Contract!

I'm a bit remiss about posting this, but I recently signed a contract with my publisher, Lyrical Press, for an urban fantasy M/M romance, Exterminating Angel.

It's been a long journey with Zaphkiel and company. For at least two years, I jokingly referred to the story as "The Zaphkiel Project." I've lost track of how many times I changed the opening or, indeed, the plot. But the core premise always remained the same. An archangel unwittingly summons a demon, and requires Lucifer's help to destroy it.

Funny thing, people I pitched the story to wanted to read it. Horror writer John Everson told me to "go for it." Those three words were all I needed. For over two years, I wrote and rewrote, pushing my characters as far as I could without them revolting and killing me. Although, to be fair, there were times I wanted to push them off the proverbial cliff. (I love my characters and all, but damn, sometimes...) And then there was Raziel, who hinted he wanted a separate story. (I'm still debating that.)

I didn't know what to expect when I submitted Exterminating Angel to Lyrical. And the title? That came  from brainstorming and listening to Blutengel. Now, for me, titles either come easily ("Death by Fresh Air") or it's like digging through ten feet of solid concrete with a teaspoon. Not going to happen. And this was a teaspoon moment. Oh, I tried to come up with titles, A Discordant Melody being one. Sounds science-fiction, right? So I brainstormed. I wrote everything possible connected to the book, including songs I listened to, and one of them was "Oxidising Angel" by Blutengel.

For some reason, that led to "Exterminating Angel," which is a film by Bunuel. But it fit. I'd found my title. (Btw, I've seen a couple of Bunuel's films: Un Chien Andalou and Viridiana.) To say I was relieved I had a title was an understatement.

That said, I'm awaiting pre-edits from my new content editor, and I'm as nervous as a kitten in a rocking chair factory. I'm grateful and humbled Lyrical accepted my strange, dark, twisted little story. Lyrical was my first choice, and I appreciate their willingness to take a chance on an unknown author.

End of the Pity Party

I've been rather neglecting this blog of late. I don't really have any excuses to offer - I've been off my game but that's not an excuse.

Since the end of December I've had a lingering persistent mystery virus that's left me feeling permanently under the weather. It's been an unusually long cold winter in the UK. Generally by March we can expect temperatures to be rising into double figures.  March this year we were still getting snow. In fact we were still getting snow in April. Now we're into May, and it's more like March - cold and wet.

These things have all contributed to a general feeling of malaise that has gripped me since the beginning of the year. The upshot is, I haven't done nearly enough writing. When I'm not feeling happy I don't sleep. When I don't sleep it's harder to get out of bed early, and I spend the day feeling fatigued. And this leads to not being able to concentrate.

These are all pathetic excuses. The facts are, I have two WIPs on the go (actually three, since I've decided to get back to the second Shara Summers book - but more about that at a later date) and I've not done any work on any of them for weeks.

In the meantime, my last new release was over a year ago, I have no new books out in the foreseeable future and the book-buying public has a very short memory. Sitting about feeling sorry for myself will not get any books finished. It's time to give myself a kick up the backside.

There are no more excuses. Writing is about discipline, about getting it done, about putting in the hours for word counts and the promotion. I'm leaving this pity party now. I've got books to write.

What a Weekend It Was

Courtesy of Morguefile.com

Earlier this month, I attended ConGlomeration, a sci-fi/fantasy convention here in Louisville. This was my second time at ConGlom, and my first time being on panels: Mysterious Ways, the Love Connection, Monsters and Folklore, and Religion and the Supernatural. I also read from my short dark suspense story, "Family Tradition."

What I love about cons is meeting new people and seeing old acquaintances again. This year, I met fellow authors, L. Andrew Cooper and Rachael Rawlings, as well as authors I've met before, including Kate Lynd/Amy McCorkle, Marian Allen, and Tony Acree. I also talked with a publisher about a short story collection project, and met another publisher I want to submit to in the future.

Cons are a great place to network. One of the things I do is collect business cards, which I keep in a booklet. That way, if I see these people again, I remember where I first met them. Who knows, they might help me on my writing/publishing journey.

Now to get ready for Fandom Fest this summer.        

End of an Era

Most books aren't published forever.  Print publishers make room for new titles by having limited print runs, and backlisted titles that don't sell are often not reprinted.  Since e-books are technically forever, e-book publishers often deal with this by offering time-limited contracts.

