Category Archives: Books
*does the happy dance*
Just got a release date for A Boon by Moonlight — it will be out on March 1, yay! So you have two weeks to save up your pennies and buy my story of Zach Mayhew, ex-Marine and planet nursery owner, and the deal he cuts with a tall, handsome, and very snarky Sidhe noble to get his dying grandmother into Faerie. Oh, I cannot WAIT to see the cover for this one…
What to do when you get a rejection
Today I got a very nice rejection email from the agent I queried about Storm Season. It wasn’t deemed a good fit for their agency, but they suggested I continue to look for other agents as opinions vary widely.
Now, rejections are normal in pretty much every writer’s life, and Lord knows I’ve collected enough in my career. Am I disappointed that the agent wasn’t interested in Storm Season? Yes, of course I am. Nobody likes to be rejected, and it would have been nifty to be represented by this agency.
Am I surprised that they passed on it? Honestly, not all that much. Storm Season is, after all, a MMM menage erotic romance, and while those are very popular with e-publishers, I suspect they’re a harder (hur hur) sell when it comes to print publishers. An agent is all about salable books, so their decision to pass is understandable. Also, it’s not like they said, “Whatever made you think you were literate in the first place, you babbling hag? Never darken our phosphors again.” So if I have something that might be a better fit for them (and I don’t have an agent by then), I can always try submitting new stuff in the future.
Am I giving up writing entirely, deleting the file and eating an entire half gallon of Butter Pecan to drown my sorrows in a diabetic coma? No. Rejections are part of the game — they happen, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and submit your work to the next person on your list. Now, I’m not going to do that exactly with Storm Season — yes, I could continue to ping agents, but I suspect I’ll get the same response from them simply because of the subject matter. As I already have an e-publisher in mind, I’ll be submitting it there as soon as I finish the polish and write a one-page synopsis.
Ultimately, I have faith in my writing. I know Storm Season will sell — my hard-nosed nitpicky beta readers have loved it — and I know it’ll find an audience. I just have to be patient and keep on looking for the right market. And I will sell other books as well, because I won’t stop until I do. It’s simple as that.
Although I have to admit, butter pecan does sound pretty good right about now…
90,022 words
And that is, as we say in the biz, a wrap for Storm Season. Query letter goes off tomorrow, and fingers stay crossed until I hear back.
Chapter 17 is now edited like a boss
86K and a bit, and the big-ass hurricane battle sequence between Ian and the big baddie is done, dusted, and damned good. Also, I referenced the First Law of Thermodynamics in an erotic romance. I RULE.
And now that I’ve done 35 minutes on the Treadmill of Musing, I’m going back in for the final sex scene. Cover me, people.
Storm Season is almost done
Sixteen chapters down, two to go, and then I write the query letter and send it off. And it has been a most educational experience, editing a novel. I’ve finished novels before, mind you, but this is the first time I’ve ever managed to get through editing one and whipping it into submission shape. I may have to pull out those two finished novels and put them through the same process, once blood has returned to my butt and my fingers stop screaming at me.
Things what I learned whilst editing my novel:
- After realizing that I’d unconsciously followed the three act format, I learned that somehow much of Act Two wound up in Act Three and had to be transplanted. I then had to rewrite a good 40% of Act Three because what was left was so patchy as to be almost unusable. That being said, my Act Two freaking well rocks — no slow middle third of the novel here, nosiree.
- If I have a magical tattoo show up on my MCs in Act One, I kinda have to make it do something useful by Act Three.
- Not many M/M/M erotic romances also contain references to Greek gods, genetic engineering, nanotech, and Alan Turing. Go me!
- One person commented on my short story “Tied With a Bow” that the menage relationship came together too easily and cleanly. That does not happen here by a long shot, hoo boy. If I can put my boys through the wringer, I do. I’m surprised they don’t hate me by now.
- If I sit for too long, my middle back muscles knot up like a bitch. There’s a reason why I own a treadmill, and I really need to use it more often.
- I need to find better ways to pull my brain out of fifth gear so that I can get to sleep at night instead of staring at the ceiling thinking, “Wait, did I remember to add that backstory? Is that going to work or is it an infodump? Maybe if I just use more character motivation…”
Soon, my precious. Soooooon…
Note to self whilst editing
Stop describing Bythos’s lips as “plush.” Yes, it’s the ideal term for them, but there are other words to describe a set of full, pale pink, perfectly cupid bow-ed lips on a demigod. Lush, for example. Plump. Sensuous. Suckable. You get the idea.
Also, stop using the same term to describe his ass. I know it’s a surprisingly well-upholstered thing of muscular beauty, but you also know whose ass gets that term applied to it on a regular basis. It just means you’ll wind up unexpectedly meeting him at some point and feel very weird about the whole thing. It’s bad enough that you have to avoid Michael Fassbender and John Barrowman for the rest of your life — don’t add to that list.
