a Led Zeppelin song covered by Tool, the first verse of which fits *perfectly* the whole tone of the novel. And I quote:

Lock all the doors, and kill the lights.
No one's coming home tonight.
The sun beats down and don't you know?
All our lives are growing cold, oh...
They bring news that must get through.
To build a dream for me and you, oh.

So, a million thankyous, meredith_shayne. I shall build a temple in your honour.

Oh, and also, the word count of No Quarter is currently 52465 words. I am so close to finishing the first draft. I'm aiming to have it done by the end of the weekend. Then I will ignore it for a week and work on City of Jade, then go back to it and start fixing it into a readable second draft. But being so close... it feels awesome. I'm quite pleased with how the feathery kids have turned out!

I'm so close. SO CLOSE. Again, the Archangel novel has no title. I am fail in that department. Does anyone else have a 10K block that seems to take forever to pass? For me, it's the 30-40K word mark, it always seems to feel like an eternity to pass 40K, but once I do, everything else seems to zip past at lightning speeds. Like this week and my 10K words, hurrah.

Shiny things: So many pretty shiny things.

And sundrily, I have a dental appt on Thursday, for which I have fear as dentists are my major phobia, but boy, do I need a lot of work. Ah, teeth. We should have shark teeth.

5K words today. Ow, says wrist.

Today's Thursday Thirteen is thirteen things I can't do without. In a general sense certainly but definitely in a writing sense. So here we go, in no particular order.

1. MS Word.
Sad but true. If there was no Word with its nifty track changes feature, I'd be flailing trying to find a program that did everything that I wanted it to.

2. Dropbox.
This is an awesome tool to back up your files. Having had the blue screen of death and panic over losing works in progress, Dropbox is that extra insurance to ensure peace of mind for backing stuff up. I wish I'd had this years ago too when I accidentally deleted a 50K word novel and nothing I tried could recover it. Sad face.

3. The internet.
Oh man, the internet. The internet has made researching so much easier. No more getting a headache trawling through microfiche in tiny, stuffy little rooms. No more hunting for books only to find they've been stolen or 'lost'. No more going through periodicals and discovering the article I really need has been torn out. The internet has also made social networking so much easier, made the whole publishing and promotions part of writing more accessible and easier to understand. Sure, the internet can be a great time waster but it's also a tool and an awesome one at that.

4. Google Earth.
Google Earth is... amazing. The clever clogs who invented it have made plotting destinations and the like so much easier. Plus, clever clogs who know how to code such things have made overlays that you can load up in Google Earth and learn all sorts of things. For "City of Jade" that I'm working on, I was pulling my hair out trying to find a good map of the Silk Road in 1131AD. I stumbled on a Google Earth board where a very clever gentleman had made an overlay that covered the Silk Road and it's offshoots with notes and photographs for each point that a traveller or merchant would stop at. The overlay covers the Silk Road up to 1500AD and the data on this overlay is truly amazing. In short, when writing something that you need to know destinations, locations, surroundings, Google Earth is irreplacable.

5. Music.
Music is my life. I have so many playlists for pairings, stories and the like, it's not funny. I find writing to music incredibly rewarding and I'm more productive with music playing in the background while I'm writing.

6. Notebooks.
For all that I use Word, Google, the internet, etc, I have several notebooks with scribbled notes and details that come to mind. I also use them for things that I might otherwise forget. My notebooks are fairly illegible as my handwriting is atrocious!

7. Sleep.
Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Generally, yeah. I have problems with sleep schedules based on medications for things I don't like talking about (how's that for nice and cryptic?) so my sleep is always broken. I don't remember the last time I had an uninterupted eight hour sleep. On a good night, I get five hours then it's up and medication time. On a bad night, it's up every second hour. I tend to try and write a bit in these periods, but writing definitely works better after I've had a good amount of sleep, even if it is broken sleep.

8. Books.
Someone once said that writers are readers and it's so true. I love my books and I love reading. All being well, my birthday present to myself this year will be an e-book reader. Reading broadens everything, I think.

9. Roleplaying.
I know this isn't something that works for everyone, but I've found roleplaying a character I've created and am not 100% confident with to be really helpful. It puts the character in situations that I don't necessarily think of, talking to other characters that I don't have any control over. Figuring out how my character reacts and interacts in these situations is enormously helpful to me.

10. Editors.
A good editor is worth their weight in gold. I've been very lucky to have some amazing editors and my writing has improved so much because of their assistance. So, thank you to the wonderful women who have edited my work. You're awesome.

11. Coke.
My beverage of choice! With green tea a second.

12. The bathroom.
You're probably reading this and wondering what the bathroom has to do with anything. The bathroom has come to be nicknamed the Room of Wisdom, aka the RoW. And why? Because whenever I'm in the bathroom (and I'm not the only one who has discovered this inexplicable phenomena,) no matter what I'm doing - brushing my hair, brushing my teeth, changing cat litter, whatever - I have an idea for something. Or I think of a way to write myself out of a corner if I've written myself into one. I do not know what the esoteric power of the bathroom is that it has this effect, but it does and consistently. Cue eerie music!

13. Writer Friends.
People to bounce your ideas off, who bounce ideas back, who can give suggestions and help you out when you can't see out of the box of your own ideas. Invaluable. And you guys who've done this for me - thank you. You're awesome.

For my own reference.