B.E. Sanderson's Blog, page 31
March 5, 2019
Natural Causes - On Sale Now
Starting today, I'm having a Kindle Countdown Deal for Natural Causes. It'll be 99c/99p all the way through to next Tuesday at 11:59p PDT. (You know, with the time change and junk.)If you're one of the hundreds of people who bought Accidental Death but haven't gotten around to its sequel yet, now would be the time to snag a copy. Find out what Dennis and the gang are up to. See who's dropping bodies in Dennis' path this time.
If you haven't gotten a copy of AD, it's always at the low price of $2.99 (free with Kindle Unlimited).
Now, these are definitely not cozy mysteries. Readers have described them as noir or hard-boiled. This particular story has a basis in a news item from a few years back. I'd tell you all about it, but then I'd ruin the mystery for you.
That's the new version of the ebook cover up there. (The paperback cover remains the same - a little lighter with a grave in the distance.) The text is exactly the same. And no, that's not Jillian on the cover. She's not on the cover of AD either.
This one is also not set in Serenity. Dennis has moved on. Now he's the police chief in a small mountain town - Last Ditch, CO - dealing with the residents, a questionable death, and the lingering stench of what happened in Accidental Death. Stuff like that weighs on a man.
Anyway, if you're interested in a quirky, gritty mystery set in small-town Colorado, pick up a copy. And if you could, leave a review.
Thanks.
March 4, 2019
Genre Bending?
I don't about the rest of you, but I've noticed something lately as I'm scrolling through the FB groups and book newsletters. Genres are getting pretty warped out there. Reverse Harem*? Dystopian Fantasy? Gothic SF? As a reader, it's totally confusing.
And as a writer, I totally understand. It's hard to make some books fit into the boxes already provided by the industry.
Oh, you still have the usual Romance, SF/F, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller and their traditional sub-genres. Years ago, Technothriller was coined by Michael Crichton which blew up that whole genre. And then Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy hit the scene and became mainstream. You have psychological thrillers and paranormal mysteries and... well, you get the gist.
Once upon a time, I tried making philosophical thriller a thing. I felt like it described my book Fear Itself better than anything else. Nobody agreed. I think 'magical mystery' would fit Sleeping Ugly better, but yeah, it's not a thing.
Seriously, though, what do you do with a supposed 'urban' fantasy that's set in the suburbs? Or, dare I say it, a rural locale? Or when your 'paranormal' novel isn't quite as paranormal as readers might expect? I mean, SU has paranormal elements, but not a lot and they're more the backdrop than the main thrust. (UatB gets more magical, but still.)
I have a friend who writes awesome books, but I have a tough time pigeonholing them into a genre when I do my 'Books Read' post. Paranormal Romance seems so milquetoast a description for her novels. Supernatural Romantic Suspense with military elements?
Ugh. But we have to find a box to put books in so the readers can find them easily, right? SCIU is easy - suspense. Dennis Haggarty? Mystery. (But so not cozy.) Then I get to Project Hermes. Umm... political suspense with medical elements? (I shy away from 'thriller' because it doesn't seem quite thrilling enough to be a thriller, if that makes any sense.) I keep throwing the genie books into urban fantasy, but I don't feel like they really fit there either. And with regard to Blink and Unequal, they're in dystopian and the questionable slot of 'speculative fiction'. But is speculative fiction even a thing anymore? Gah.
Anyway, like I said, the genre bending I'm seeing is totally understandable. And now that we're all out there promoting our own books - without tradpub to tell us where we have to go - it's pretty damn easy to come up with a genre of your own. Whether the readers agree or are just confused, time and sales will tell.
Well, that a pretty rambling post there. I hope I made some sense along the way. What do you think when you see a genre you've never encountered before? What are some weird ones you've seen? Do bent genres work for you?
*I had to google that one. It's a woman with a bunch of men and is supposed to indicate a sexual relationship between them all, but I don't think some people are using it to mean that. Rather, they have a strong female lead with a bunch of male subordinates or a female MC with male friends. :shrug: I'm still avoiding that genre distinction like the plague, though, because while I think the latter examples would be cool - sort of like Ripley in Alien3 - I don't want to be reading along and have the characters get into one big orgy. Ew.