Also, more beard love for Aphros. He should be using those lovely bristles on Ian’s inner thighs and other sensitive areas. Use all your tools, Nicola.
Thank you for playing in the Evernight Holiday Blog Hop!
I’ve sent off the list of all you wonderful commenters to EP, so good luck to all of you on winning the iPad2!
And for my personal winner, I had Jeremy the Orange Lump of a Cat put his claw on the winner, and it’s–
Nancy S at ocanana@gmail.com! Nancy, contact me and tell me which format you’d like your copy of Vanilla-Free Christmas: Manlove Edition in, and I’ll get it emailed to you today!
Welcome to the Evernight Holiday Blog Hop!
Welcome to the Evernight Holiday Blog Hop!
We love the holidays, we love making our readers happy and we love giving away swag. What better way to do that than to hold a blog hop?
Here’s how it works… the more blogs you hop to (shown below) the more chance you have of winning prizes. Each site on the hop is offering a prize and Evernight is offering an iPad 2 as the grand prize! To be in with a chance of winning the site prize simply follow the blog you’re visiting and leave a comment which includes your email address. Each entry on each blog is then counted towards the grand prize draw. The more entries you have, the better your chance of winning that iPad 2! You also get extra points for liking the Evernight Facebook page. Just make sure you let us know in the comments that you’ve done so.
Happy hopping!
Hey, it’s Nicola! By following my blog and leaving a comment, you not only get a chance to win Evernight’s iPad2, you also get a chance to win a copy of Vanilla-Free Christmas: Manlove Edition in your choice of format!
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9. Emma Shortt
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11. Doris OConnor
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12. Karyn Gerrard
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13. C. R. Moss
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16. Casey Moss
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30. Erin Lark
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31. Anna Keraleigh
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32. James Cox
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34. Shannan Albright
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36. Sam Crescent
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39. Thayer King
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41. Wend Petzler
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42. Book Babe
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46. Kathleen Grieve
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48. Angelina Rain
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49. Sorensen Shorts
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50. Lila Shaw
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51. Sandra Bunino
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52. K. Williams M/M
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53. Berengarias Blog
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54. Michaela Rhua
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55. Ashlynns Blog
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56. Erin M. Leaf
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57. Marie E. Blossom
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63. Avrils Blog
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64. Flame Arden
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65. Lace Daltyn
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66. Faye Avalon
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70. Tina Pollick
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72. The Wyverns Lair
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73. Katalyn Sage
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74. Jorja Lovett
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75. J. P. Barnaby
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76. One Hot Mess
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77. D. C Stone
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80. Jamie K. Schmidt
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82. Jenika Snow
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84. Sadie Sinclair
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85. Emily Cale
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87. Melissa Hosack
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Vanilla-Free Christmas: Manlove Edition is LIVE!
In the mood for some naughty holiday fare? Then you’ll love the five festively hot stories in Evernight Publishing’s Vanilla-Free Christmas: Manlove Edition.
Running the gamut from a delightfully dominating dinner party to a mailroom employee’s Christmas romp with his two gorgeous bosses, this anthology is guaranteed to get your bells jingling this Christmas. And if that wasn’t enough to perk your interest, Vanilla-Free Christmas: Manlove Edition also includes my tribute to Christmas miracles (and three kinky guys) “Tied With a Bow.”
Also available on Amazon (Kindle) and All Romance Books. Go, purchase, enjoy!
To add it to your Goodreads shelf, click here.
Be Warned: m/m sex, m/m/m ménage sex, BDSM, sex toys, rimming
I am an editing mofo
The goal was to have Storm Season edited and off by Monday of next week, but Real Life(TM) has intervened as it usually does (my other job ate last Monday, and various stressors kicked in as of Tuesday and made editing…somewhat difficult). As a result, I may not have everything done by the 3rd as planned. For instance, I’m currently expanding and polishing Chapter Three with thirteen more chapters to go, and that number may increase as we go.
So, my revised goal is to have the sucker ready for submission by December 7, come hell or high water, at which point I spend December finishing off Behind the Iron Cross in order to have it ready for submission by the middle of January.
To be honest, 2013 is going to be an insane year for me. Still in the planning stages are five more books in the Olympic Cove series, another historical ER set in Roman-occupied Britain, and a contemporary paranormal romance. And then there’s the alternate history mystery that’s finished and being edited, plus the straight up SF comedy thriller that is finished and desperately needs editing, and THEN I want to do an SF police procedural.
Yes, I’m insane, we already know that, moving along now.
Nicola Cameron Writes 