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83K Or Bust: Day Six
Due to my knee acting like a complete bitch this morning from messing it up on Wednesday at the gym and hobbling all around the damned hotel yesterday, I missed my reading at the con AND my other morning panel, and was basically miserable until about 2 PM. By the time I got back to the con I was tired, cranky, and ready to be swept up in some fun, so I pretty much took today off (I actually wrote more than 61 words, but I deleted about 270 so, yeah, that happened). Meh, it happens. I’ll play catchup over the next few days.
Also, if you have knees that feel like they’re full of ground glass due to injury, arthritis, whatever, go check out this knee brace (it’s called Kneed-It). My friend Selina saw me hobbling into the hotel, said, “I’m going to lend you my other brace,” and gave it to me. I swear to God, if this brace was human I would marry it and have its babies, I love it so much. NO PAIN. AWESOME.
Today’s stats:
Started With: 18,109 words
Wrote: 61 words
Total word count: 18,170 words
What else did you do today, Nicola: Drank hard cider, ate a lot of candy, discussed the beauty of Michael Fassbender with a large table of people, 75% of whom were straight males, showed off my Sherlock plushies at a fencraft panel, and had a shitload of fun.
Writing Tips: An outline is a good thing, but you do not have to follow it slavishly. It should be a general road map to the story, but you will quite often run into all kinds of interesting detours, side trips, U turns and out and out dead ends that you didn’t expect but wind up informing your story (and often making it better). Frex: Empress has been laid out in three acts — Act I is where Matthias and Danäe start out on the bumpy road of their marriage and find out surprising things about each other and the people around them. Act II is the trip back to Hellas for the second marriage there — I knew I had to have some complications added there as well as a mid-point bump, but didn’t really know what that was going to be. Holding a cheerful two-year-old on my lap while we colored and played with crayons gave me an insight into two people who really need heirs for their kingdoms, and BAM I had my mid-point bump. So be open to things around you and use them as inspiration for your writing — you’d be surprised how helpful it can be.
83K Or Bust: Day Five
As you may know (Bob), I also write science fiction and was invited to attend a local SF convention this weekend as a panelist. Deadlines do not stop for cons, however, so in between panels I plunked my butt down in the hotel’s breakfast room (I love how most hotels now have tall tables with outlets and comfy stools for people who have to work on laptops) and chunked out 2K, then added the final 1K when I got home.
Things I learned — writing sex scenes in a public place while people are walking behind me or coming up to give me a hugs is…challenging. Yes, let’s call it challenging. That being said, I wrote over 2,000 words and I didn’t even have a margarita. I RULE.
Today’s stats:
Started With: 15,102 words
Wrote: 3,019 words
Total word count: 18,109 words
What else did you do today, Nicola: cat chores, attended two panels, limped around a hotel a lot, held an adorable two-year-old on my lap, and stopped off at the drugstore for hair dye.
Writing Tips: Listening to music while writing can be hella useful — it helps you set the emotional tone of the section and can inspire anything from a super hot love scene to a ginormous battle scene straight out of 300 (yes, I put battle scenes in my erotic romance. I’m just that kind of writer). I know writers who can listen to vocal music when they write, but I find it extremely distracting so I tend to listen to soundtracks or other types of instrumental music when I’m working. Some of my favorite writing soundtracks are Sherlock Holmes (from the Downey Jr. movie) and Stage Beauty, and a lot of the fight scenes in the Olympic Cove books were written to the Pacific Rim soundtrack. Right now much of Empress is being written while listening to the soundtrack from Sir Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V because it’s giving me the right temporal feel (I have a separate playlist for sex scenes).
And now, your faithful narrator needs to haul her butt off to bed. I think I’m reading the opening chapter of Empress of Storms tomorrow at my reading. This should be fun.
83K Or Bust: Day Four
When you make a mistake in knitting and need to undo stitches until you reach the mistake and can correct it, it’s called frogging. That’s because as you’re tearing back your work you’re usually muttering “rippit, rippit” under your breath.
Well, knitters think it’s funny. Today was another day of tearing back words and writing new ones to take their place. This is fairly common, especially in the early stages of a story, but it’s also a little frustrating because it means that if you’re on a deadline like I am you have to write past your daily word quota to make up for lost wordage.