And as a writer, I totally understand. It's hard to make some books fit into the boxes already provided by the industry.
Oh, you still have the usual Romance, SF/F, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller and their traditional sub-genres. Years ago, Technothriller was coined by Michael Crichton which blew up that whole genre. And then Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy hit the scene and became mainstream. You have psychological thrillers and paranormal mysteries and... well, you get the gist.
Once upon a time, I tried making philosophical thriller a thing. I felt like it described my book Fear Itself better than anything else. Nobody agreed. I think 'magical mystery' would fit Sleeping Ugly better, but yeah, it's not a thing.
Seriously, though, what do you do with a supposed 'urban' fantasy that's set in the suburbs? Or, dare I say it, a rural locale? Or when your 'paranormal' novel isn't quite as paranormal as readers might expect? I mean, SU has paranormal elements, but not a lot and they're more the backdrop than the main thrust. (UatB gets more magical, but still.)
I have a friend who writes awesome books, but I have a tough time pigeonholing them into a genre when I do my 'Books Read' post. Paranormal Romance seems so milquetoast a description for her novels. Supernatural Romantic Suspense with military elements?
Ugh. But we have to find a box to put books in so the readers can find them easily, right? SCIU is easy - suspense. Dennis Haggarty? Mystery. (But so not cozy.) Then I get to Project Hermes. Umm... political suspense with medical elements? (I shy away from 'thriller' because it doesn't seem quite thrilling enough to be a thriller, if that makes any sense.) I keep throwing the genie books into urban fantasy, but I don't feel like they really fit there either. And with regard to Blink and Unequal, they're in dystopian and the questionable slot of 'speculative fiction'. But is speculative fiction even a thing anymore? Gah.
Anyway, like I said, the genre bending I'm seeing is totally understandable. And now that we're all out there promoting our own books - without tradpub to tell us where we have to go - it's pretty damn easy to come up with a genre of your own. Whether the readers agree or are just confused, time and sales will tell.
Well, that a pretty rambling post there. I hope I made some sense along the way. What do you think when you see a genre you've never encountered before? What are some weird ones you've seen? Do bent genres work for you?
*I had to google that one. It's a woman with a bunch of men and is supposed to indicate a sexual relationship between them all, but I don't think some people are using it to mean that. Rather, they have a strong female lead with a bunch of male subordinates or a female MC with male friends. :shrug: I'm still avoiding that genre distinction like the plague, though, because while I think the latter examples would be cool - sort of like Ripley in Alien3 - I don't want to be reading along and have the characters get into one big orgy. Ew.
March 1, 2019
The Hellbeast
At a loss for anything to blog about today, I decided to post a short snippet and let you see how I ended up describing the hellbeast.
“What in the farque is a hellbeast?” I blinked my eyes and looked at the thing again. “It’s pink, for petesakes.” And not the normal shade of pretty pink. This had ‘burn your eyes out’ neon pink blotches with squiggles in ‘aerobics-chick hot-pink leotard’ over a mauve background. And the body? It looked like a longhorn bull screwed a poodle and their baby grew up to have unnatural liaisons with a lizard. The front had a pointy snout like a standard poodle and horns like a bull. The whole huge body was alternately covered in curly hair and scales. At the end was a scaly, whip-like tail. “Of course, it’s pink. What color did you think hell would be?” Oliver said. “From what I understand, hellbeasts blend right in on that plane.”I did not want to know how he would know what hell might look like. Probably something sorcerous I wasn’t privy to yet. “So, the Sorcerer summoned him from hell and sent him after me?”It stomped the ground with its dark pink hooves and raised its head to sniff at the air. “He’s gonna smell us in here. What the fuck do we do now?” I thought about all the perfumes I’d ever worn and wished I had a gallon of all of them in front of me. All I had was one tiny bottle of minty breath spray. Snatching it from my purse, I squirted it everywhere I could until it was only farting air.“What are you doing?” the cat asked.“Masking my scent.”“It’s not looking for you, silly.”I chanced a glance out the window again. It was kind of sniffing in our general direction, but it was shaking its head as if it wasn’t latching onto the right odor. Then it walked right into the cloud of Sorcerer scent. The sneeze it let out blew the remaining glass out of a nearby window. Once it left the cloud, it seemed to shake off the last of its effects and start scenting the air again. A long, forked tongue darted out. Once. Twice. Then it let out a howl and sprang forward.I almost screamed as it landed ten feet from my hiding spot. “It’s coming,” I said on a hiss of breath. At that point I almost pissed myself. I tried to think of the spell I’d used to start a fire once, but nothing was coming to me. When this was over, if I survived and wasn’t turned into hellbeast sausage snacks, I was definitely learning more magic. Ass-kicking magic.
