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Aaaaand it’s soup
Those are some magical damn words, people.
As of 5:30 AM this morning I officially finished the second draft of Palace of Scoundrels and sent it off to the betas. While they’re daubing red all over the pages I’ll go through and do a mechanical edit (grammar, punctuation, and spelling) and weasel word edit (adverbs, weak words), then do the ebook setup and finalize the cover. Luckily for me the lovely Jay Aheer, who did the cover for Empress of Storms, was kind enough to tell me where she found her cover model pic, so I found a similar one by the same model which will work well for Palace (yeah, I’m doing the cover as well. I’ve done covers for other people, so I may as well do my own).
Right now, the goal is to add the beta comments, do a final polish, then have everything formatted and up on Amazon by next Wednesday (it will be on sale for $.99 for one week, and Empress will also be on sale for that price for the same amount of time), at which point I shall sleep for a week. HA! I jest. At which point I switch into Promo mode and start pimping the book in various places, then head off to Niagara by the Lake for the first annual Evernight Publishing writer’s retreat where I will be finishing either Do No Harm or Behind the Iron Cross, I can’t decide. Yes, I am going to do my utmost to get both of THOSE out this month, as well. Wahey! (insert gif of Jeremy Brett as Holmes clicking his heels here)
After they’re done and out, I get cracking on The Chevalier, which I’ve decided will be a fantasy erotic romance sex comedy (because lord, I need some laughs right now). The final book of the year, which definitely won’t be out until 2017, will be the untitled Von Steuben historical romance.
But what about Olympic Cove #4, I hear you cry. Have I just abandoned the series? Never fear, poppets — Cross Current is definitely on the writing schedule, and I have some nifty news about the series coming in the new year. Stay tuned!
I Need My Office Back
As many of you know, I write full time from home, which is an amazing boon and one I’m grateful for each day. I even have my own office where I’m supposed to split my time between writing, sewing, and making jewelry. Except that over the last five years or so it’s gotten difficult for me to sit for long periods of time because my knees lock up and my ankles start to swell (this getting old shit sucks, I’ll tell you). The logical answer to that is to get up every hour and walk around for awhile, but sometimes that’s difficult if you’re hip-deep in a scene and don’t want to leave it. So you keep writing, then get up and almost fall over because your legs have turned to wood. Same problem when sewing or working on jewelry.
So for writing I moved downstairs into the living room, where I would sit with my feet extended on a footstool. It worked pretty damn well for a couple of years because Ramón would head off to the office and I’d have the house to myself, free to tap away on a story while keeping an eye on (and acting as a perch for) the cats. All was well, and many books were written.
And then last year Ramón was laid off in October. It quickly became apparent that working in the living room wasn’t, well going to work anymore. It was fine when I was the only one in the house, but when Ramón was also home all day looking for work, doing phone interviews and the like, it was like trying to write in a particularly loud Starbucks where the barista interrupts you to ask where his clean suit is.
Also, I have a tendency to talk to myself when I write, especially when I’m doing dialogue. And it can be problematic when you’re working on a scene and suddenly your beloved says, “What did you say, sweetie?” Not good when you realize you’ve been saying some really filthy things under your breath. And yeah, okay, I’m just gonna say it. It’s hard to write a hot M/M sex scene with my husband sitting next to me. Go figure.
But he got a new job in March so everything should be copacetic now, right? It is … except that he now works from home. And he likes to eat lunch while watching TV. And during his breaks he likes to check his email and read news on his laptop in the living room. And sometimes the silly romantic fool just likes coming downstairs and kissing me because he can, bless his heart.
Which means that the goal now is to turn the living room back into the public area it’s supposed to be and get my happy ass back into my office for work, and towards this end I have a plan. Thanks to EoS royalties I recently bought a lovely faux leather wingback chair that is also a recliner (in fact, I’m sitting on it right now) and put it in our front room/library. But that’s still a public area, and while it’s peaceful in here it’s also right next to the staircase which mean I now get all of Ramón’s comings and goings in the corner of my eye while working. I’d wanted to put the recliner into my office and work from there, but all available space is pretty much taken up with furniture and computer carts (my office holds the printers and routers).