To make things a little easier I decided to leave the wedding night naughtiness more blocked in than completely finished, and did the same thing to another scene in chapter three. Yes, sometimes I have problems writing sex scenes. I usually have to punch them up on the second or third edit once I have a better feel for what my characters would do during bouncy bouncy fun time. So I skipped ahead to an important scene where we find out Matthias has suffered from bizarre migraines since the death of his first wife and the commander of the Ypresian cavalry baits Danäe into examining the king’s chambers with her mage skills to rule out evil hexes (Bardahlson’s just that kind of guy). Today’s stats:
Started With: 12,279 words
Wrote: 3,823 words
Total word count: 15,102 words
What else did you do today, Nicola: bills paid, new jewelry commissions taken, cat chores done, food (both human and cat) shopping, and some very necessary yoga to unkink
Also, typing with one hand because you have a grey tabby nestled into the crook of your other arm plays merry hell with your shoulder. Just saying.
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.
Challenge extended, Ms. Hawthorne? Challenge accepted.
(Or as L.D. Blakeley most cogently quipped, “Bring the Payne!”)
So I’m sure that many of you have heard of a certain kerfluffle regarding an indie author who put up a GoFundMe fund to support herself while she wrote. I actually have no problem with people being patrons of a writer. That’s been a perfectly functional income stream for centuries, and in fact Patreon exists for creators who want to use it.
Unfortunately, this indie writer made it clear that she was in possession of, let us say, a rose-colored worldview on writing, publishing, and all that comes along with the scribbling dodge. Things became more fraught when her call for funding was then picked up by social media, bloggers, and writers (the awesome Jenny Trout did a marvelously fair-handed analysis of the situation). Many people pointed out the worst of her impractical expectations, often in some rather harsh terms. In response Indie Author lashed out, first on her GoFundMe page and then on her FB page.
(By the way, never do this. Never. Just no. Write nasty letters to your critics and then delete the letters, burn the critics in effigy, make voodoo dolls of them, whatever makes you feel better. But do not go on social media to lambaste them with phrases such as “cock-juggling thunder cunts.” Although I did like the use of that line in Blade Trinity. But I digress.)
Now, I’m not going to criticize the lashout — I don’t know the lady, I don’t know what challenges she faces, yadda yadda. But I was particularly intrigued by one comment of hers, to wit:
“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.”
*blink*blink*
*pauses to look at WIP list*
*nods to self*
Challenge accepted. In fact, I’m gonna go one better. I hereby state to the internet at large than I am going to finish an 80K fantasy erotic romance novel and have it fully edited, proofed, and provided with a professional cover in six weeks. And just to make this totally fair, that novel will be Navigator’s Star, since I only have 3K of it done and a vagueish outline so total word count will be 83K.
UPDATE: I’ve renamed the novel to Empress of Storms. You’ll see why.
Official start date is September 21st, release date will be November 1st, and I’ll be posting daily updates on word count, editing process, cover reveal, et al on FB and Twitter with a weekly roundup here. So stay tuned. This should be fun.
Mid Week Tease: Navigator’s Star #MidWeekTease #MWTease
Okay, so if you go back a post you’ll see that I wrote about this crazy MF high fantasy erotic romance that the Muse dropped on me a few days ago. Which makes no sense whatsoever as 1) I don’t write high fantasy, and 2) my single MF title to date sank like a stone.
And yet the adjoining lands of Ypres and Hellas are calling to me like you would not believe. I have no idea what I’m going to do with it when it’s finished, but I’ll worry about that when it happens. In the meantime, here’s a snippet from King Matthias and Queen Danäe’s somewhat disjointed wedding night.
Enjoy, and make sure to hit the list after the teaser to see other great Mid Week Teases!
Widower King Matthias IV of Ypres is called upon to fulfill a treaty with the neighboring country of Hellas and provide a royal consort for young Queen Danäe. But with his son’s disappearance, 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, still training as a Water Mage, root out a magical threat against Matthias before it kills the man she’s loved since childhood?
“So, here we are,” Matthias said softly.
“Here we are,” Danäe echoed.
He put the candle down on the bedside table, and sighed. “This is not something that either of us wished for,” he said quietly. “But we are now married, for better or worse. And this union will do much to help both our countries.”
And Flavia was worried about me talking politics in my wedding bed. “I know.”
He sat on the bed, reaching across to take her hand. “I know we are no lovematch, and I won’t bother you again after tonight, but…” He trailed off, uncomfortable.
She squeezed his hand. “It’s traditional,” she said. “Sympathetic magic for the union of the countries. I do understand.”