I hope you enjoyed it. I got kinda off track last month, so I'm not done with the first draft yet. Soon. Honest. I'm gonna put my head down this weekend and bust my ass. Good lord willin' and the creek don't rise.
“What in the farque is a hellbeast?” I blinked my eyes and looked at the thing again. “It’s pink, for petesakes.” And not the normal shade of pretty pink. This had ‘burn your eyes out’ neon pink blotches with squiggles in ‘aerobics-chick hot-pink leotard’ over a mauve background. And the body? It looked like a longhorn bull screwed a poodle and their baby grew up to have unnatural liaisons with a lizard. The front had a pointy snout like a standard poodle and horns like a bull. The whole huge body was alternately covered in curly hair and scales. At the end was a scaly, whip-like tail. “Of course, it’s pink. What color did you think hell would be?” Oliver said. “From what I understand, hellbeasts blend right in on that plane.”I did not want to know how he would know what hell might look like. Probably something sorcerous I wasn’t privy to yet. “So, the Sorcerer summoned him from hell and sent him after me?”It stomped the ground with its dark pink hooves and raised its head to sniff at the air. “He’s gonna smell us in here. What the fuck do we do now?” I thought about all the perfumes I’d ever worn and wished I had a gallon of all of them in front of me. All I had was one tiny bottle of minty breath spray. Snatching it from my purse, I squirted it everywhere I could until it was only farting air.“What are you doing?” the cat asked.“Masking my scent.”“It’s not looking for you, silly.”I chanced a glance out the window again. It was kind of sniffing in our general direction, but it was shaking its head as if it wasn’t latching onto the right odor. Then it walked right into the cloud of Sorcerer scent. The sneeze it let out blew the remaining glass out of a nearby window. Once it left the cloud, it seemed to shake off the last of its effects and start scenting the air again. A long, forked tongue darted out. Once. Twice. Then it let out a howl and sprang forward.I almost screamed as it landed ten feet from my hiding spot. “It’s coming,” I said on a hiss of breath. At that point I almost pissed myself. I tried to think of the spell I’d used to start a fire once, but nothing was coming to me. When this was over, if I survived and wasn’t turned into hellbeast sausage snacks, I was definitely learning more magic. Ass-kicking magic.
I hope you enjoyed it. I got kinda off track last month, so I'm not done with the first draft yet. Soon. Honest. I'm gonna put my head down this weekend and bust my ass. Good lord willin' and the creek don't rise.
February 27, 2019
Keeping Your Balls in the Air
I hear you giggling. Knock it off, ya pervs*.
What I'm talking about is juggling all my books you have so they all stay in the air and none of them falls to the ground. Forgotten. Wasted. At the ass end of the Amazon rankings.
I'm not good at this. So don't think this post will be the key to your salvation. It ain't. There's no salvation here. While I'm over here trying to keep my more popular series titles in the public eye, the other lesser known and underappreciated books are rolling away. And even when I'm busy working on the more popular series, it's usually the first book getting attention while the sequels are wobbling.
