Erica Lindquist's Blog, page 10

Caught up��� sort of

It’s been a while since I updated. Sorry about that. But not too much. I mean, how exciting can it be to read how far we are through one manuscript or another? I need opinions on more stuff. I’ll work on that.

In the meantime, a book update! After signing a friend’s copies of the Reforged Trilogy, I noted that the margins looked smaller than the files I sent. I’m not sure what happened, but a 0.7″ outer margin got shrunk down to a 0.45″, but whatever. I fixed all of the books and reposted them.��It did increase the page count of several books pretty substantially, which upped the price for a few titles. Sorry, guys! Though most of you read in ebook, which was not affected at all.

It took three long work days to fix the books, and then I had some catch-up to do on the next table-top game I’m slated to run ��� a Trigun BESM game. Finished that outline this afternoon, which brings me back to straight-up book stuff. Monday, I’ll start on Lily Quinn #1 rewrites and resume editing The Burning Noose. I’m hoping to have Lily Quinn back out to beta readers by the end of the week. Wish me luck!

Live long and prosper

Leonard Nimoy died today. He had a long and amazing live that touch a lot of us deeply. We’ll miss him more than I can say.

Edits to Lily Quinn

We’ve gotten feedback from most of our Lily Quinn beta readers.��I can’t believe how quickly you guys got back to us! Within days, we had seconds reads and pages of notes, including copy edits, readers reactions and major scene suggestions.

For the most part, reactions were great! Very positive. Our beta readers seemed to enjoy the story and the sex. I admit to having become rather fond of the setting, so I was pleased to see that others seemed to like it, as well.

There was one major scene edit that everyone agreed on. Not even an edit ��� it’s going to require a pretty heavy rewrite. I’ve done major rewrites before, but this is Aron’s first time. It’s always kind of a kick in the stomach when you learn you’re not as done with a manuscript as you thought. I had to throw away 100 pages of the first draft of In the House of Five Dragons. It broke my heart and it was probably a solid month before I��could make myself go back to the book.

I’ve got a few years more practice than Aron, but it’s not much easier, even now. What we send out to beta readers is more or less the best we can make of the first draft. Of course, that’s the whole��point of beta readers ��� to get input and thoughts we never could have come up with alone. But somewhere, in that silly, dark inner sanctum of ego, most writers sort of hope that no one will have any critiques. That the book will already be perfect. That never happens, of course. Not to any of the authors I know, at least.

Big-ass edits are great for the book. They��always are. Whenever we finish with a big round of work on a manuscript, we’re always ten times happier with it than when we started out. But until it’s done, the changes feel��ridiculously daunting.

Our editors and beta readers are an absolutely vital part of the process and they did an amazing job. Seriously��� I think you guys had more feedback on 21,000 words of Lily Quinn than 85,000 words of Whisperworld. I guess you like reading about sex.��Not that I can blame you. It was a lot of fun to write about.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I’m��celebrating Valentine’s Day by nervously chewing my nails down to the nubs. I doubt most of our beta readers will be getting to it today, but we sent out Lily Quinn #1 to beta readers last night! We really don’t know what people will think, but it was fun to write. I keep telling myself that to build up armor for what I fear will be the inevitable “HOLY SHIT! WHAT DID YOU SEND ME?!?!”

My heart is pounding and my hands won’t stop sweating. This isn’t like anything I’ve ever sent out before. I didn’t really think that it could get more personal and vulnerable than sending out a book that I worked on for a year. Lily Quinn didn’t take nearly that long, but this is even worse. We’re facing not just “I didn’t like it,” but “You killed my boner and it’s never coming back!”

Is it bad form to get completely sloshed for Valentine’s Day? Because that’s sounding like a really good idea.

Gird your loins, beta readers!

Yes, I did it! I’ve just finished the second draft of Lily Quinn #1: Wanted Undead or Alive. It’s smutty and lewd ����� I’m talking wall-to-wall wangs ��� but after Aron gives it a final look-over to see what I’ve done to his precious first draft, it’s going out to beta readers.

I’m terrified. Aron and I have been writing smut for one another for many years. We’ve even posted a couple of stories up on Literotica, which have gotten pretty good reactions. But this is different. This is a book. This is something we’re going to try to sell. It’s deeply personal and make me feel vulnerable to share. But excited, too.

I loved working on this book and not just because Gwynn did such an amazing job on the cover. It was so much fun to write! There’s sex and adventure, sex and danger, sex and silly, snarky fun! Did I mention the sex?

Shit, I had something else to say, but I’m tired as fuck and forgot. Oh, well.

We’re hoping to begin releasing Lily Quinn in October of this year, if Aron, Gwynn and I can keep up the pace, and release one book per month over 2015 & 2016. Sounds fair?

No, it doesn’t. It sounds insane, but let’s do this!

EDIT: After a few finishing touches, Lily Quinn #1 is now sitting in the inboxes of our beta readers. Wish them and us luck!

WTF?!

Yeah, you better look sad, Jon. You broke my feelings.

I was going to post something else, something about writing, but I just learned that Jon Stewart is leaving The Daily Show. What the fuck? No! Damn it, I consoled myself through the end of The Colbert Report by being sure��that Jon Stewart would be on the air until he keeled over at age 120 at the damned desk.

Not cool, 2015.

I really wish today were April 1.

(Edited to correct my spelling of Jon’s name. Apparently, even after 7 years of watching his show, this dumbass still can’t spell “Jon.” Maybe that’s why he’s leaving.)

