Amber Belldene's Blog, page 13

Who Me?–Next Big Thing?

My paranormal romance writing friend Stacy McKitrick kindly tagged me in The Next Big Thing Blog Hop, in which people write about their NaNoWriMo projects.  Thanks Stacy!

I’m really enjoying this project, even though at the end of the month I’m going to set it aside and let it simmer while I devote myself to promoting Blood Vine’s January launch, and getting Blood Vine Two ready for submission to Omnific.

What is your working title of your book?  Temptress in a Teapot

Where did the idea come from for the book? It came from learning about the music of Kitka, who gave me permission to use one of their tracks for Blood Vine’s book trailer.  They have a whole original composition called The Rusalka Cycle, and it set me to learning about the mythology of rusalki, because of my fascination with Eastern Europe.  Now I know there is a famous opera, a science fiction book and a mention of rusalki in Neil Gaiman’s American Gods.

What genre does your book fall under? Paranormal Romance all the way, baby.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? My hero, Dmitri Lisko is a retired heavyweight prizefighter who looks an awful lot like the dashing Ukrainian boxer and parliamentarian Vladimir Klitchko.  His heroine Sonya Truss is a classic beauty—the Edwardian actress Julia James.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?  When Dmitri finds rusalka Sonya in her teapot, her powers of seduction tempt him to abandon his own mission of vengeance to help her achieve her own revenge.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?  I plan to submit this book to publishers myself. 

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?  I’m still writing it, but I have astonished myself by typing 42,000 words since Nov 1st.  I think it will be about 60K in its final form.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? Hmm.  That’s a good question.  With Blood Vine, I could easily point to my influences.  But this book is more an amalgamation of things I like—serious themes, playful people, history and mythology, and sexy situations.

Who or what inspired you to write this book? NaNoWriMo, and more specifically, the very cool opportunity to join a team with other writers and editors via the website Savvy Author and Entangled Publishing for support and encouragement.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? Temptress in a Teapot explores the theme of vengeance versus justice, and like everything I ever write, it’s set right here in foggy San Francisco.

So—tag your it:

Celia Breslin

Ed Hoornaert

Samantha MacDouglas

Paulla Millhouse

***Use this format for your post

***Answer the ten questions about your current WIP (work in progress)

***Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so we can hop over and meet them.

Ten Interview Questions for the Next Big Thing:

What is your working title of your book?

Where did the idea come from for the book?

What genre does your book fall under?

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Include the link of who tagged you and this explanation for the people you have tagged.

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Literary Abandon – My NaNoWriMo report

Today is the seventh day of NaNoWriMo, and I’m having a blast with my first attempt to write a novel in a month.  I’ve averaged about 2500 words a day, which is plenty to achieve my goal of 50K by the end of the month.

But the most exciting part has been what I’ve learned about my writing.

First, I’ve become a believer in a detailed, scene by scene outline, because it helped me catch plot problems before I started writing.  I know outlining doesn’t work for everyone, but so far it’s working for me.

Secondly, Apparently, I like to edit as much as I like to write.  I adore nuancing emotions and will rewrite sentences until they are perfect.

The problem is–I will wordsmith like that from the start even though, as I write, my plans change, my characters’ voices evolve, and their backstories deepen.  And all that edit-as-I-go effort gets reworked over and over again with monstrous inefficiency.

For me, the discipline to not go back, but just to keep moving forward, is really paying off.  I am writing much more productively, and will go back to revise, nuance, and wordsmith later, once I have it all worked out.

Although I am sad to set aside editing the sequel to Blood Vine for the remainder of the month, I’m looking forward to using everything I’ve learned to write the third book next.

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Author Sarah Glover on Ghosts, God, and Halloween

I’m delighted to welcome my friend and fellow Omnific writer Sarah Glover to my blog today in honor of Halloween.  Over coffee last week, I was able to ask her all my questions about her writing and her spooky novel Grave Refrain: A Love Ghost Story.  

Sarah, d o you really believe in ghosts?

Hmmm.  Let’s say I’ve never seen one, but I tend to go with Shakespeare when he wrote, “There are more things in heaven and earth . . . than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

I guess my question is what would keep someone here as opposed to going on to wherever. Unfinished business, not wanting to leave his/her home?  Here’s an odd story.  Before we had kids, my husband and I moved into our current home, an old house where the previous owner had lived her whole life and where she also died.  I never saw anything, per se, but I felt an odd sensation when I walked through the house at night, a feeling of frustration hung heavy in the air as if she was irritated that these new people were invading her home — which we really were.  It wasn’t until we had children and were walking the floors with screaming infants in arms that I felt she decided that enough was enough, and decided to pack up and leave.  Now, this just could have been pure imagination on my part, the byproduct of living in a new place and not yet used to the creaks and groans of an old house — but who is to say?

That’s a great answer–it pretty much sums up how I feel about ghosts too. How about reincarnation? 

Now that actually makes sense to me.  Like when you’re young and fail at kick ball, right?  A do over – a chance to try better next time.  I’d like to think that we don’t get kicked down the food chain if we’re terribly bad though.  Although as a mother I sometimes think with all the yelling and screaming that I do I’m surely coming back as a newt or some pathetic looking possum.

I know exactly what you mean.  I find the idea of karma kind of frightening and don’t even want to contemplate the lowly creature I might become next time around.  Now, in honor of Halloween, will you tell us about  your favorite scary tradition?