So, here I am with 13 books out there for people to buy and read. Trying to keep any number of them in the air at the same time. Yeah, we all know how that goes. Poor Unequal is sitting in the 2-mil range on Amazon rankings. I don't even want to know where Project Hermes and Blink of an I are at. So sad and lonely. :sniffle:
Anyway, there's not much I can do for them but try and get some kind of buzz created here and there. To that end, I'll be trying some things throughout the year. Like the freebie thing I did for UEQ last week. It fizzled, but I tried.
Speaking of trying, Natural Causes will be on sale starting next Wednesday and going through to the night of the 9th. 99c. I'm not doing any ads this time because I had to shift money out of my advertising budget to cover expenses elsewhere, but I will be drumming up buzz on FB and Twitter. Fingers crossed some of the hundreds of people who bought Accidental Death go 'hey, another one! And it's on sale!' and buy NC, too. We'll see.
To that end, I tweaked the cover of NC. Got rid of the gravesite and sharpened up the graphics a bit. You'd have to see the old one side by side with the new one to really notice, I think.
I'm also looking ahead and have set up a sale of the SCIU books again. That'll be April 3rd through the 10th. I hope to have advertising for that one. Gotta squeeze loose some scratch for that. Should be doable.
So, I've got those balls in the air. And I'm still trying to throw ball #14 into the mix. (Ugly and the Beast will be book #14, if I ever get off my ass.) :cue carnival music:
And that's not counting the pay-job balls or the home balls or the... There's a lot of balls flying around my atmosphere.
What balls do you have in the air? Are you managing to juggle them all or are you like me?
*Who's the real perv? The one who thought it, or the one who thought you thought it when you didn't and thus put the idea in your head? ;o)
What I'm talking about is juggling all my books you have so they all stay in the air and none of them falls to the ground. Forgotten. Wasted. At the ass end of the Amazon rankings.
I'm not good at this. So don't think this post will be the key to your salvation. It ain't. There's no salvation here. While I'm over here trying to keep my more popular series titles in the public eye, the other lesser known and underappreciated books are rolling away. And even when I'm busy working on the more popular series, it's usually the first book getting attention while the sequels are wobbling.
So, here I am with 13 books out there for people to buy and read. Trying to keep any number of them in the air at the same time. Yeah, we all know how that goes. Poor Unequal is sitting in the 2-mil range on Amazon rankings. I don't even want to know where Project Hermes and Blink of an I are at. So sad and lonely. :sniffle:
Anyway, there's not much I can do for them but try and get some kind of buzz created here and there. To that end, I'll be trying some things throughout the year. Like the freebie thing I did for UEQ last week. It fizzled, but I tried.
Speaking of trying, Natural Causes will be on sale starting next Wednesday and going through to the night of the 9th. 99c. I'm not doing any ads this time because I had to shift money out of my advertising budget to cover expenses elsewhere, but I will be drumming up buzz on FB and Twitter. Fingers crossed some of the hundreds of people who bought Accidental Death go 'hey, another one! And it's on sale!' and buy NC, too. We'll see.
To that end, I tweaked the cover of NC. Got rid of the gravesite and sharpened up the graphics a bit. You'd have to see the old one side by side with the new one to really notice, I think.
I'm also looking ahead and have set up a sale of the SCIU books again. That'll be April 3rd through the 10th. I hope to have advertising for that one. Gotta squeeze loose some scratch for that. Should be doable.
So, I've got those balls in the air. And I'm still trying to throw ball #14 into the mix. (Ugly and the Beast will be book #14, if I ever get off my ass.) :cue carnival music:
And that's not counting the pay-job balls or the home balls or the... There's a lot of balls flying around my atmosphere.
What balls do you have in the air? Are you managing to juggle them all or are you like me?
*Who's the real perv? The one who thought it, or the one who thought you thought it when you didn't and thus put the idea in your head? ;o)
February 24, 2019
Plagiarism Rears Its Ugly Head Again
I suppose by now most of you have heard about the plagiarism thing that hit the romance community last week. I first got an inkling with the RWA said something about some plagiarism claims against one of their RITA finalists - although I'm not 100% positive it's the same dust-up there. Then a day or two later, the shit hit the fan and I started hearing about how some Brazilian chick had stolen large chunks of writing from a whole bunch of authors to create her books.
