Realms of the Raven

I got comments back from one reader who liked the first chapter of Raven’s White Hart. Hallelujah and what a sense of relief.

Now on to chapter two

As long as I can resist the various distraction devices and projects, that is.

Oh dear…. I knew I was having issues showing my baby to anyone else and decided I should try to get over it by sending the first chapter to two people who read and like the same sort of books I do - one of them is a test reader for some of my favorite authors (Hi Erin)….

I decided to do it and just “get over it”. Instead of calming down once I’d sent the damned thing out, I’m scared to DEATH! Amazingly so! Appallingly so! What the heck?

It’s not like it’s the end of the world. It’s not like things that are wrong aren’t fixable. But I seem terrified in total disproportion to what is actually at stake.

You know what this tells me? This tells me that despite my attempts to reassure myself, despite the fact I have a perfectly good day job and technical publishing contract, I care. I really do want to do this to the point that it matters more deeply to me than I thought it would.

I guess I’d hope that it would get better over time and the fact this is my first baby is making it so bad but I’m not convincing even myself. I would ask for reassurance from folks that had been there that this stops but I think I know better.

So consider this my whiney post of the day and we’ll see what my two readers have to say. And I’ll keep a nice bucket nearby when I hear from them just in case my terror turns to throwing up.

As I promised myself, I started writing the new story last night. I got about 800 words in the hour I worked on it which isn’t too bad and tonight I reread that section (broke with my plan and changed a few things) and am continuing on.

Woot - now to just keep at it!

Okay, on Tuesday night I got all the scene cards for Raven’s White Hart into order and tonight it’s time to start actually writing.

We’ll see if I can manage to keep making progress without rereading, rereading and rereading what I have already written and fiddling endlessly with it instead of writing new sections. :)

So - into the fray!

For some reason when I manage to get enough sleep I can actually think in the morning! Well, thoughts other than “where can I stop for coffee” and “I wonder if the barrista will be appalled if I ask for a quad mocha?”

Today I was driving to work and my mind was wandering off on odd tangents. During all this I got a great idea for a paranormal comedy series and, having planted pens and 3×5 cards in just about every room and car I have, I was able to write down the idea and any points I’d thought of while stopped at a light. I tossed the card in my purse and when I got home today, i was able to add it to the “Ideas” pile.

It was actually incredibly freeing to be able to just scrawl the idea down and let it go so I could actually get work done at my day job…. And it was great to NOT be fighting to keep some sort of method going that doesn’t work with my personality or life.

Yeehah!

Review: Sexylips66 by Dakota Cassidy
Triskelion Publishing ebook - January 2006
Buy it here

In an effort to protect her job as a columnist from the hip and trendy younger crowd, Callie Winston has convinced her boss to let her do a column focused on online dating. After joining Heavenly Hookups, an internet dating site, she’s absolutely floored by the number of responses she receives to her ad - many of which seem to focus on her lips!

Among the huge number of responses, most of which are easily dismissed as being either seriously odd or seriously creepy, Callie finds a few that seem worth really investigating and one of those is the response of Brian Benson.

Brian’s career military life has left little time for the softer things but something about Callie calls to him.

His reponse to Callie’s ad ignites her interest as well and their unexpected connection with each other is just begging to be explored - column or no column.

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This was an interesting book for me. I’m very familiar with Dakota’s more comedic works and while this book certainly shared some of the same elements, it was much more complex than her shorter works.

I always love Dakota’s heroines - smart, snarky and self-assured but Callie seemed even more three dimensional. She had hang-ups and insecurities but they weren’t harped on too much (you know, that over the top moment when *I* offer to fund a therapist if I never have to hear about it again). Yet she wasn’t a bitch. I don’t like heroines that I feel need a good slap down -they make me root for the villains.

Brian had a compelling mix of self-assuredness and vulnerability but I really liked that he wasn’t making Callie do either all or none of the work. I hate it when things are one-sided!

It was a great read and I hope Dakota does more in this line, as well as her shorter comedies.

So, for a while now I’ve been struggling to find a way to draft out a plot that doesn’t make me so frustrated I give up in disgust.

I was already resigned to the fact that I am not capable of writing without a good idea of where I’m going and when. I am definitely NOT what is popularly known as a “pantser”.

So I started trying to find a way to plan out where I’m going without allowing myself to stay in the land where no actual writing gets done because a huge amount of planning and “stuff” has to be done before I can write. I am good at letting myself fall into that trap and I know it.

So after some reading, some talking to other authors and some experimenting, I have discovered the following:
1) Writing plot outlines on the computer drives me nuts - I become too wrapped up in the formatting of the damned outline and let myself fuss way too much with it.
2) I do not plot in sequential order through a book. I know where I start, I know where I end but I think of things at random points through the rest of the story.
3) I hate worksheets - I dislike the formality and the idea that with no worksheets I have no way to plan.