He nodded, relieved. “I will try to make this as pleasant as possible.”
Leaning over, he blew out the candle, plunging the room into darkness. Out of respect for her modesty, she presumed. There was no way he could know about adept-trained darksight. Intrigued, she watched as the king shed his nightshirt.
Apart from scars earned in battle, the years had touched Matthias’s body only lightly. A slight sag in the chin and a thickening around the waist was all that separated him from one of his younger warriors. Danäe appreciated his broad chest, with its light scattering of curly hair, and the well-muscled arms, strong from years of fighting with sword and pila. A long, thin scar along his side ran down across his abdomen; she studied it, following its path downward to his groin. His cock was already stirring there, rising from its nest of curly hair, and promised an impressive girth when fully erect. You claim to be uninterested in me, milord king, but your body says otherwise.
Her own body reacted automatically, nipples hard and tingling. The brush of her silk shift across them felt like a caress. Danäe swallowed in what she hoped was silence, trying to keep her excitement under control. But gods, it was difficult. After years of fantasizing about this man, she was finally going to lie in his arms, feel his body enter hers, hold him close as she flew on the wings of pleasure.
Yes, except that he’s only doing this to fulfill the treaty. Erection or not, he doesn’t actually want to be married to you, remember?
The reminder helped to cool her ardor. The mattress sank slightly as Matthias climbed in beside her. In the dark the scent of his skin, a pleasantly woody scent underlaid with clean male, seemed more intense, and she breathed it in deeply. He moved closer to her, his erection pressing like a long, hot stone against her hip.
“I believe this would be easier if you removed your shift,” he said gently.
“Oh. Yes, of course.” Now grateful for the blush-hiding darkness, she sat up and yanked the delicate silk over her head, tossing it to the side. She lay back against the pillows, the chill air of the room bringing goosebumps to her exposed skin and inhaled sharply when Matthias laid a hand on her stomach.
He moved his hand upwards, delicately running his fingers along the underside of her breast, then cupping it, running a thumb over her nipple. The sensation caused a sharp spark of desire to crackle through her. His head dipped down, lips brushing against the hollow of her neck and nuzzling the soft skin there.
Cautiously, she touched his hair, stroking it. He lifted his face, eyes closed in a brief spasm of pleasure that quickly turned to grief. In a sudden burst of insight she realized that the dark was for his benefit, not hers. Without the light, he could pretend that the hair against his face was blond, not black, that the body he caressed was Ypresian, not Hellene.
Her heart ached in mingled sympathy and dismay. I cannot be Hanne, my husband. But for tonight, dream of her while you hold me.
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TRR Readers’ Choice Awards
I am VERY happy to say that Breaker Zone (Olympic Cove Book 2) has been chosen to compete in The Romance Reviews Readers’ Choice Awards in the GLBT – Fantasy Romance category.
A HUGE thank you goes out to my awesome publisher Evernight Publishing and my hardworking editor Karyn who has been helping to shape this series from the first book. I also want to thank my awesome beta readers Ceit, Ang, and Peter, as well as fellow author L.D. Blakeley for keeping me on track and pointing out the places I slip up (and there are a lot of them). Finally, I want to thank each and every one of my readers. You are the reason why I write, and I’m so grateful that you like these crazy stories in my head.
There are a bunch of other terrific Evernight authors in the nomination round and I strongly encourage you to vote for them as well. You will need an account to vote, but it only takes a minute to set up and TRR doesn’t use their mailing list for spam. To vote, go here: http://www.theromancereviews.com/bookvote.php. And thank you SO much for your time and assistance.
Nomination Round: September 11th – 30th
Breaker Zone: http://glbt.theromancereviews.com/viewbooks.php?bookid=18796
Finals Round: October 3rd – 31st
Mid Week Tease: Cross Current #MidWeekTease #MWTease
It’s Wednesday? Well, we all know what that means! Yes, it’s time to tease you with a snippet from one of my WIPs. So, how would you like to see the (unedited) opening of Cross Current (Olympic Cove Book Four)? Of course you would!
Enjoy, and make sure to hit the list after the teaser to see other great Mid Week Teases!
“If you’ll sign here, please.”
Matt Taber wrote his signature on the indicated line.
“And here.”
Another line, another signature.
“And one last time.”
The same slightly scrawled name, black ballpoint ink standing out on the paper. Matt noticed the lawyer’s office printed out their documents on the nice heavy paper made for laser printers, not the thin general purpose stuff.