The BC claims she didn't do it - her ghost writer did it. Well, ain't that too damn bad, because she's still on the hotseat for it, whether she did it herself or someone else did it under her name.
And now there's a BIG thing about ghostwritten books and how these books are being dumped on Amazon. Which, of course, leads to a call for Amazon to fix it. Which will, of course, lead to Amazon fixing some of the wrong things again. Like what happened when they tried to clean up reviews and now I can't review books my friends wrote because they think somehow my honest opinions are lies. As if I'm getting something out of it besides having read an awesome book written by someone awesome who I can also call my friend. And now a bunch of people don't review at Amazon anymore. (Although I'm still seeing ads for people offering to review books for a small fee, so not sure how the Big A stopped anything hinky.)
My fear is that there'll be a witch hunt and honest authors will get caught in the crossfire. Not too worried about it myself, because I have a paper trail on each of my books a mile long - every draft, editor notes and letters, blog posts kvetching about the process, etc.
I've seen authors on FB posting about how they write their own f'ing books. Seems a little harsh to me, but hey, whatever. I write my own books. I couldn't envision a time when my control-freakness would allow me to let go enough to have anyone ghostwrite anything for me. I do know one ghostwriter and she's totally legit, but right now her work is probably getting lumped in with the bad ghostwriters out there. Which totally sucks.
Anyway, we all know plagiarism is wrong. It's stealing - whether you do it yourself or have someone else do it for you. And in some ways it's worse than just plain ol' stealing. They're taking something incredibly personal - words sucked out of an author's brain, cried over and worried over until a whole story comes alive - and slapping it together into something heinous.
I'm not sure what I'd do if I discovered someone had plagiarized my work. I mean, other than be seriously pissed off. I'm no one. Not like Nora Roberts who has threatened to rain hell down upon the BC and any others who would even think about stealing her work. (Go, Nora!) I'm not sure what any of us indies could do with our limited resources. Let's hope we never have to find out.
The BC claims she didn't do it - her ghost writer did it. Well, ain't that too damn bad, because she's still on the hotseat for it, whether she did it herself or someone else did it under her name.
And now there's a BIG thing about ghostwritten books and how these books are being dumped on Amazon. Which, of course, leads to a call for Amazon to fix it. Which will, of course, lead to Amazon fixing some of the wrong things again. Like what happened when they tried to clean up reviews and now I can't review books my friends wrote because they think somehow my honest opinions are lies. As if I'm getting something out of it besides having read an awesome book written by someone awesome who I can also call my friend. And now a bunch of people don't review at Amazon anymore. (Although I'm still seeing ads for people offering to review books for a small fee, so not sure how the Big A stopped anything hinky.)
My fear is that there'll be a witch hunt and honest authors will get caught in the crossfire. Not too worried about it myself, because I have a paper trail on each of my books a mile long - every draft, editor notes and letters, blog posts kvetching about the process, etc.
I've seen authors on FB posting about how they write their own f'ing books. Seems a little harsh to me, but hey, whatever. I write my own books. I couldn't envision a time when my control-freakness would allow me to let go enough to have anyone ghostwrite anything for me. I do know one ghostwriter and she's totally legit, but right now her work is probably getting lumped in with the bad ghostwriters out there. Which totally sucks.
Anyway, we all know plagiarism is wrong. It's stealing - whether you do it yourself or have someone else do it for you. And in some ways it's worse than just plain ol' stealing. They're taking something incredibly personal - words sucked out of an author's brain, cried over and worried over until a whole story comes alive - and slapping it together into something heinous.
I'm not sure what I'd do if I discovered someone had plagiarized my work. I mean, other than be seriously pissed off. I'm no one. Not like Nora Roberts who has threatened to rain hell down upon the BC and any others who would even think about stealing her work. (Go, Nora!) I'm not sure what any of us indies could do with our limited resources. Let's hope we never have to find out.
