SitRep Saturday: WIPs & Real Life

That image is my new desktop. I found it here when I was searching for potential covers for the vampire WIP. That story, by the way, is definitely no longer called Strawberry Moon. Anyway, I really like this image. I like the texture and color of the rocks and the vegetation contrasted with the bright blue of the water in the background. This looks like a place I really want to visit.

On the subject of the vampire WIP, I'm proud to say that I've at least been productive there: I have completed the action draft of the entire novel and I've drafted half of the second chapter. (The first chapter was already done.) I managed to write nearly two thousand words between yesterday and this morning, so as long as I keep it up, I should be on track to finish the draft by the end of this month. I have goals. I just have to meet them.

The problem I'm having now, though, is that the novel is most definitely not young adult anymore. At least, not in the sense that it could be aimed at the 13 - 18 year-old crowd. It might be appropriate for the 17/18 crowd, but there are parts of it that have become much, much darker than I first expected. I had such a hard time action drafting the last several chapters because the darkness was getting to me. It wasn't what I first intended at all. I've come to the conclusion that I just have to write what the story needs, even if it makes me incredibly uncomfortable, and I can worry about marketing it once it's done.

I've been a lazy blogger and Twit the last couple of weeks. I just haven't felt like being online much. With my husband away at training, I have access to the car whenever I want it and I've been taking advantage of that. The kiddo and I have gone out and seen a little more of Germany (including a trip to the Frankfurt zoo). There's also the issue of Daddy Is Gone. She's old enough to understand that he's gone but not old enough to understand why and since she's a total Daddy's girl, she's been really needy and clingy.

Sometimes, I think we just have to step away from work. I'm fortunate enough to have the luxury of staying home with my daughter. It was nice to step back and recharge.

But now, I have plans for next week. I already have one guest post and I'll send off the Q&A for another. I'm planning two of my own posts, which I will get to researching and starting this weekend. I think it'll be really exciting and really useful. I can't wait.

Monday Miscellany

That is maybe not the best picture of the mushroom sauce I made one night last week, but it's the only one I took. I'm not a food blogger, can you tell? Anyway, because it's Monday and because I'm really proud of that recipe, I wanted to share it. We had it over plain grilled chicken (very plain, seasoned only with a bit of Worcestershire sauce, some liquid smoke, salt, and pepper) and my husband went back for seconds to have it over mashed potatoes. It's really, really good. I plan to try it this week or next over egg noodles. Maybe next time, I'll even add some Swedish meatballs or something.

Versatile Mushroom Sauce

1 cup sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup chopped bunch onions
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups beef broth (can sub chicken/vegetable if desired)
3 teaspoons parsley
2 teaspoons dill
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons half & half (milk, cream, or sour cream if desired)
cornstarch or flour (if desired, for thickening)

Saute the mushrooms and bunch onions in the olive oil until tender. Add broth, parsley, dill, salt, and pepper. Bring to boil, stirring occasionally, then reduce heat and let it simmer, allowing it to reduce. Add half & half and cornstarch, then allow the sauce to thicken to desired consistency.

This sauce was literally thrown together with what I had on hand. I wanted something to make my grilled chicken more interesting and this did the trick.

In other news, I'm up to chapter seven of the action draft of the WIP and I'm about 35% of the way through The Iron Admiral: Deception. I love this book so much, it's not even funny. It's all the best parts of the Star Wars Expanded Universe plus all the best parts of my favorite Harlequin novels. Allysha and Chaka are just so... That sound I just made that you couldn't hear was a happy sigh.

All in all, it was a pretty good Monday.

SitRep Saturday: Cass Gets Her Kicks & Vampire WIP

So that is Cass's new cover. It took me several days of searching through stock photos to find a nice, sexy photo that wasn't of a stick-thin model. Cass is thirty-two, not nineteen, and she just came out of a messy divorce after years of infertility issues. She has a few extra pounds. I like the girl in this photo. She looks normal. The angle of her body is so pretty to me. Plus, she looks hot. And she's clothed. I spent a lot of time looking at book covers for women's erotica books, and I think I recreated the same feel. I feel like I did, anyway. I still love my original book cover, but I think this one is more eye-catching and more likely to sell copies of the book.

