Erica Lindquist's Blog, page 6

One Night Sand arts!

New art and cover for the March Lily Quinn book, One Night Sand! As always, Gwynn’s art is just amazing.

Reblog: How to Keep Writing When No One Gives a Shit

I really liked this. The brutal reality is that not everyone can be wildly popular or successful in writing. Most of us labor in relative or utter obscurity. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t press on:

No one cares if I write.

No one’s waiting for me to publish my next essay. No one’s waiting for me to overcome my low self-esteem or manage my depression and anxiety or move through my fears or stop doubting myself or get a good night’s sleep and drink enough water and caffeinate sufficiently to sit down and write. No one was waiting for me to quit my day job when I did a few months ago, and stop putting off what I most love to do and make the time in my life to do it.

I don’t have an agent or an editor expecting the completion of my manuscript, no publishers are wooing me with six-figure advances for a book deal, and nothing I’ve written has ever gone viral. No one is compulsively refreshing my website, checking for my next blog post to be published. I don’t even have an article assignment or deadline at the moment.

I write pieces and send them out. Sometimes I will get rejections, which are usually very gentle and non-personal—it wasn’t right for them, and please submit again. Most of the time though, I never hear back at all. I just send and send and send into the void.

Occasionally something I pitch will get accepted (hooray!). But wait—when it’s published there are stats, an abundance of metrics to show me exactly how little everyone cares. How few people open my newsletter, how low my website traffic is, how small the engagement was for my latest Twitter or Facebook post. All the data there to prove just how much no one cares.

I’ve been writing for a long time and I’m not famous or hugely successful or even moderately well-known. Thirteen years ago I had my first article published—a music profile in Interview Magazine. I brought a copy of that issue to my chiropractor and she said, “I can just feel it, you’re about to take off, like a rocket ship!”

Read the rest: How to Keep Writing When No One Gives a Shit, by Jennifer Garam.

I was Alucard!

I’m running behind own the Lily Quinn novellas, but I have a quick and dirty update on where I was Saturday:

This was taken at Sac Anime by Josh Helena. That’s me in the middle, cosplayed as gender-swapped Alucard. Amber, who is dressed up as Integra, made me entire costume herself. Her work is amazing. Perhaps even amazeballs. Even Crispin Freeman himself approved!

And then I spent pretty much all of Sunday sleeping. It was glorious.

But now it’s the first Monday of 2016! Time to get back to work. We’ve got eleven books that we’re hoping to release this year. That’s a lot to get done. Wish us luck!

Lily Quinn in paperback

So here’s how print versions of Lily Quinn are going to work: Three volumes, each including four of the novellas. Originally, we were going to do a single print collection with all twelve books, plus the special Valentine’s Day story. But that’s going to be about 300,000 words. That’s about the length of The Fountainhead. (I’m not an Ayn Rand fan – at all – but it’s a recognizable book for comparison.)

In print, that would be pretty massive. A little too massive for a book that written to be read… with one one, shall we say? So we’re cutting it down into three books of more manageable length. Each one will be available at roughly the same time as the final story of that book is published in ebook. So the schedule will be as follows:

Volume 1: February 29, 2016

1. Wanted Undead or Alive

2. All’s Fae in Love and War

3. The Beast Within

4. In Too Deep

4.5. Max’s Long Night (February/Valentine’s Day special short story)

Volume 2: June 30, 2016

5. Raising the Dead

6. One Night Sand

7. Tangled Limbs

8. Coming Into Power

Volume 3: October 31, 2016

9. A Made Man

10. Deep Woods

11. Spells of Binding

12. Sealed with a Kiss

There might be some wiggle in these dates. We don’t have a lot of control over how quickly our print files get approved and we can’t put up pre-orders or anything. But we’ll keep you all up to date.

Books, Thanksgiving and shit

Last night, the second Lily Quinn book went live! Holy shit, it feels like we just published the first one. The third is being cleared for pre-order right now!

This one-a-month release schedule feels like a ridiculously crazy, break-neck speed. Book five is with our editor and six is with beta readers. That means that I’ve finished most of the work on the stories through the end of April next year. That both feels like a long way out and terrifyingly close. Can we really keep up with this release schedule?

Hell if I know! But we’re going to try.

I admit that I’m a little manic and stung out from Thanksgiving. Usually, Aron and I alternate where we spend the holiday – one year with his family, the next with mine. But even though this was supposed to be a Christensen Thanksgiving, I flew down to LA at the last minute to the Lindquist gathering. My aunt’s mother is very, very sick and we all worried this would be the last chance to see her. I’m glad I did, just in case. She’s a great lady.

But I got a little lost on my own at LAX and I’m not used to spending that much time away from Aron. I might have gone just a smidge nuts without him. I’m home now and glad I went, but last night might have involved Jessica Jones, cookies and a full-blown panic attack. I haven’t curled up on the floor and hyperventilated like that in a long time. Happy holidays!

But speaking of all that, I’m loving Jessica Jones. I enjoyed Daredevil and in some ways, it was a better show. The actors in Daredevil were more consistently good (Simpson in particular is rubbing me wrong – not sure if that’s writing or the actor), the fight scenes were more interesting and the cinematography was more striking. But the characters and story of Jessica Jones are drawing me in far, far better than Daredevil ever did. And at the end of the day – and all during the day, really – I’m a story whore. I’ll deal with the worst acting, costumes and camera work and still sing the praises of an excellent story.