February 21, 2019
Thinking of Series Titles
I am not good with series titles. I mean, SCIU kind of lent itself a title, as did the Dennis Haggarty Mysteries, but let's face it Once Upon a Djinn is kind of lame.
So, here I am working on the sequel to Sleeping Ugly and it occurred to me that I have no series title. I had thought 'Pretty Damned Ugly' would be a cool series title, but now I'm all like meh. Jeni's pretty and she's ugly, but she's not damned.
The 'Pretty Ugly Series'? Might work, but it's just not blowing my skirt up.
'Ugly Tales'? You know, since the titles riff off classic fairytale titles?
'Pretty Ugly Tales'...
Ugh, it all sounds lame to me. But we're our worst critics, aren't we?
'The Magical Mystery Tour' just occurred to me, but it's too Beatle-y. And, frankly, I hate the Beatles. (Okay, Ringo was cool. And George was okay. Can't stand Paul or John. Or their music as a group.) But these are 'magical mysteries' of a sort.
Argh.
If I can't think of anything better by the time Ugly and the Beast gets close enough to start marketing efforts, I'm going with 'Pretty Ugly Tales'. :shrug:
Any thoughts? Suggestions? How are you with series titles? Do they make any difference when you're buying books?
And before I totally forget, Unequal is free today. If you haven't already grabbed a copy, this would be the time to do it.
So, here I am working on the sequel to Sleeping Ugly and it occurred to me that I have no series title. I had thought 'Pretty Damned Ugly' would be a cool series title, but now I'm all like meh. Jeni's pretty and she's ugly, but she's not damned.
The 'Pretty Ugly Series'? Might work, but it's just not blowing my skirt up.
'Ugly Tales'? You know, since the titles riff off classic fairytale titles?
'Pretty Ugly Tales'...
Ugh, it all sounds lame to me. But we're our worst critics, aren't we?
'The Magical Mystery Tour' just occurred to me, but it's too Beatle-y. And, frankly, I hate the Beatles. (Okay, Ringo was cool. And George was okay. Can't stand Paul or John. Or their music as a group.) But these are 'magical mysteries' of a sort.
Argh.
If I can't think of anything better by the time Ugly and the Beast gets close enough to start marketing efforts, I'm going with 'Pretty Ugly Tales'. :shrug:
Any thoughts? Suggestions? How are you with series titles? Do they make any difference when you're buying books?
And before I totally forget, Unequal is free today. If you haven't already grabbed a copy, this would be the time to do it.
February 20, 2019
Chili and Writing Books
It's chili day here on the Sanderson Ranch. Now, you may be asking yourself what chili has to do with writing. Well, I'll tell ya...
I make chili like I write books.
I have no recipe for making chili. Oh, I could tell you the basic ingredients, ballpark the time involved, etc. but when you were done, your chili would not be the same as my chili. I do it all by taste. And when I'm done I have a bowl of awesomeness.
I always put saltine crackers in my individual serving, sometimes I sprinkle it with corn chips or shredded cheese. Hubs does Parmesan sometimes, which is just wrong, but once it's in his bowl, it's his chili, so more power to him. He's like the reader there. Once the book is out of my hands, it's up to the end user to interpret it as it applies to them.
Ahem.
The point is that each batch of chili is unique. As is each book.
When I start a story, I have in my mind what the end result will be - a book. And that's about it. I never know ahead of time how the story will go. A little of this, a little of that. Fingers crossed it turns out tasty.
And they're written to my tastes. Savory and flavorful. Not much spice, but ultimately satisfying.
I can only hope readers with the same tastes will find my books and enjoy them, too. ;o)
How do you like your chili?
I make chili like I write books.
I have no recipe for making chili. Oh, I could tell you the basic ingredients, ballpark the time involved, etc. but when you were done, your chili would not be the same as my chili. I do it all by taste. And when I'm done I have a bowl of awesomeness.