It has already worked at least once. Well, twice if you count the sample downloaded at Smashwords.

In other news, I'm only about 75% done with the fourth chapter action-draft of the vampire story. The good news is that I feel like the current rewrite is a much stronger, overall better story than the original draft. The bad news is that I'm about four and a quarter chapters behind where I wanted to be. I need to get cracking.

SitRep Saturday: Vampires!

So this week, I had to completely rewrite the outline of Strawberry Moon. That title... I'm still not so sure about it, but that's the working title I'm going to continue to use. Anyway, so I rewrote the outline with much better action, several strong subplots, and a much better story flow. I also wrote some meta, and now my characters have good, solid histories--especially Victoria, my old woman, and Vincent, my vampire. I feel much more confident about the story as a whole now. Confidence was something I was lacking in the first incarnation.

I am currently writing the first chapter out by hand. Because it's by hand, it's very, very slow going. I'm almost done with it, though, a fact for which I am grateful. Once I'm done and I get it typed up, I'm going to try to write the rest on the computer. Though, I must admit, I write much better when I write by hand. Because it's slower, I stop and think about everything. I've made some poor word choices and I have some awkward sentences, but I'm writing with the knowledge that I have several rounds of editing ahead of me.

This entry's photo comes from Dreamstime.com and you should be able to click on it to go to the site and download the photo for yourself. I'm back in the process of finding the right book cover photo. Since the novel takes place entirely in the fictional Maine town of Millay Harbor (a place based on Castine, Maine), my searches so far have been for photos of Maine and the North Atlantic coast. I'm not worried about cover design yet, but it certainly doesn't hurt to look at images of my novel's setting.

SitRep Saturday: The Cowboy Next Door and Strawberry Moon

First, news on The Cowboy Next Door: it is now available at Smashwords. Use coupon code HY66N to download it for free until Monday, September 26th.

I have action-drafted the rewrite of chapter one of Strawberry Moon. I am also pretty sure that I'm getting rid of that title, but it will suffice as the working title. Instead of the slow build up until we meet Vincent, the book now opens with a conflict that is going to let the readers know where each character stands, and Vincent will come into the picture much, much sooner. I have made massive changes to the outline and to the plot, and the subplots have been better-defined. Vincent's backstory is different, too. He's just kind of a dick.

The changes have me re-thinking the story's classification as "young adult," but for now, I'm not going to worry about it. I'm going to write, edit, rewrite, revise, edit, and get input and critique, and then I'll worry about its genre.

SitRep Saturday: Strawberry Moon, Cass Gets Her Kicks, and Invitation to Eden

My dad is working on a cover for Strawberry Moon and I haven't done much to the manuscript. I know, I know, bad Ellie. I've been focusing on other projects.

For instance, I completed the action drafts of the last couple of stories in Cass Gets Her Kicks: "Santa Rosa" and "Flagstaff." I also started drafting the second story, "Vega." (The first story has already been drafted and is waiting for revisions and edits.)

I also have most of the rewriting done for a short called "Invitation to Eden" that I intend to put up on the website. I printed it out this afternoon to start the revising and editing process. I also have the theme worked out and have a clear idea of the message of the story, which always makes writing easier for me. I started looking at stock photos to use for story art.

There's even a blog post in the works about words and word choice. It won't be a long one, but it will be a post!

Even though I didn't make any progress on the novel this week, I am making progress with my writing. I just have to keep plugging along.