So I threw this problem to Ramón, who is the master of spatial relations. It turns out that the printer cart is on wheels, and the router cart is 85% full of stuff that doesn’t need to be there (software DVDs and manuals, and a half-finished dollhouse. He suggested that I pick a time when we can disconnect the modem and router temporarily, move the dollhouse and software stuff Elsewhere, move the printer cart over to where the router cart is, find space on it for the modem and router, and reconnect them. That leaves a tidy chunk of open space right next to my office window, which would be a faboo place to put this chair.
So that’s on the cards for this weekend, which means as of next week I actually get to go work in my office AND CLOSE THE DOOR IF I WANT TO. Heaven. Of course the cats aren’t going to like it, so I’m going to have to negotiate visiting hours with them. But soon, my precious, very soon…
80K To The Palace: Days One Through Three
Remember my 83K or Bust marathon last September and October in order to get Empress of Storms done? That worked really well, didn’t it?
So I’m doing it again for Palace of Scoundrels. This one will be called 80K to the Palace, and the goal is to get the first draft done by July 4th, with publication ideally on July 19th. Technically it started on Sunday, so today (well, yesterday since I’m posting this on Wednesday) is Day 3. With a planned writing quota of 2,666 words a day, this should be relatively easy and give me room to finish other writing projects at the same time before they show up at my door with torches and pitchforks wanting to know where Cross Current and Do No Harm are.
Days 1-3’s stats:
Started With: 0 words
Words needed to stay on schedule: 7,998 words
Wrote: 8,195 words
Total word count: 8,195 words.
So I’m slightly ahead of the game, which is good. This, by the way, is going to be a bit more rom-com than Empress. There will still be magic, derring-do, and excitement, but there are also going to be some rather hilarious moments if things work out the way I want.
And She Returns…
My goodness, I haven’t posted anything since before RT, have I? Bad romance writer, NO new MacBook Pro!
No, seriously, no new MacBook Pro. I was going to buy one this weekend with my royalties because my existing laptop is 1) over eight years old and 2) was a refurb when I bought it, but as it turns out I need to use my income for other writing-related expenses — namely, a cover (more about that later), sponsorship and attendance for Wild Wicked Weekend, and to pay off my half of an upcoming trip.
So the new laptop will have to wait another month. Which sort of sucks, but that’s adulting for you.
Anyway, back to RT — I decided to drive from Dallas to Vegas instead of flying because I was in the mood for a roadtrip (and er, I had a lot of shit to bring). Said road trip was gorgeous, and I learned that it is geographically noticeable when you cross from Texas into New Mexico and New Mexico into Arizona. At the TX/NM border the landscape immediately changes from flat plains to gorgeously colored mesas, and at the NM/AZ border it immediately turns into scrubby desert with the occasional mountain until you get to Flagstaff, at which point you’re definitely in the mountains. Lovely, and I’d like to do it again with Ramón if possible.
Vegas itself is the neon-lit adult funland that it’s always been, so no real news there. The Rio was perfectly serviceable as a hotel, although I did hear that the route from the hotel rooms to the conference area was referred to as “the Hallway of Doom” due to its distance. Let’s just say that I hit 10K steps on four different days and leave it at that. Much fun was had with the lovely LD Blakeley as my roommate, and we attended some nifty panels, hung out with great folks like Kenna Nauenberg and Alex Gordon, and of course attended the amazing Cirque du Punk party on Friday night.
Kenna, LD, and myself. I was yelping, “I have a waist, I have a waist!” when LD was lacing me up.
Lady Amphitrite before the nails and corset went on, because those were saved for last, you betcha.
Two erotic romance writers loose in Vegas. I’m surprised we didn’t get into more trouble.
Competing in the CdP costume contest (picture courtesy of Michael Patrick Gleason). I cannot adequately express how much I love this costume.