I always put saltine crackers in my individual serving, sometimes I sprinkle it with corn chips or shredded cheese. Hubs does Parmesan sometimes, which is just wrong, but once it's in his bowl, it's his chili, so more power to him. He's like the reader there. Once the book is out of my hands, it's up to the end user to interpret it as it applies to them.
Ahem.
The point is that each batch of chili is unique. As is each book.
When I start a story, I have in my mind what the end result will be - a book. And that's about it. I never know ahead of time how the story will go. A little of this, a little of that. Fingers crossed it turns out tasty.
And they're written to my tastes. Savory and flavorful. Not much spice, but ultimately satisfying.
I can only hope readers with the same tastes will find my books and enjoy them, too. ;o)
How do you like your chili?
February 17, 2019
Done Hiding
As you know, I've been working again and I wouldn't say what I was working on in case I jinxed the mojo or some such thing. Well, I'm done hiding. Time for me to step out of the closet and get over my precious self. It's not like telling all of you will jinx anything. I'm the only one who can jinx my work and to think otherwise hearkens back to the days when I was super superstitious. Thought I was over that... huh.
Okay, so it's probably not going to be a big surprise or anything. No big shocker here. I got the ball rolling with the bunny story and then jumped back into Ugly and the Beast. I'm currently sitting at 42600 words.
It was going really good until the cold hit and I expect it'll go really good from here on out. I know where I'm going and what I'm doing. And I'm not really all that far from the end. Think like 52K or something. (Sleeping Ugly was a short first draft, too.)
And since I outed myself there, I thought I'd also out myself on the cover I've been sitting on since November. Here it is:
That's Oliver. You haven't met him yet. He makes his debut in UatB. I've got Jessica (my cover artist) working on the cover for Cinder Ugly right now. Just Jeni, no Oliver. And Jeni definitely looks tougher on the third cover. SU she was pissed about the curse. UatB she's disgusted and a little resigned over it. CU she'll be lookin' to take her life back.
So, there it is. I'm back to work on what I'm supposed to be working on. Should have the first draft done by the end of the month, then edits next month. I'm hoping to have this in my editor's hands by the end of March. So June for publication? Maybe? I have to check with the AWE and see what her schedule looks like.
Here's to getting back on track. Let's hope it stays this way for the rest of the year, eh?
Okay, so it's probably not going to be a big surprise or anything. No big shocker here. I got the ball rolling with the bunny story and then jumped back into Ugly and the Beast. I'm currently sitting at 42600 words.
It was going really good until the cold hit and I expect it'll go really good from here on out. I know where I'm going and what I'm doing. And I'm not really all that far from the end. Think like 52K or something. (Sleeping Ugly was a short first draft, too.)
And since I outed myself there, I thought I'd also out myself on the cover I've been sitting on since November. Here it is:
That's Oliver. You haven't met him yet. He makes his debut in UatB. I've got Jessica (my cover artist) working on the cover for Cinder Ugly right now. Just Jeni, no Oliver. And Jeni definitely looks tougher on the third cover. SU she was pissed about the curse. UatB she's disgusted and a little resigned over it. CU she'll be lookin' to take her life back. So, there it is. I'm back to work on what I'm supposed to be working on. Should have the first draft done by the end of the month, then edits next month. I'm hoping to have this in my editor's hands by the end of March. So June for publication? Maybe? I have to check with the AWE and see what her schedule looks like.
Here's to getting back on track. Let's hope it stays this way for the rest of the year, eh?
February 15, 2019
Excuses and Time to Write
I just read Elizabeth Spann Craig's post 'Writing on the Tough Days' and now I feel guilty. I haven't written anything in the past week. Yeah, sure, I know... I have a good excuse. But good or not, it's still an excuse.
She's absolutely correct. There is always time to write, if you make time. Whittle it out somewhere. But if you wait for 'the perfect time', you'll find yourself writing less and less. Those perfect times can be so fleeting. And there will always be excuses for why this isn't the perfect time.