SitRep Saturday: Strawberry Moon and Cass Gets Her Kicks

First, an update on Strawberry Moon: I'm still working typing up the revised manuscript and re-writing entire sections as I go. I haven't yet finished with chapter one, but that's because it needed serious help, and I only just figured out how to close it up. Awkward and useless dialogue was awkward and useless. On the plus side, all of my characters have more defined voices and motivation, I've slashed roughly ten pages of useless crap, and so far, it's much leaner and easier to read. I have also been reconsidering the title. I like it, it fits, but I'm not sure it's the best title I can come up with. I'll keep you posted.

In other news, Cass Gets Her Kicks. I've mentioned it before, but there has been some serious progress in just the last couple of days. Let me tell you about it, though.

So as you're probably aware, I'm kind of busy all day, every day, and not just with the writing. I usually manage to get half an hour at a time all to my very own self, and sometimes, I want to blow those thirty minutes on something to read. The problem is that I don't want to start a story, get into it, have to set it aside, and then waste the first precious few minutes of my next break trying to remember what happened. I want to just start reading and get a complete story in thirty minutes.

Short stories! They're perfect! Except most of them are longer than the 4,000 - 6,000 words I can comfortably read in half an hour. So fanfic, maybe? But do you know how hard it is to find good, self-contained fanfiction in the specified word count? And fanfic doesn't come on my Kindle. What I really want is short stories in that word count range that I can read on my Kindle in the bath (or in the car, or in the doctor's office). I've been looking! The closest I've come so far is a couple of Delilah Devlin singles that, frankly, are still too long.

There's a quote floating around from Toni Morrison about how if there's a book you really want to read and you can't find it, you should write it yourself. Well, I really want these stories. I don't mind if they're the same character over and over, but I don't want to have to try to keep up with the plot of a novel. I'm also much, much more comfortable with writing short stories; I've been writing as an amateur for ten years now, and if I do say so myself, I'm pretty good at it. So I'm writing them.

This is where Cass Gets Her Kicks comes in. I enjoy smut. I enjoy reading it, and I enjoy writing it--and I'm really good at writing it. That's what it is. I'll save the summaries and stuff for when it's closer to done, but the plan now is that it will be four stories, each in the 4,000 - 6,000 word range, featuring the same female character in similar situations. So far, I've drafted the first story and action-drafted the second. The third is in the plotting stage; the nicest thing about shorts is that they're super easy to plot, action-draft, and then draft and edit. I also know what's going to happen in the fourth. I know what the overall goals are, I know what needs to be done to reach these goals. I'm really, really excited about this project.

And not to put the cart before the horse or whatever, but if this works out as well as I hope it will, I plan to do something similar with another character--Father Jack--who really wants to be written but so far hasn't offered himself to any real novel ideas.

I'm still working on Strawberry Moon and making slow, steady progress, but progress with Cass Gets Her Kicks is much more tangible results already.

Speaking of tangible results and progress! I have here three different cover ideas for Cass and I would love to get some feedback on them. I had a friend help me narrow it down to just one set of options (there was an option that was the closeup of the yellow lines on a blacktop, one that was a US Highway sign, and one that featured the taillights of a classic car) and now I'd like to know what others think/what they like/what they dislike. So if you could take just a moment to look at them and leave me a comment here, on Twitter, or on Facebook, I would really appreciate it!

Version 1

Version 2

Version 3

Oh, yeah! And in order to keep my YA stuff separate from my more adult stuff, I'm planning to use the penname "Ellie Davis." Ellie because it's a phonetically-spelled contraction of "L. Le(e)" so it's close enough to L. Leona for my liking. 

That's what I've been up to this week!

Monday Miscellany

I am one scene away from finishing the rewrite of chapter one of Strawberry Moon. This is incredibly exciting for me. My characters have clearer voices, my dialogue is much less awkward, I've eliminated most of the information dumps, and I've managed to (mostly) control my adjectives. This is definitely not the final draft, but it's getting there!

Over the weekend, I did a lot of thinking, and I have decided to take a page from Kristine Kathryn Rusch's book and use separate pennames for my young adult work and for my adult work. The problem I'm having now is coming up with a new one. I have a handful of lovely options, so I'm just trying to make a decision.

