Realms of the Raven

In an effort to get organized and plan out my writing time and deliverables, I foolishly started a list of all the stories either contracted, requested by editors/publishers or begged for by readers.

STUPID Maura.

I really didn’t think the list was so big - nor so intimidating. I’m actually scared when I look at it.

1. Bittersweet (m/m)
2. Menage a Trois (Del Fantasma, menage)
3. Firestorm (Del Fantasma)
4. Skin Deep (CLAW)
5. Take Me (Coyote Clans)
6. Small Town Vet (m/m)
7. Hidden Depths Series - Secret Graves (m/m)
8. Music of the Heart (Bran’s Visions, m/m)
9. Rhythm of the Ancestors (Bran’s Visions, m/m)
10. Eyes of Jade (Samhain Born)
11. Life Lines (BDSM, m/m)
12. Patterns
13. Right on Time
14. Calling for a Ride
15. Lord of Storms
16. Breathe
17. Not a Fairy

That’s just so far. And with the Friday Flash and the Maniacal Muse, I get more ideas every day.

A drink. I must need a drink. Then I have to try to put this list in order and budget some time. *laughs hysterically*. Yah…. My thoughts, too.

(Cross-posted from the Witchy Chicks blog)

Paranormal stories, including those of shapeshifters (including werewolves), have become more and more popular over the last few years but if you look at things like native legends, these stories have been around for a very, very long time. But only recently have they moved out of the more horror or life-lesson realm and into situations where the shapeshifter is the hero or romantic interest of the story.

Suddenly, shifters are sexy!

Because I write paranormal romance and erotic romance and one of my series is the Coyote Clans, a coyote shapeshifter race, I’ve done a lot of thinking about shapeshifters and why I like them.

One of the big things I find fascinating about shifters is one that actually permeates a lot of my work, if you know to look for it — it’s the disconnect or mismatch between what someone thinks another person (or themselves) is and what they really are. What if the reality doesn’t match the wrapping?

In the case of shifters, at any one point in time they appear wholly human or appear wholly animal but are really a mix of both. What if you wear fur and people believe and treat you to be a coyote but you’re using that perception of your abilities and limits against them? What if you look like a short, cute woman but you’re really part snow leopard and could claw their throat out in a half second if they keep harassing you?

I think shifters are also popular and intriguing because the very fact of them having an animal “side” can give them a perception of danger, of being a bit wild, of even being a bit out of control but, unlike for regular people, they have a built in excuse. They aren’t ALL human so it’s okay or even good to be these things where it would be considered bad or even criminal in our real society.

So a shifter might be able to get away with kidnapping a woman and holding her while he convinces her she’s his one true mate and he can’t live without her where a human would be considered creepy and mentally disturbed.

Shifters are often portrayed as more than human. Stronger, faster, fiercer and even longer lived. So in this way they are something humans wish for and something that is better than human.

And shifters, as well as their society and mythos, are both familiar and not at the same time. A werewolf may abide by some human rules but some pack rules. Another variety of shifter may have another mix. And don’t forget about each author’s take on the mix - you’ll find very different rules depending on whose story you are reading.

But you’ll find a variation of this appears in a lot of my work in other forms but all around the issue that one’s perception of another based on outside evidence is never correct or complete. You can’t judge a book by its cover, in other words. Because of this fascination, I tend to have fairly non-standard shifters as well. I’ve not written a werewolf because there are so many assumptions about them - instead I have coyote shifters, a biker dragon shifter in the works and even a were-ferret species!

In my Coyote Clans universe, I’ve taken the actual coyote behavior and mixed it with some Native American beliefs to come up with a shifter species that has an internal consistency and ties to the real world to make it a bit familiar. Matt, my hero in Del Fantasma: Texas Tea is a Desert Song coyote shifter who is quiet, adaptable, intelligent and honorable. The Coyote Clans are not weres so they are not tied to the moon but they are a shifter species who can shift at will. They are not infectious so biting another person won’t make that person a shifter but instead their abilities are a mix of DNA and old magic where their Coyote really is another spirit in their same body. Part of them but yet not.

Matt is tall, handsome and not the surly Park Ranger he seems to be.

I definitely like a well-written shifter story and have read about some SEXY shifters. What about you? Do you like shifters? Do you have a favorite kind? Why do you like them?

