Category Archives: Empress of Storms
83K Or Bust: Day Three
After spending much of the night staring up at the ceiling and really, really hating that wedding night scene, I realized what I did wrong. I fell back on a commonly used fictional trope to create tension; namely, I have two people who are not communicating properly with each other and thus have the wrong idea about the other. Matthias thinks that Danäe is appalled by the idea of bedding a guy old enough to be her father, and Danäe thinks that if she tells Matthias that she was never in love with his son (but was in love with him) she would look fickle, if not actually whorish.
Ya know what? I reeeeeeeeally don’t like that trope. It’s annoying. And they’re going to have enough shit to deal with later on in the story that they don’t need additional miscommunications on their wedding night. So I’m going to go back and tear all that out, and write what should have happened — Danäe stops Matthias’s deliberately truncated foreplay after he assures her he’ll make it fast, asks what he’s doing, winkles out the real reason, and sets him straight. And then they have still kinda awkward but MUCH hotter sex because Hellenes have rational views on physical intimacy and godsdammit, Danäe wants to get off. Heh.
Started With: 9,285 words
Wrote: 3,012 words
Total word count: 12,279 words (yes, I know this doesn’t add up correctly but I deleted a scene so I was at a deficit when I started).
What else did you do today, Nicola: due to a bad night not nearly as much as I wanted to get done. But I did manage to get the living room vacuumed, checkbook balanced, and cat chores done, plus one hell of a leg session at the gym (oh, Lord, I have to start going more regularly because this business of not going for weeks and then going back hurts like a mother) and a shower.
Oh, I told Ramón about this challenge today. His response: “Because you have a rod for your own back that you haven’t used recently, I assume?” He understands my little foibles so well.
83K Or Bust: Day Two
Okay, it’s late and I still have to post a Mid Week Tease so I’m going to make this quick. Here are the day’s stats:
Started With: 6,223 words
Wrote: 3,062 words
Total word count: 9,285 words
What else did you do today, Nicola: performed cat chores, made a necklace for a friend, went for a drive when I got stuck on a plot point, attended my local writer’s critique group, fended off humorous suggestions that I add a God of Chairs and a God of Dysentery to the book, did the food shopping, grunted through my knee PT, and took a shower.
Today the words did not flow easily. I basically bulled through it, going back and tweaking some things in Chapter One, and told myself screw it, I do NOT need a pantheon in this story. It’s not like the gods make an appearance anyway. And may I say that I have just written what may well be the most cheerless wedding night scene in literary history. A couple of kisses, a fondle here and there, and then straight to the main event? Matthias had better get his shit in order or I will have Danäe smack some common sense into him with a paddle handle.
83K Or Bust: Day One
Let’s do a little recap, shall we? As you know, (Bob), an indie author recently kicked off a kerfluffle by putting up a GoFundMe fund in order to write full-time, and revealed herself to have a totally unrealistic worldview on professional writing. After receiving both even-tempered remonstrating and plain old ridicule, she lashed out at her critics with, among other things, the following:
“I’d like to challenge each and every one of these wonderful women to a writing contest. How about an 80K (that’s 80,000 words people, not dollars!) novel. It needs to be fully edited, proofed and a professional cover designed for it. Oh, and they have only 6 months to do all this. Ok, go.”
You know me, I can’t pass up a challenge. I announced that I would go one better and finish an 83K novel (because I was already 3K into that crazy MF high fantasy erotic romance novel that wouldn’t let go), have it fully edited, proofed, and provided with a professional cover in six weeks, and release it as an ebook and trade paperback on November 1.
Let me take this moment to point out that every writer has their own speed. Some write fast, some write slow. Any speed you write at is fine. You do you, baby. But taking an 80K novel from zero to “Whoops, it’s on Amazon” within six m/o/n/t/h/s/ weeks is just not as impossible as some people seem to think. Part of this challenge is to show that it’s possible to do this without sacrificing quality, and while still maintaining something of a life.
So yeah, today was the official start of 83K or Bust, and Empress of Storms is now officially underway. Here’s my working blurb:
When widower King Matthias IV of Ypres has to fulfill a treaty with the neighboring country of Hellas and provide a royal consort for young Queen Danäe, the only Ypresian royal available for marriage is himself. Can he overcome his grief for his late wife and risk letting a blue-haired witch queen into his heart? And can Danäe, only half-trained as a water mage, root out a magical threat against Matthias before it kills the man she’s loved since childhood?
I’m pleased to report that it got off to a robust start. Here are the day’s stats:
Started With: 3,000 words
Wrote: 3,223 words
Total word count: 6,223 words
What else did you do today, Nicola: recorded, edited and released a podcast episode, signed up for RT, made a necklace and two sets of earrings for the Etsy store so that I could pay for RT (I’ve got some really cool Dia de los Muertos/Halloween jewelry up, just saying), ran errands, performed cat chores (feeding, watering cleaning cat boxes, breaking up cat fights), did two loads of laundry, cursed through my knee PT workout, fetched Ramon a Starbucks because I’m a nice wife, and took a shower.
At this rate I should be finishing the book on October 17th or so, which will give me two weeks to edit, proof, and put the ebook and print book together. I’ve contracted with the amazing Jay Aheer to design the cover (could have done it myself but the challenge stipulates “a professional cover” and I don’t want anyone to think I’m cheating), and I think it’s going to be absolutely gorgeous.
As for the writing, it’s not really much of a stretch at this point. I’ve introduced all the major players and am about to write Matthias and Danäe’s hot mess of a wedding (the treaty originally stipulated that Danäe was supposed to marry Matthias’s son Lukas, but the supposedly grief-stricken Ypresian heir disappeared after his mother’s death. So now she’s marrying the man who was supposed to be her father-in-law. Can you say awkward? I knew you could).
And I keep hearing Dawn French in my head whenever I write Flavia, Queen Danäe’s personal body servant, so that’s fun.
Nicola Cameron Writes 