The reason that is important is because I finally have a collective working title for the erotica shorts I'm plotting. I am pretty sure I've mentioned that I had the action draft of a smut story done and that I was working on the draft of it. I've been calling the short "Galena" and intend to write one to three more shorts featuring the same female character in a series of sexual situations. A chat with a friend the other day led to some development of her character, so the series has gotten a bit more involved than I had originally planned, but I'm not unhappy with where I think it's going. Anyway, the collective working title is Cass Gets Her Kicks. Now, I just have to finish writing it.

The funny site I mentioned in this blog post is now defunct. I'm bummed about this because it was really funny, but I think we can all agree that copyrights are a pretty big deal.

Chuck Wendig is trying to push more copies of his writing advice book Confessions of a Freelance Penmonkey, so he's whoring himself out to do it offering some incentives. They're pretty good incentives.

I am still reading Michelle Muto's The Book of Lost Souls, and I am still loving it to pieces. I keep catching myself wishing it was last summer and I had a ton of free time on my hands to do nothing but read. I would have finished it by now, I would know how things end with Nick and Ivy, and I could be pestering her to finish the next one already. (She said she's working on it.) Of course, the book wasn't out last summer, so those wishes don't really do me any good.

And with that, I'm going to end this blog entry.

SitRep Saturday: Strawberry Moon

I finished the hardcopy revisions this week! Ugh, the novel is a mess. It's just a mess. But that's okay! Because I am making progress!

A few days ago, I sat down with a list of details that needed to be researched, and I researched them. I now know when Jessica's commencement ceremony was, what days Amy was in Istanbul, when Jess got to the Inn, and when the novel starts. I have a rough history of my fictional Maine fishing town--Millay Harbor is based on the town of Castine, Maine. I know when the full moon was in June 2008, which means I know how many days I have between when Amy gets back from Istanbul until the climax of the conflict. Knowing that, I was able to create a daily timeline, which is going to help so much in the re-write.

Which I have already started, by the way. I'm on page two in the new file (imaginatively titled "StrawberryMoonRevised") and page four in the hardcopy. I'm editing as I go, considering my notes, and I have to say, I feel like I'm making real progress.

Now, I have a better idea of who these characters are, what drives them, and what role they play in the story.

I definitely did not make my June 30 deadline, as is painfully obvious, but as long as I keep working just as hard, I feel like this should be completed soon. I'm hoping to finish the re-write in the next two weeks and get the "final" draft out to my test readers.

SitRep Saturday: Strawberry Moon and Other Projects

Happy Saturday, dear readers!

Yes, I am in a good mood. Why do you ask?

The situation with Strawberry Moon is as follows: I have printed it out (133 pages, double spaced to make it easier to make notes) and have made handwritten notes and revisions on 106 pages; I have discovered that I will have to rearrange some events and add a pivotal scene; and there is no way I am going to be finished with it by the end of the month, but that's okay, because I will be finished by the end of the summer.

I read Chuck Wendig's "25 Things You Should Know About Writing A Novel" and decided that it was okay to see other projects while I work on the novel. Strawberry Moon was killing me a little, which is normal (it's funny what "normal" is for writers) and for most of my writing life, I've been a short story writer, so a novel really tries my ability to focus. For the last... oh, six or seven years or so, I've been writing smut. So I wrote some smut. It's definitely not YA friendly, a fact which made my husband nervous when I announced that I had action-drafted and begun the draft of an erotic short and that I had plans to expand it into a three- or four-story arc featuring the same female character and that there was a chance I would end up putting it out first, but I'm not as nervous. I'm a little nervous--of course I am!--but I trust the audience.

So I have that sitting on my computer. I have also decided to revise and edit an old story I wrote probably ten years ago called "Invitation to Eden" with the intention of posting it on the website. My website is sadly lacking in content.

That, my friends, is the situation. I'm going to try to be more diligent about posting, I promise.