For years, almost eleven year now, many families in our West Portal neighborhood in San Francisco have transformed their garages into the iconic scenes from the Harry Potter universe. Our garage has hosted Hagrid’s Hut, complete with a small animatronic dragon, brick walls and blast-ended skrewts.  Down the block you could find the Infirmary, Dumbledore’s office, and the Burrow, not to mention the Forbidden Forest and the Gryffindor Common Room (and yes, you had to enter through the portrait of the Fat Lady!).  Last year we handed out over 1,400 pieces of candy.  Lord, the cashier at Target just shook her head at me like I was certifiable when I unloaded my cart.  Untold numbers of children got sorted down the block from us by a real live Sorting Hat while ducking underneath Quidditch players flying overhead .  One great memory for me was when the Giants were in the World Series in 2010.  People were laughing and smiling and shouting the score back and forth across the street as they ushered their little ones from door to door.  So for years, Halloween has been about community — laughing and carrying on with our neighbors in the midst of hundreds of wee ones dressed up as witches, wizards, ballerinas and zombies.

That sounds like so much fun!  We know kids love halloween because of the candy, but also because they like being scared.  Which leads me the question, why is scary sexy?

Isn’t it!  It’s the bad boy thing.  Vampires as an allegory for sex.  Bram Stocker had that right, didn’t he?  I suppose we have to qualify scary — I’m not a fan of gore, well unless it’s Stephen King.   But secret passageways, candlelight, ghosts, vampires that look like Benedict Cumberbatch?  I’m there.

Well, aside from the lovely Mr. Cumberbatch and his cheek bones, every thing else you just listed is right off the pages of your wonderful novel Grave Refrain.  What music did you listen to when you wrote the book?

Since a rock band is front and center in the novel, I had a definite playlist in my mind.  God, I guess I’m all over the board when it comes to my music taste.  I love rock standards:  The Stones, Van Morrison, Warren Zevon – but my husband has a cutting taste in new indie bands so he pulls me into the current decade (laughs).  I also immersed myself in the music of the 30s and 40s — big band music, torch songs, music you really should be smoking to (although I don’t condone lighting up in the least!).

You did such a great job evoking both modern San Francisco and all the historical texture of the ghosts’ past lives.  Grave Refrain is very cinematic.  What lovers from literature or film  are most romantic/influential on you?

Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey, William Powell and Myrna Loy (who inspire Grave Refrain) – I love a strong, intelligent heroine and a dry witted hero.  I’m also a fool for Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman – and Humphrey Bogart.  As for modern lovers, anyone with George Clooney, yes?  Literary lovers are much easier.  My favorite couple is Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane.  I love them individually and together.  There is a fantastic arc of their courtship that Sayers’ ends on their honeymoon where they find a dead body in the cellar of their country home.

Okay, last question, and it’s one I have to ask: Since I happen to know that we are members of the same Christian denomination, I want to ask, how do you think your faith inspires or shapes your completely secular stories?

I’m curious to know what my characters make of God, if they do at all.  Our denomination is full of people who like to ask question but don’t necessarily need the answers.  I like my characters to question as well.  I’ve yet to write a character who is devout, although I think I would like to try to see if I could write him honestly and not as a cliché.  My next novel deals with a same sex relationship, and because of that gay rights – and the support of those rights by the church at large — have been in the forefront of the mind lately.

Sarah, thank you so much for taking time to talk with me.  I feel very lucky to count you as a friend.   And readers, I highly recommend Sarah’s novel Grave Refrain.  It’s smart, literary, and very romantic!

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Top 5 most Un-Romantic Things about Writing Romance

While I usually focus on all the virtues of reading and writing romance on this blog, I am currently in a flurry of preparations for National Novel Writing Month and for promoting Blood Vine’s December release.  Which is to say, I am also aware of all the ways the writing life taxes one’s romantic relationships.  So I offer this silly little list of the top five most un-romantic things about writing paranormal romance.

5) You get caught tweeting your word count with other writers while you’re supposed to be doing the dishes (you know, the ones you’re already in trouble for neglecting).

4) On your date night at a candle-lit table in the corner of your favorite restaurant, you force your partner to role-play the blackest, most depressing moment in your novel.

3) While your long-suffering spouse waits patiently next to you in bed wearing his or her sexiest skivvies, you drool over your keyboard trying to finish a smutty scene.

2) When your partner reads the aforementioned sex scene, he/she is grossed out by all the fangs.

1) When you finally manage an intimate moment, you are distracted by trying to think of the precise words you would use to describe the sensations you are so thoroughly enjoying.

Thanks for dropping by.  Have another one to add to my list?  I can’t wait to hear them!

Image courtesy Penny Matthews

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On the Border of the Profane: Why this Priest Writes Racy #Romance http://ow.ly/evPKJ

I’ve got a short essay up on the website Episcopal Cafe about my dual vocations as a Christian minister and a paranormal romance writer.  Come on by and tell me what you think, or leave me a comment here, if it’s easier.

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It gets better

UCSFVery proud of my BFF and m/m romance consultant for Blood Vine, who appears in this inspiring video.  This installment in the “It Gets Better Campaign” was produced for national coming out day, 10/11 by the University of California, San Francisco.

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