Nothing but the best for the death of a marriage.
“That should do it,” his lawyer said. He exchanged a nod with the other lawyer, their steps done in this particular dance.
Across the table, Matt’s now-ex-wife Nancy sat with her hands neatly folded, a politely blank expression on her face. After ten years of living with her, he still couldn’t read it.
Then again, he didn’t have to try anymore. Giving her a brusque nod, he stood and followed his lawyer out of the conference room.
“That went pretty well, I’d say,” the lawyer said. “Although I still think we should have held out for community property. You know you’re dropping back down into a pretty sad tax bracket, right?”
“I know.” Matt shrugged. “That’s fine. I don’t want anything from her.”
That wasn’t quite true. But the only thing he’d ever wanted from Nancy was the one thing she didn’t want to give. And he couldn’t even really blame her for that.
He nodded through the rest of the lawyer’s litany, agreeing to stop by the office for the final payment. And then he was alone in the granite-clad hallway, surrounded by expensive air and time that was counted in billable hours.
“Matt.”
He started, turning. Nancy stood at the door of the conference room, flawlessly dressed as usual. Today she wore a cream tailored jacket and skirt over a champagne silk blouse that would go straight from a divorce lawyer to her office at a major bank without anyone batting an eye.
The hurt washed over him again, followed almost immediately by relief. I loved you, I really did. In a way, I still do.
She pursed her mouth as if hearing his thoughts. “I’m not going to give you some ridiculous platitude about how this is the best thing for both of us,” she said, kind and blunt at the same time. “I wasn’t happy, and I wanted out, simple as that. But I also know you’re hurting right now, and I’m truly sorry about that. You’re a nice guy. You’ll be able to find someone who’ll be a better fit for you.”
Matt let a slow breath roll out. “I thought you weren’t going to give me some ridiculous platitude.”
One black eyebrow rose in an elegant curve. “You have a point. I’ll be back from Hong Kong in a month. Will that be enough time for you?”
“Yeah, plenty.” The house on Chinook Lane had been hers before their married. He admired the building, but had never felt at home there. It was like living in something out of an Architectural Digest article. “I can swing by and check the mail every couple of days if you like.”
“No, I already put a hold on it at the post office. But thank you.”
He stared at the woman who, with a handful of signatures, had gone from his wife to a stranger. “Have a good flight,” he finally said.
“Thanks.” She leaned over and brushed cool lips across his cheek, then turned and walked away.
#
“And that was that.”
“Damn.” Chris Wilson shook his head. “That’s cold, man.”
After walking out of the lawyer’s office into the bright Florida sunshine, Matt’s first instinct had been to go back to the extended stay hotel room he’d been renting since Nancy announced she wanted a divorce and lick his wounds. A text from Chris, his coworker and chemistry teacher at McAuliffe Senior High School, summoning him to their favorite sports bar for a post-divorce beer had changed his plans.
He rolled the bottom of his bottle on the tabletop, painting a ring of condensation on the sealed wood. “That’s Nancy,” he pointed out. “It’s not like she was going to fall into my arms crying and begging me to take her back.”
“Yeah, but come on,” Chris said, gesturing with his own bottle. “You didn’t ask for a damn thing from her, and you could have. The least she could have done was give you some breakup booty.”
Matt grimaced. “The last thing I want from her is pity sex.”
Chris blew out a breath. “Yeah, suppose I can’t blame you there. Banging an ice queen must be like freeze-drying your dick.”
“She wasn’t that bad.”
Chris gave him a look that clearly said are you shitting me?
Matt’s lips twitched. “Okay, maybe she was that bad. We had some fun, though.”
“If you say so. Me, I like my women a little more human.” The chemistry teacher tapped the table with one long finger. “So, what about the rest of your stuff? I can help you move it out this weekend.”
“Nah, that’s okay. I’m putting most of it in storage anyway. I’ll figure out what I want to do with it after school starts.”
“I’d think ‘look for an apartment’ would be kinda high on the list,” Chris pointed out. “You can’t stay in that hotel room forever.”
“I’m not. I’m moving out tomorrow.”
“Whoa. You already got a place?”
“Sort of.” For the first time that day, Matt felt like smiling. “We were supposed to go to France in a couple of weeks for our anniversary. Obviously that’s not happening now. She said she didn’t care what I did with the reservations, so I cashed everything in. It was more than enough to let me rent a cottage on the beach for the rest of the summer. Until school starts I’m just going to sit on my ass, drink beer, and get a tan.”