Writing for a new audience��� sort of

Lily Quinn drawn��by Gwynn Tavares

Today, I edited the first chapter of Lily Quinn #1.��This is so strange��� I’ve been writing erotica for years. Seriously, it was the first writing I did that wasn’t assigned in class, long before I started writing books. Aron and I must have written over a million words of smut by now. That’s a far higher word count than our mainstream books. The point is, I’ve been writing this stuff for years, but never for anyone but Aron. The huge folder on my hard drive of erotica was only ever intended for Aron and I to read.

But this is different, somehow. Now we’ve committed to writing twelve books of smut for the public. Suddenly, we have a bunch of other people to consider. Do any of them share our kinks? Will anything we include freak out or turn off our new audience? This shit keeps me up at night now!

On the other hand, artists like Erika Moen and Jesse Fink inspire me. They show sex as it really is ��� fun, beautiful and something to handle responsibly, but not to fear. After a lifetime of being taught that I needed to be frightened and ashamed of sex (by society, not particularly my parents, who were great), Erika and Jesse helped me feel free to love it. (And I do.)

Lexi Maxxwell, too, played in instrumental roll in creating Lily Quinn. These three women showed me that there’s a place for anything fun and naughty, and people who will love the hell out of a good story with lots of wet, squishy bits. Prior to reading some of Lexi’s books, I had toyed with the idea of writing sexy stuff a few times, but when I asked friends for recommendations of their favorite erotica, it was all very soft-focus, over-poetic stuff that I neither found very stimulating nor felt��at all inspire to��write. So I sighed and figured I would just keep writing just for Aron, who didn’t mind when I used the word “cock.”

Then, thanks to The Self Publishing Podcast, I discovered Lexi. She��described her own fiction��as “fucking filthy.” I was intrigued, so I grabbed a few of her books and discovered that Lexi��wrote just like Aron and me. Unabashed smut, sexy and smutty fun without the need to gentle it with a lot of silly purple prose. And readers loved Lexi’s stuff.

To say I was delighted would be an understatement. I believe I was jumping up and down as I shoved XXX Files into Aron’s hands and told him that we could write like that.��And people would read it.

So now I’m working on that project. Twelve books of Lily Quinn getting into trouble and bed. It’s going to be a wild ride. I’m excited and nervous.

New Dead Beat covers

[image error]New cover. Shiny.

Tonight, for no apparent reason, I got a wild hair��up my butt to redesign the Dead Beat cover. Actually, this wasn’t the first time, but this was the first time that I actually managed to come up with something I liked better than the original cover art.

It isn’t that I don’t like the original covers. I do. I really do. It’s��got a giant flaming pentagram on the front. What’s not to love? But while I liked the image ��� if not the typography, which I’ve never been good at ��� it only ever advertised the occult element of the serial. This new cover, I hope, makes the noir and police procedural aspects of The Dead Beat a little more obvious, too. Next, I suppose I should try rewriting the blurb, which kind of sucks ass.

The Dead Beat was an experiment for us. I hadn’t written very many short stories at that time and I was trying to learn to write more often, more freely. So I committed to the series (at the time, an ebook magazine called eFiction was running it) and made myself write one every month. That might sound like plenty of time to you ��� and it does to me now, too ��� but in that period of my writing, I really struggled with it.

The original cover.

I hadn’t yet settled into being a plotter (for panther versus plotter, read Chuck Wendig’s post here) and was still pretty well convinced that the way to keep writing fresh was to make it all up as I went along. While this works stupendously for some authors (Stephen King jumps to mind), I was never very good at it. As a result, I never quite knew what Sam and Arphallo’s next adventure was going to be outside a quickly typed-up list of things for them to deal with. It was a fiasco.

Now The Dead Beat’s��all done and has been for some time. There are aspects of the ending which I wish I’d done better, but overall, I still really enjoyed writing The Dead Beat. I love Arphallo and Sam. Sometimes, we even consider writing a novel from the Dead Beat setting. But I’m not sure I could write about the exorcists and have any main character but Arphallo Sirus. But his story is over, which always makes me a little sad. I rather miss Arph.

But maybe another exorcist will eventually wander into my head with a story to tell. We’ll talk again then.

The Burning Noose draft done!

Yesterday, Aron finished off the first draft of The Burning Noose! That’s both books written down, out of our heads and turned into actual words. Thanks, Aron!

Now, there’s still a lot of work to do. I need to do a pretty comprehensive coauthor pass, which involves heavy edits and rewrites. That��usually takes a couple of months. And if The Hangman’s Cross is any indication, it’s going to take a couple of extra drafts before it’s ready for you guys to read. The hardest part is done, but I doubt we’ll get Hangman’s Cross and Burning Noose out the door this year. Probably more like early 2016, but we’ll hope for an earlier release than that.

Yesterday, we finished something else, too! After combining book ten and eleven into one book and then adding in a new book four ��� with a water spirit, as popularly suggested on Facebook ��� Lily Quinn is all outlined. Each volume will be only about 20,000 words long, so we should be able to put out a few of those this year, I hope. We’ll keep everyone updated.

Hm, it seemed like I had more to say than that, but I can’t think of anything else. Yay, books!��(Also, I donated��blood this morning, which always makes me more than a little lethargic. I’m honestly amazed I’m even conscious.)

I can’t vacation

The other day, I finished writing another book. Not for publication ��� it was a birthday/anniversary/Christmas gift for Aron. It took me 10 months. I was so excited to finish that I thought I’d celebrate by taking the whole week off writing.

Yeah. That last for one day. Then I was bored. Now I’m writing again. Screw vacation!