The other big event of RT for me was the Book Fair on Saturday. I didn’t sell a lot, but I did get to see sights like this:
My life is so hard.
Sunday was spent tidying up, trying to get everything packed (or in LD’s case cursing UPS for their extortionate charges to ship stuff to Canada), and hanging out with fellow Evernight author Khloe Wren and awesome cover model Michael Gleason:
After this LD and I looked at each other, said, “Let’s get out of the hotel for a bit,” and went for a cruise up and down the Las Vegas strip during which we spotted many crimes against good taste, what we suspect is a genuine murder hotel, and a gigantic and truly scary gift shop.
The next day I dropped LD off at the airport and headed home (including a white-knuckle drive during a severe thunderstorm in the Texas Panhandle) to get back to work on all the WIPs I need to finish toot sweet. I also tried to finish a short story for Evernight’s Dark Captive anthology, but the damn thing blew up on me and turned into a short novel. So, um, yeah, look for Do No Harm this summer from Belaurient Press!
In other publishing news, I sold the German language translation of Trickster to Me and the Muse Publishing in Germany, I’m currently waiting on a decision from Juno Publishing in France as to whether they want to publish Empress of Storms in French, and a very good friend of mine will be releasing a hot and hilarious new M/M erotic novelette on Tuesday which I will be helping out with on promo (trust me, you want to read this). The current work queue includes (counts on fingers) Cross Current (Olympic Cove #4), Behind the Iron Cross, Prince of Scoundrels (Two Thrones #2), Do No Harm, and Trickster: All In. That should be enough to keep me going for a couple of months, don’t you think?
Wild Wicked Weekend (aka THIS IS SO MUCH FUN!)
You may remember earlier in the week that I was rather nervous about attending Wild Wicked Weekend here in San Antonio. Yes, I’d attended RT last year but I wasn’t signing and could thus skulk about the periphery and not worry about being “on.” For WWW, however, I was one of the signing authors and would be visible, which made me somewhat nervous.
Yeah, I know how ridiculous that sounds. Thing is, I know how to be chatty as hell in my SF writer identity but doing the same thing as Nicola would be new, and I wasn’t sure how well my personality would go over at a romance convention.
As it turned out, I had absolutely nothing to worry about. First off, the trip down here took a half hour less than I’d expected (and by taking the 130 toll road I got to drive through some astoundingly picturesque countryside). The con was booked at the Menger Hotel, which is this gorgeous blended Victorian hotel with adorable rooms, a stunning lobby, and is right smack next to the Rivercenter Mall and across from the Riverwalk (which would become very important later). I checked in, was shown to my corner room with decor I kinda want to steal and bring home with me, then went down to the ballroom to register, drop off my raffle gift basket, and say hello to Sidney Bristol.
Somehow, I’m not sure how, I wound up staying and watching the introduction of the gorgeous male hosts for the con, most of whom are professional erotic dancers and put on, um, quite the show for us (I understood then why we were encouraged to bring lots and lots of singles). Evernight Publishing had sponsored a host named Kelii, so I made sure to grab a picture with him which I will not post here because I really should know better than to wear that shirt in public. Instead, here’s Kelii’s publicity photo. You’re welcome.
Friday was a bit more low-key, however, which turned out to be a good thing for me. WWW is designed to be more of a relaxacon than something where you’re scheduled every moment of the day. With that in mind, I had breakfast with Sidney and some new friends, ambled back to the ballroom for more chatting and a 40’s themed lunch and costume contest, then went up to the room to take a nap.
I wound up sleeping until 7:30 PM, mainly because my knees and Achilles bursae had been killing me due to doing a fair amount of walking around the hotel (lovely corner room? Yeah, situated diametrically opposite the ballroom in the hotel layout). Realizing that I simply couldn’t wear the slip-ons I’d brought, I decided to skip the trip to the local BDSM venue (ironically because I was in too much pain) and hobbled over to the Rivercenter, where I found a Footlocker and made a salesman very happy by purchasing an outrageously expensive pair of Asics that had arch support sent directly from heaven. A final stop at Johnny Rockets earned me dinner, then I hobbled back to the room to write and sleep.