Funny thing is back when I had less time to write, I was better at finding time. Now, I have scads of time to write and I find excuses not to. It's a sad, strange little conundrum.
And if I had taken those moments to write when I really had nothing else going on, then I wouldn't feel so bad taking the week off because of this damn cold. Right when I was on a roll, too. Blerg.
This week, though, every time I try to think about writing, it's like 'Og make words. Smush together make sentences. Ugg.'
All the time I've wasted prior to this brain fog sits heavily. I'll try to do better in the future. Use the time you have, folks, because you can't get that wasted time back.
Today? I'm 95% better. Unfortunately, part of that 5% that's still out there is my brain. We'll see what tonight brings.
Go, read Elizabeth's post. She said it better than I could've.
She's absolutely correct. There is always time to write, if you make time. Whittle it out somewhere. But if you wait for 'the perfect time', you'll find yourself writing less and less. Those perfect times can be so fleeting. And there will always be excuses for why this isn't the perfect time.
Funny thing is back when I had less time to write, I was better at finding time. Now, I have scads of time to write and I find excuses not to. It's a sad, strange little conundrum.
And if I had taken those moments to write when I really had nothing else going on, then I wouldn't feel so bad taking the week off because of this damn cold. Right when I was on a roll, too. Blerg.
This week, though, every time I try to think about writing, it's like 'Og make words. Smush together make sentences. Ugg.'
All the time I've wasted prior to this brain fog sits heavily. I'll try to do better in the future. Use the time you have, folks, because you can't get that wasted time back.
Today? I'm 95% better. Unfortunately, part of that 5% that's still out there is my brain. We'll see what tonight brings.
Go, read Elizabeth's post. She said it better than I could've.
February 13, 2019
Old Stories
The first story I remember writing was for eighth grade English class. It was, of course, a mystery. I don't remember much of it. Except I can remember the cover art I drew. The story was something about a bunch of people in a house and there's a murder and the corpse has bloody fingernails. The murderer is caught when the scarf is pulled from her neck, revealing scratch marks. Tada.
I think I still have it in a box somewhere. If not, it got lost to time and the many moves I've made over the years.
After that, sometime in high school, I worked on a collaboration with my best friend at the time, Maria. She had already started writing this fantasy / scifi crossover novel. Probably late one sleepover, we started working on it together. Then I took it over. I still have all of it. In a box in the storage closet. One of these days, I need to find a way to get it copied and sent to her, if I could find her. I know if it was me, I'd want it just for the nostalgia.
I still have several of the papers I wrote for my two college English courses. Ugh, they're bad. I trotted them out years ago to show to the Kid. Sort of a 'hey, look how you can get better at writing' thing, I guess.
My computer is filled with stories I've begun and never finished, and finished but never published. Some of them are still viable, some aren't. The romances I began when I still wanted to write romance. The little attempts at things. The epic SF that was to be told in three parts. (Got about a third of the way through Part One and set it aside.)
New stuff is always popping into my head, waiting to be written, but the old stories are still there. They always will be.
What about you? What was your first story?
I think I still have it in a box somewhere. If not, it got lost to time and the many moves I've made over the years.
After that, sometime in high school, I worked on a collaboration with my best friend at the time, Maria. She had already started writing this fantasy / scifi crossover novel. Probably late one sleepover, we started working on it together. Then I took it over. I still have all of it. In a box in the storage closet. One of these days, I need to find a way to get it copied and sent to her, if I could find her. I know if it was me, I'd want it just for the nostalgia.
I still have several of the papers I wrote for my two college English courses. Ugh, they're bad. I trotted them out years ago to show to the Kid. Sort of a 'hey, look how you can get better at writing' thing, I guess.
My computer is filled with stories I've begun and never finished, and finished but never published. Some of them are still viable, some aren't. The romances I began when I still wanted to write romance. The little attempts at things. The epic SF that was to be told in three parts. (Got about a third of the way through Part One and set it aside.)
New stuff is always popping into my head, waiting to be written, but the old stories are still there. They always will be.
What about you? What was your first story?