(Cross-posted from the Witchy Chicks blog.)

I am probably the wrong person to have doing an Adopt-A-Fox day, given that I have no visual memory, don’t go to movies and don’t have particularly favorite celebrities.

See? I’m a lost cause!

So instead I’ll share with you one of my longtime fascinations - tattoos. I’m completely fascinated by people’s tattoos. Well, as long as they seem to have personal meaning. I’m not so much into things people get on a drunken whim and regret as soon as they are sober.

I see a tattoo and my imagination kicks in. What is it? What could it mean? Why did this person get that particular tattoo? Whose initials are those? Why would someone tattoo bees on their shoulder?

I have a lot of tattoos myself and each one means something to me. Each is a symbol of something else. I have a few new ones planned but the time isn’t quite right yet. Quite a few of the other Witchy Chicks have tattoos as well.

Sometimes I get a chance to ask about someone’s tattoos and sometimes I don’t, but the stories are usually fascinating because of the glimpse into someone’s life that they give me.

I’m really fascinated by ethnic tattoos - I have a character in a new book that is part Samoan and has a pe’a, a Samoan tribal tattoo. There’s a huge amount of signifigance to it, both personally for him and culturally. It’s not something you just decide to do one day. I admit to being a bit jealous - I’d love to throw myself on the mercies of a Samoan or Maori tribal artist and see what they see in me on my skin. Maybe someday, when I can afford the trip, especially :)

While trolling around to look at different pe’a examples and found a terrific modern day example of this ancient rite of passage. Loma Fa’atau is a professional rugby player and comes from Samoa. His pe’a took up to 8 hours a day for 9 days to complete and was done by hand-tapping with a sharpened pig’s tooth in a drumstick.

Just floats my boat :)

What do you think of tattoos? How about Loma? Any favorite tattooed hunks?

(Cross Posted from the Witchy Chick’s Blog)

You know - writing is a very sedentary job. I know - DUH, how could I have missed that all along? I knew it intellectually but somehow I was just lazy and wasn’t interested in doing anything about it. Until now, that is.

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I’m within a scene of finishing Giving Thanks, one of the two m/m stories I have appearing as individual e-books from Aspen Mountain Press and as part of the Hot Comforts anthology from ManLoveRomance Press.

This story has an interesting history to it. I had been in a chat with Jet Mykles and Anne Cain where our discussion turned to the lack of Thanksgiving themed stories, especially Thanksgiving themed male/male stories. At some point the conversation devolved to specifics and one of them threw out the idea of a food-based story where the guys use gravy as lube. Of course my know-it-all self had to interject that gravy would be too grainy and butter would be better.

Next thing I knew they’d challenged me to write that scene.

I have a horrible personality flaw that makes it nearly impossible for me to resist a challenge. Especially from people I respect. ‘Nuff said.

So I cooked up a scene with Derek and Troy and had a nice little story idea around it. It was maybe 2K words. As you may know if you read my blog, I write a weekly flash fiction free read and those are usually 750 words or so. So a 2K scene is not so out of character. But I did have enough done that I liked it and knew I wanted to finish the story. The question was who to sell it to - I knew it wouldn’t be very long, maybe 8k, and there aren’t many houses that take that might take a contemporary male/male story that short.

At this point I decided to get a few people to look at what I had and give me a sanity check on whether it was worth finishing. It was the first male/male story I’d written and I do have these issue with “suckitis”. So I sent it to a couple of friends who I trust to tell me the truth. They liked it and encouraged me on.

Okay, so it was worth finishing, but I still didn’t know who to sell it to. I was chatting with Laura Baumbach a few days later and mentioned my quandry then asked if she had advice on who to send it to when it was done. To my surprise, she asked to see it. Otherwise I wouldn’t have sent it to her, honestly. I don’t like to presume on friendships and I’m hugely mindful of not calling in favors. I play by strict rules, maybe to an idiotic level in some people’s eyes.

I sent it and spent a little while biting my nails off. I honestly expected a lovely critique that pointed out all the things I’d done wrong. Maybe even telling me to not give up my day job and stick to het stories.

Instead she asked if she could buy it. I had to pick myself up off the floor. Really.