So I did a lot of googling and searching around. I read some pointers by authors on how they plot and some blog entries from Shannon McKelden and I came to a few realizations on what I need in a process….
1) It has to be computer independent at the start so I don’t play formatting distraction games and I don’t feel that I can’t plot unless at the computer.
2) I need to be able to scrawl down ideas completely out of order and make sense of them later.
3) I have to use something easy to tote about and reorder at will without rewriting a lot.

So I took out a pack of index cards late last night and started by writing one story idea per card.

Then I picked the card for the book I’ve been trying to work on and started writing down scenes, one per card. I didn’t set any rules other than I had to figure out later what they meant so some have a lot of details, some have only a few.

I went into this exercise thinking I had knew of a few scenes for this book. By the time I stopped about 20 minutes later, I had 34 cards, not including the concept card. Ummm - wow

I even wrote down a few ideas for some of the other concept cards and just clipped them behind the concept to keep them together.

Now I am going to sit down and put the cards in a workable order - how I think the story can flow. I may have to put in a few more, I may discard some iffy ones but I’m already a lot further along than I was just yesterday morning.

Maybe I have found a system that can work for me without having to struggle so hard against the “rules” the system imposes.

I’m excited :)

- Maura

After deciding that I hated the frustration of fiddling with my blog look and feel and wanting something more personal than blogspot’s generic templates, I noticed a link on KarenS’s blog for the folks that had done her web design - Design-A-Blog.

Well, I signed up, worked with gemmak and this is the result! I’m jazzed and who wouldn’t be when it looks so stellar and I did no work!!! Well, other than be bossy and keep sending lists of stuff to her - her patience was boundless.

Unlike a lot of folks, I had definite ideas of the look and feel I wanted as well as some artwork and fonts that my website is going to use that I wanted to also use in the blog so they have the same look and feel. I’m sure this makes it harder for a designer than someone who comes with a clean slate and says “I want a modern blog in greys and greens with a cat theme”.

I personally recommend Design-A-Blog and especially gemmak if you want a blog redesign for a very inexpensive price and with great results!

Thanks gemmak - you made my week!

- Maura

It’s Definitely a Monday!

Add the cats deciding to knock over our large lava lamp (we use it as a nightlight), a rather focused day at work with no food (because I forgot) and a preschooler who follows me around like I was the Pied Piper, and it’s been a day.

I’m actually sitting down and trying to get a real start on one of my stories instead of having a dozen or so ideas that I write down and never get much further. At the moment I’m trying to decide what to aim it towards. Could be mild, could be spicy - could be epub, could be paper…. How the HECK do you decide????

I’m tempted to aim it toward erotic epub and see if I can get started there. It’s a paranormal called Raven’s White Hart, the first in a series called The Gioghan.

Sigh

I must be the absolute Queen of Analysis Paralysis. It’s a whole lot easier in the realm of technical books….

- Maura

Review - The Society 2: Midas’ Treasure by Brenda Bryce
LooseID ebook (http://www.loose-id.com/) - January 2006
http://www.loose-id.com/detail.aspx?ID=247
Publisher Rating: Hot

Aileen Slipsworthy, the author of children’s science fiction and fantasy books has moved to a quiet cottage in Oceanside, California in order to escape the stalking of her cheating and greedy ex-boyfriend. But instead of privacy and peace, she becomes the prey of Mykil Votad, the Midas for the vampire Society.

When Mykil grabs Aileen in order to have a quick meal, he loses control of himself and takes too much blood. During the course of his trying to make sure she doesn’t die from his hunger, he discovers she has the Sumerian gene necessary for her to become his mate. Instead of simply giving her a transfusion, he transforms her into a vampire as well.

When Aileen wakes up and Mykil informs her that she is now his mate, the fun really begins. Mykil tries to convince her that being a vampire isn’t so bad, but has to do so between the constant inauspicious appearances of Aileen’s ex-boyfriend, the disappearance of friends and family and a mystery they must solve.

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I enjoyed this is the second story in Brenda’s vampire series “The Society”. I liked the vampire world that Brenda introduced in her first book in this series and I’m very pleased to see more of it.

Aileen was a very strong but amusing heroine that had a soft side and a remarkable ability to cope once her initial disbelief was dispelled but didn’t fall into the trap of believing too easily. Mykil had some very distinct personality quirks that really made me chuckle when they were exhibited.

Whenever the ex-boyfriend made an appearance, I was eager to see just what would happen to him this time.

The overall pacing of the book was excellent - I never found myself skimming over areas or feeling like things were bogging down or too fast.

I’ll definitely buy the next book by Brenda and I’m hoping for a book on Shiye!