And the story of Jessica Jones  is amazing. I’m not the first and won’t be the last to rant about it. I’ve got a final triple-check pass to do on The Beast Within and then get to work on Lily Quinn #7, so I’m not going to try to explain or pick apart the story here. Just go watch it.

Uh, I think that’s everything. Be safe and have a great December, everyone. I’ve got work to do.

November updates

Happy November, everyone! Is it over yet? No? Damn it.

So what’s up with us? A hell of a lot, actually! First, easy news. To the left there is the latest Lily Quinn cover, this one for book #5. Raising the Dead is currently with our editor and is scheduled for release at the end of March 2016.

I’ve been working on book 6, One Night Sand, all month. Honestly, I should have been done last week, but other shit happened. One of our friends had a sudden crash in her health and we were pretty damned sure we were going to lose her. But I’m pleased to report that she’s doing much better now! I’ve been helping her and her husband get ready for a big-ass move, too. It’s been chaos.

There was another delay when I found some errors in Hammer of Time, which put a bug up my butt to check all of the books. So if you have electronic copies of our books, go make sure you download the latest versions.

After all that, I’m back to work on Lily Quinn #6. I should be able to finish this draft by the time I head down to LA. Wahoo!

Also, check this out. It’s Max!

NaNoWriMo

It’s November, National Novel Writing Month. I occasionally get asked what I think of NaNoWriMo.

I love it. I also don’t do it anymore.

For three years, I participated and finished NaNoWriMo. I think it was three times… I don’t really feel like digging up my stats, though. It was amazing to be a part of such a huge and enthusiastic writing community. It helped me make serious progress on several manuscripts that I might not have ever finished without NaNo’s friend boot in my ass.

But now I know that I can put out a book and put out pretty much as many words as I need to in order to finish a book, so I don’t put myself through the incredible highs and lows and jaw-clenching word sprints of NaNoWriMo. November is already incredibly busy with family stuff and our annual teriyaki brew, so I don’t need to be worrying doubt word counts, too, unless I’ve got a deadline coming up.

But I Facebook and tweet about NaNo a lot because it’s never stopped being a great exercise and better community. I encourage other writers to participate if there’s something for them to gain there – friends, cheerleading or just a deadline that forces their nose to the grindstone. I’m never going to be one of those who verbally shits on NaNoWriMo. I love it, even if I don’t participate anymore.

So go, NaNoers! Go!

And she’s off!

And… that’s it. I just sent off the finalized files for Lily Quinn #1: Wanted Undead or Alive. Really, I was supposed to do that a few days ago, but there were some last-minute tweaks to the voice of the first couple chapters… Yeah, never mind. Point is, it’s done now.

I feel weird. This isn’t the first time we’ve published a book. In fact, this is number 14. (That alone astonishes me if I think about it for more than a few seconds.) But it’s been a while. The last thing we released was Miss Rose. In fact, until Halloween, that’s been our only release in 2015. I feel rather out of practice at the publication process.

We really try to produce the best and most professional product that we can. I’ve read Lily Quinn #1… more times than I can remember anymore. I’ve polished every page and tried my very best to eradicate every typo. The manuscript had been inspected by our editor, John, and beta reader Amber has read over it five times.

I know things will slip through. They do even in traditionally published books. I find them all the time and it’s not a big deal. But damn it, everything is different when it’s my book! I want to give Lily Quinn every chance to succeed. If readers don’t like it because they don’t care for the smut or for our story, I can live with that. This is an experiment for us, too. But if readers can’t finish because of copy errors, then I’m going to start losing sleep. I know there’s a range of quality in self-published work, but Aron and I really, really try to give our books all the care and attention of a traditionally published work.

By the time a Loose Leaf Story book comes out, we’re both pretty damned sick of looking at it. But if all that work means a better book for our readers, it’s worth every headache.

So… that’s it. I’ve spent so much time on Lily Quinn that it’s kind of hard to let go. As much as I wish otherwise, it’s never going to be perfect. At some point, I have to admit that I’ve done my best and release my baby into the wild.

Where there are bears waiting to maul it.

That wasn’t the best metaphor. Well, now I’m just nervously babbling. Lily Quinn #1 will be out on Halloween and we hope you enjoy it!

(And uh… just as a reminder, Lily Quinn is erotica. This book is unbelievably filthy.)

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FUCK! I’m so nervous.

Happy birthday to me

It’s my birthday today and I woke up to a great present – people are downloading Whisperworld from Amazon! It went up free yesterday and I’m giddy with the number of downloads it’s gotten.

Some really readers really objected to the the main character, Julia, being homosexual. They seemed really shocked and felt I should have warned them up front. Why? I don’t warn readers when there’s going to be a heterosexual romance in our books. But whatever. Screw that homophobic noise.

That did get me thinking, though, and I recategorized Whisperworld under LGBT > sci-fi in those bookstores that offer the specific sub-genre. My hope was that it would attract those readers who would like to see a homosexual lead character and deter readers who find that icky. So far, the numbers support my decision. We’ll just have to see what the reviews say.

In the meantime, I get cake!

Lily Quinn #4 cover reveal!

Another beautiful Lily Quinn cover from Gwynn! Click for a larger view. Look at our nix! I love his hair.