An aside — do not fuck with your footwear if you know you’re going to be doing a lot of walking. If you wear something that provides good arch support, it fixes a lot of knock-on problems such as swollen Achilles bursae (the liquid-filled pads at the back of your heels) and aching knees. Granted, it then puts the burden on your muscles, but those are supposed to be working anyway so it’s good for them.
As a result, I woke up full of beans and with feet that felt (and looked) like feet and not like bastionadoed body parts. I made it to the ballroom in time for the lecture on the BDSM lifestyle by practitioners, followed by lunch and chatting with Sidney, Kelii (who is as charming as he is sexy), Blake (another one of the male hosts) and one of the lecturers. After that, it was time to head back to the room and grab books for the signing in a room just off the gorgeous hotel pool.
The signing? Went astoundingly well. I would like to state right now that I was hugely impressed by all the people who stopped by this newbie’s table to chat and buy books. It was a totally positive experience and makes me want to come back next year.
Also, my Square card reader still works, so points to me.
Which bring us up to now. I’m sitting next to an open window listening to people walk in and out of the Rivercenter and letting my phone recharge, and around six or so I’ll head back downstairs for dinner and the awesome female illusionist show scheduled for eight. More later when I get back!
You Got Girlie Bits In My M/M Romance!
As you know, Bob, I’m currently working on Cross Current, the fourth book in the Olympic Cove series, so I have the first three books on my mind at the moment. They’re all still selling, and to date Deep Water has gotten some very lovely reviews. This is reassuring to me because, yes, external validation is a thing and I like to have some of it once in a while.
That being said, I have also noticed that a number of the reviews make a point of saying that Deep Water, unlike the first two books in the series, is a MMF menage. There’s no real complaint about that, more a tone of puzzlement along the lines of, “Well, we don’t know why she decided to add female characters, but the story’s still good so we’ll work with it.”
So lemme ‘splain why I broke the pattern. Basically, my subconscious does whatever the hell it likes, and it decided that the first two books would be MMM, the third would be MMF, the fourth MMMFF, the fifth MMF, and the sixth MF (although now I’m kinda leaning towards MMF). I was fully aware that this could be problematic with regards to sales, as MM readers tend not to read MF stories and visa versa, and indeed I noticed a distinct downtick in sales with Deep Water as compared to the first two books in the series.
But. The Olympic Cove series is not your usual erotic romance series, as I suspect y’all may have noticed by now. It’s a cautionary tale about climate change as seen through the lens of fantasy, giving the planet a voice in the form of Gaia and her divine offspring. Yes, there are great big dollops of sex, but the main theme of the series is the environment and how humans are negatively affecting it, and that’s more important to me than sticking to one particular romantic grouping, be it MMM, MMF, etc.
Ultimately I hope that I can serve the story well enough to keep people reading even if I’m not using their favorite menage arrangement. And for the die-hard MM fans, I promise you there will be more side stories about Col and Kasos, just as soon as I get some wiggle room in my writing schedule.
Christmas Prep, The Force Awakens, and why I need clonazepam
What the To Do list looks like so far:
- Finish manuscript editing for two friends – in progress.
- Finish video editing for another friend – in progress.
- Haul all the laundry upstairs and put it away – in progress.
- Clean the house from top to bottom – front rooms are clean, I’m doing the guest room and downstairs bath today, living room tomorrow, and kitchen on Wednesday. Upstairs will just have to wait.
- Put up Christmas decorations – tonight.
- Finish Behind the Iron Cross, get off to agent – obviously not this year.
- Finish Cross Current, get off to Evernight – ditto.
- Do ebook/paperback cover for client, format book interior – probably this weekend.
- Update website for another client – nights this week.
- Rake leaves in front yard – hahahahahahahaha…
In other news, folks in Australia have just started buying Empress of Storms. So whoever that is, thank you and recommend it to your friends, please.
