Category Archives: Books
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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15. Nicky Penttila
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16. Casey Moss
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21. Robin Badillo
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30. Erin Lark
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34. Shannan Albright
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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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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.
And that’s NaNoWriMo for Nic
Words today: 5,023
NaNoWriMo total: 50,112
Grand total: 62,121
Needless to say, I’m not finished yet — got around 8-10K to go, but I may well be able to punch that all out by Wednesday night, allowing me to eat guilt-free turkey on Thursday.
But man, today was rough in Olympic Cove. Bad, bad shit has happened to my boys, and I must take a break before I start crying and running amok.
So, we’re pretty much midway through the month…
And I wrote 3,033 words today, which gives me 42,051 for NaNoWriMo, and 54,060 words in total. Amusingly, I wrote a Starbucks scene while at Starbucks, which made the setting description a doddle.
Thanks to Tiffany Reisz, the minx, I’ve added a rather ominous subplot in the middle, which 1) will be picked up and utilized further down the series, 2) is causing all kinds of relationship problems for the boys, and 3) means that Storm Season will probably top out around 70K. Also, Bythos is a great big brilliant idiot of a manchild, and Aphros has got to get over his inferiority complex about not being “the smart one.” Ironically, the human who’s still mourning his dead wife is the most emotionally balanced of the three. I love my boys to bits, but man, they’re making me pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh.
Secretly, I’m also wondering how many people who read this will also want to read Ian’s SF eco-thriller Greenstrike. That would be very meta.
And we have a cover!
Fresh from the Evernight Publishing blog is the cover for Vanilla-Free Christmas: Manlove Edition. I’m so excited! And additionally tickled that the cute young thing on the cover is bound with red velvet ropes — very apropos for “Tied With a Bow.”
This Christmas, good will isn’t all these sexy men are going to get…
Ménage loving and chance encounters will make the holidays merry and bright and hot enough to keep out the cold. From a romp in Santa’s candy house to a dinner party where chains and collars are required attire, Christmas for these naughty men is going to be anything but vanilla.
Be Warned: m/m sex, m/m/m ménage sex, BDSM, sex toys, rimming