Chris saluted him with the beer bottle. “Now that sounds like a plan to me. And you know, if you get overrun with those hot little beach bunnies I’m more than happy to come on over and help out.”
“Yeah, I bet.” Matt drained the last of his beer. “Look, it’s been a long day and I still have some packing to do. Mind if I take off?”
“No problem, I got the tab. We still on for the game this weekend?”
“Wouldn’t miss it. Talk to you later.”
He was halfway to the door when he heard Chris yell, “Hey, where is this cottage anyway?”
Matt grinned. Less than a minute. He’s getting smarter. “About twenty miles south of here,” he shouted back over the bar din. “Some place called Olympic Cove.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Me, neither. Should be nice and quiet.”
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Mid Week Tease: Trickster: All In #MidWeekTease #MWTease
It’s Wednesday? Awesome! Because I have a little teaser for you from Trickster: All In. In fact, it’s the very first scene. Don’t say I never give.
Enjoy, and make sure to hit the list after the teaser to see other great Mid Week Teases!
“Nice,” Mark Fellows said, sipping the tiny glass (and it was real glass, he noted, not some flimsy plastic cup) of champagne the smiling flight attendant had brought him before takeoff. “I could get used to flying business class.”
“Good, because I don’t fly coach,” Delaney Smith said. “Where I go, you go.”
“I knew there were hidden perks to being your mate.”
The coyote shifter narrowed his eyes. “You mean having a house big enough to display all your action figures, an indoor hot tub, a gaming setup that would have Wil Wheaton creaming, and hours of amazing sex aren’t enough?” he asked.
Mark waggled his free hand. “Meh.”
“Oh, really?” Delaney leaned closer until his lips brushed Mark’s ear. “Well, then, how about when we get to the hotel I make sure you’re naked, hard, and flat on your back thirty seconds after we walk into the room?” he whispered.
Soft as they were, the words seemed to go directly to Mark’s dick, making him rock hard in seconds. “Dammit–”
“You started it, babe. Speaking of that, I think I’ll start at the top and work my way down, biting and kissing every inch of skin I can find,” Delaney continued in a sweet, filthy murmur. “I plan on paying a great deal of attention to those pretty little nipples and that delicious dick of yours, mainly because I love the noises you make when I go down on you. I’ll even lick your balls just the way you like while I’m working a finger into you, getting you ready for my cock. And just when I’ve got you moaning my name and begging me to fuck you—“
Mark’s mouth had gone dry at the litany of delights awaiting him when they landed. “Yeah?”
He felt Delaney’s lips curve against his ear. “I’m going to finish the paperwork for the trade show.”
Mark shuddered. “You bastard,” he said, heartfelt.
“Other side of the coin, babe.” Still grinning, Delaney sat back in his seat, taking a sip of champagne. “This is a business trip, after all.”
“I know.” Grimacing, Mark tried to circumspectly adjust his trousers. He’d heard of WestTech before, of course, and was looking forward to attending the technology trade show. But he also wanted to spend some quality naked time with Delaney. The last month had been insane, what with the new security contracts being snapped up by Trickster Technologies, and between his own work load and Delaney’s he’d barely seen his boyfriend/boss/mate. “Never mind. It’s fine.”
He meant it, but Delaney glanced at him with a flicker of not-quite-concern. “Hey, it’s not going to be all work and no play,” the shifter said. “This is Vegas, after all.”
“I know. Seriously, don’t worry about it. I know we’ll get some time together.”
Delaney picked his hand up from the armrest and brushed lips across his knuckles. “Damn skippy we will. You’re not the only one with blue balls here, babe.”
Oddly, that made Mark feel better. “You can’t be hurting more than me. I’ve barely had enough time to take a leak, much less beat off.”
“You get to piss by yourself?” Whiskey brown eyes widened in surprise. “Man, some people get all the luck. I have to have Eileen come in and hold it for me while I’m on yet another frigging conference call.”
Mark imagined Delaney’s hypercompetent assistant briskly manipulating his junk into an empty water bottle while Delaney smooth-talked a client’s security department on speakerphone. “Be grateful she didn’t just stick a catheter in.”
Delaney shuddered. “Yii. Erection all gone. Thanks, babe.”
“I live to serve.”
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Nicola Cameron Writes 