So I signed a contract, then one for another idea I had (Bittersweet, though I didn’t name it for quite a while). Then I started trying to work on it … and trying…. and trying.

This story kicked my ASS.

I have spent more time writing, deleting 99% of it, writing some more and repeating that cycle than anything else. I’ve probably written 25K to get 9K of usable wordcount.

Today I realized what at least one of my problems is. I tried to pants this story and it’s too long for ME to be able to write by the seat of my pants. Most deletions have been because a scene wasn’t moving the story along. It wasn’t serving a purpose. This happens when I don’t know my plan of getting to the end.

No more writing stories without a storyboard for me. As soon as I’ve turned this in, I’m putting together the storyboard for Bittersweet. I refuse to go through this again.

Probably more than you ever wanted to know, but there it is :)

I’m blogging today at the League of Amazing Writers about Building Paranormal Worlds. Stop by and say Hi!

Introduction
When writers learn how to format manuscripts, they typically learn the standards for traditional print publishing and those are not always the accepted or preferred standards for e-publishing. This is due, in part, to the fact that the actual production processes are different for traditional print publishing and e-publishing.

Traditional print publishing often involved editors writing on the paper manuscript page, a typesetting stage where the manuscript was typeset into book format, etc. Some of this is now more computerized but e-publishing is a very streamlined and automated process. Anything that throws off that process can tend to be problematic so it’s best to start out with as consistent a manuscript as possible and know some of the pitfalls, as well as how to avoid them.

The formatting guidelines I’m giving you are generic and relatively standard but, before you submit to any particular publisher, be sure to read that publisher’s own submissions guidelines. Any specific instructions they give should trump these generic rules and should be followed instead.

Remember that these are only formatting instructions, NOT writing or grammar instructions.
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Today, in lieu of an actual topic from me, I’d like to point you all at Ciar Cullen’s blog and today’s post.

Come on - join in the fun, here or on Ciar’s blog. Tell us what your editor does for you and spread the love!

Editors need love too!

Most authors are familiar with the idea of a critique partner or critique groups. Some authors have one (or more) but some are quite happy writing alone.

Another source of valuable input and feedback is a test reader. While critique partners or groups tend to give you feedback as you go and often help plot the book along the way, a test or beta reader takes your finished or mostly finished material and reads it as a savvy reader without advanced knowledge. The test reader, in essence, is your first check of what your regular readers will think.

The job of the test reader is to read the story and make notes of anything that pulls them out of the story, any time they are bored and want to just skip ahead, and times where things don’t make sense. In general, they don’t worry about spelling or grammar unless it’s so bad it really impacts their ability to read and enjoy the story.

Not all test readers are created the same, however. An effective and thorough test reader is one that gives you value back for the chance to read the story ahead of time. You may have to try multiple people before you find just one really GOOD test reader.

A test reading gives you some assurance that you story, when picked up off a shelf, makes sense, reads well and will most likely please your readers (and editor).

The last several manuscripts I’ve edited have suffered from what I call the “Laundry List Syndrome” so I thought I’d take a moment to mention it here.

A laundry list is when an author tries to mention a whole lot of things at once instead of dribbling them in a little at a time. In some cases it appears as part of an info-dump but sometimes it just appears out of the blue.

As an example, here’s a laundry list:

The stranger turned around and she couldn’t believe her eyes: black hair, blue eyes, a strong chin, a nose with a slight crook to the side and tanned cheeks dusted with a dark five o’clock shadow.

The author in this laundry list is merely dumping out facts. It’s dry and the reader tends to just skim over it.

It would be much more effective to give each of these facts individual emphasis. It makes it more enjoyable to read and more memorable as well.

Try this in contrast:

The dark haired stranger turned around and she couldn’t believe her eyes. His glossy black hair curled around his tanned face in waves that made her fingers itch to smooth it back. Piercing cobalt eyes were framed by lush black lashes, the darkness echoed in the hint of razor stubble dusting his strong chin. Only the slight bump and crooked slant of a long-ago broken nose saved his face from being too pretty.

I’d usually space it out more than that and I realize it’s not the best paragraph ever, but look how much more memorable it is than the laundry list?

One magic clue to an imminent laundry list is using a colon… If you find yourself using a colon, ask yourself why and if there is a better way to present the information you are about to list.