In other OTHER news, yes, I saw SW:TFA. No, I’m not going to invoke shitty karma by giving you spoilers. All I will say is that Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaacs, and Adam Driver were superb casting choices, Daniel Craig does a good American accent, I cheered and gasped at all the right places, and J.J. Abrams has issues with scale on a planetary level. You’ll know what I mean when you watch the movie.
And I suppose I don’t need clonazepam. It would just be nice to have some right now. The bills are all paid, I still have money in my checking account, and Ramón got a honest-to-Cthulhu Christmas miracle and got a final bonus from his ex-employer so we’ll be okay through January. Things could be a hell of a lot worse right now. I’m just tired of trying to clean the house by myself, stop the daily cat fights, keep Ramón’s spirits up while he job hunts, sell enough jewelry to clear off the Amex bill, and be a good friend and listen to other people vent. There isn’t going to be any Christmas spirit here this year, but if I get through it in one piece that will be good enough.
Well, lookee here!
Ambled out to the mail box a few minutes ago and found this beauty waiting for me! Yes, Empress of Storms will also be available in print format. And who knows — if I can find some good translators, I may even have it translated into a couple of languages.
Now, the print version is not on sale yet because I changed the cover finish from matte to glossy. Apparently any change to the cover means they need to send it through the review process again, but it should be available for purchase tomorrow from Amazon and CreateSpace. Stay tuned for the appropriate links.
Also, may I say that I am very, very pleased with the reviews EoS has been getting. When Night Owl Reviews calls your book “flawless and stunning,” that’s a good reason to strut a little bit. People are also starting to ask when I’ll be releasing a sequel. I can say with confidence that there will be a sequel sometime in 2016.
When, I’m not absolutely sure about. But it’ll definitely be in 2016. Just lemme finish Iron Cross and Cross Current first.
I’m big in the UK
So I’ve been checking my Kindle Direct Publishing dashboard, as you do when you’re a nervous self-pubbing author. While I was there I noticed an upwards swing in sales for Empress of Storms today, which is awesome because money around the holidays is always a good thing.
And then I dug into the stats a bit deeper. It seems that the bulk of the recent sales have come from amazon.co.uk. This pleases me as Ramón is in fact an Englishman and it’s nice to know that some of his countrymen (or women, as the case may be) are digging my work. So if any of you lovely British bookbuyers are reading this, thank you and please spread the word to your friends. I wouldn’t mind becoming a smash hit in the UK at all, especially if I could whomp up the funding for a book tour.
Keep all sharp objects away from my reality bubble. I’m allowed to dream.
Meanwhile, NovelRank is reporting that I have sold absolutely nothing in December and my only sales have been within the US. So bugger to you and your bizarre sales determining algorithm, NovelRank.
Oh, the weather outside is frightful…
Happy December! Of course, what that means in the Cameron manse is that I have to clean this place from top to bottom and get it decorated for the holidays (which in this house usually means Christmas, although I have been known to observe Festivus on occasion). And what with five cats and an absent-minded husband who has a tendency to leave things strewn around the house, that’s a lot of cleaning to do, plus there’s the fact that I kinda skipped a lot of cleaning during the Empress writing marathon and NaNoWriMo and Lord, you would not believe the cat hair buildup in my office…
But I digress. Holiday preparations here means putting up the library tree and the smaller one in the kitchen, draping lights over every surface that can taken them (the picture at left is a total and blatant lie — it rarely looks that nice, I can assure you) and switching out the seasonal garland over the door for a poinsettia chain. My sister goes all out at her place — it looks like Santa Claus had sex with Martha Stewart. So what are some of the holiday things you want to do this month? I’m always open to suggestions!
Oh, and since I did win this, I probably should put it up. Go me! Now I just have to get it edited and off to the agent, then go back to work on Cross Current, write the Christmas bear shifter story that my bitch of a Muse decided to drop on me yesterday, get a few other projects done and out to their patiently waiting owners, and start putting together swag for Wild Wicked Weekend and RT next year. Whee!
Nicola Cameron Writes 