Sadly, this means that my three-year contract with Lyrical Press for SUFFER THE CHILDREN has now come to an end.  The e-book in its current format has disappeared from all online retailers.  This has been a hard thing to deal with.  It's particularly depressing to discover that it's gone from the Amazon Kindle list, along with the handful of generally positive reviews it had notched up.  Somehow seeing it on Amazon made me feel validated as an author.

However, the good news is that with the end of the contract, the rights have reverted back to me, to do with them as I see fit.  And SUFFER THE CHILDREN will return as an e-book, although with a different cover.  In fact, I've commissioned an artist I know to work on the new cover image.  Watch this space for more information.

In the meantime, SUFFER THE CHILDREN is still on Goodreads - at least it is at present.  With the recent news about Amazon taking over Goodreads, who knows what's going to happen.  For now, at least, it's there, along with a few reviews that people have posted there.  So if you enjoyed SUFFER THE CHILDREN, why not go post a review there?  It might help me boost sales when the rebooted version is released.

If you didn't get around to buying it, all is not lost, as it will be back in the near future.  In the meantime, you could try DEATH SCENE or SOUL SCREAMS while you wait.  Both of them are still available from Amazon...

Writing 10K

Courtesy of MorgueFile.com

Yesterday was the start of BIAM_Writathon, the BIAM standing for Book in a Month. Every April, a group of us intrepid writers embark on a month-long journey to get words on paper (or on the screen). Unlike NaNoWriMo, there's no minimum word goal. You don't even have to write a new story. Revising is perfectly fine, too.

I wanted to step up my proverbial game. One of my shortcomings as an author is I'm a slow writer. As a result, I watch my fellow writers dash past me to the finish line, contracts their trophies. Needless to say, this can be very discouraging.

So, armed with Rachel Aaron's 2K to 10K, I set myself a goal. At least once, I would write 10k words, just to see if I could do it.

I did. Yesterday, I started Serpent's Venom, the second book in my Angels of Death series. Armed with a 15-page outline and a lot of determination, I pushed aside my internal editor and wrote. It took about eight hours, but I did it.

Not so sure I'll make that word count today, although I've clocked in 2k, and I can stay up all night if I want. If I don't limit myself to having to get 10k in before midnight, when Tuesday officially ends, then it's feasible.

Maybe I don't have as many book contracts as my fellow writers, but I keep hanging in there, persevering, writing and revising. I don't know who originally said writing was a marathon, not a sprint, but he or she is right.

But if I can write 10k words a day, I'm going to give it my best.

WIP Update - March 2013

Time for an update on current Works in Progress.

I've got several things going on at the moment. The most progressed WIP is the horror novel. It's been to beta readers, I've had feedback, and I have recently started work on Draft 4.

This novel, in summary, is about a group of live action roleplayers who unwittingly unleash a lich on the world during a game. Said lich wields powerful dark magic, and leaves death and destruction in its wake. And it sets about raising an army of zombies, as sort of a sub-plot. Anyway, on the whole the feedback was fairly positive. All my women beta readers love my main female character - she's a crack shot with a shot gun, she's ace with Resident Evil, she takes out many of the real-life zombies and she saves the boy.

There are some plot holes, and some characterisation issues, and these I am working to fix in the current draft. But I'm feeling pretty confident about this one. This one will be finished before the end of this year. In fact, I'm aiming to have it out on sub before 2014 dawns.

In the meantime, there's a second project - a collaboration with Hubby. Now, he's not a writer. But after more than 25 years of running D&D games, he's pretty good at plotting. And he's a musician. This new project is a crime thriller featuring a young female bass player, against the backdrop of the music scene in the late 1960s. We start her off at the Monterey Festival in 1967, and then bring her to London. This project is at an early stage. We've been doing a lot of the plotting together. And I have started doing some of the writing. But there's a long way to go yet, and since I've never collaborated with my life partner on a writing project before, it's somewhat uncharted territory.

And what of Shara 2? Well, that one's still languishing in a drawer. I got a bit discouraged after the crit session. Every time I get it out and review how much work there still is to do on it, I get depressed and put it away again. And DEATH SCENE has not exactly been flying off the cyber-shelves, so it's not as if I have a long queue of fans impatiently waiting for the further adventures of Shara Summers.

Nevertheless, she has one or two fans. And I would rather like to get this one finished. So perhaps I'll finish it for you. You know who you are.

This does make three WIPs on the go at once, however. And talking about them doesn't make them any closer to being finished. It's time to get back to the writing.