SitRep Saturday: Vampires, Romance, and Secret Projects

The new working title for my vampire WIP is The Guest. I did some Googling and there shouldn't be much confusion between my novel about a bad vampire and the main notable work with that title. So that's settled. I have also decided not to worry about classifying it yet. I struggled with the fact that the story seemed to be demanding material that was not appropriate for a YA audience, but my most recent project--as well as some reading I've done--has convinced me that it's okay. I have to be true to the story first and foremost. Then I can worry about everything else.

My romance novelette is coming along nicely. I'm about 40% through the action draft. I had hoped to be more done by now, but life had other plans. I'm not worried. I know I'll have it finished and I'll start editing next week. It still doesn't have a title.

The third bit of work news is a piece I'm in the action-draft stage of now and it's amazing because I feel like I'm getting back to who I am as a writer. I feel like I'm really finding my voice with it. For a number of years, I was kind of lost; I let life sidetrack me, confuse me, and lose me. Not anymore. The piece I'm writing now, when it's finished, will be hot, funny, sweet, and make the reader vaguely uncomfortable. I am very excited.

Oh. I will also probably keep up the All About Editing posts next week. I have a few more ideas to write about.

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.

Monday Miscellany

The hubs, the kid, and I are finally getting out of the house on the weekends and seeing Germany. This weekend, we went to a Thanksgiving farmer's market in Ramstein-Misenbach. It was great. We're really fortunate to be stationed here and we haven't taken advantage of the travel opportunities available at all. The hubs is going away for training, so next week, the kid, a friend, her kid, and I are all going to Frankfurt to check out the zoo. I'm really excited. I keep checking the newspapers for things going on locally in the community. Germany is such a beautiful country.

Greta van der Rol's The Iron Admiral: Deception is out and you should get it. As soon as I finish, I'll do a review post, but already, I can tell you that Admiral Saahren is seriously hot (I absolutely love manly men, and he is definitely a manly man) and that the first eight chapters are so intense that I didn't breathe much while I read.

We recently tried plain old grilled hamburgers (prepare the ground beef with salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and an egg) topped with sliced bleu cheese. Delicious! I also recently made this Smothered Chicken recipe, which was so good. This summer, the husband mentioned that he was getting bored with our regular menu, and I agreed. So I've been looking for new recipes. Mostly this means I watch the Barefoot Contessa while the kid naps or I search Allrecipes.com with the ingredients we have on hand. When I grocery shop now, I shop for the pantry, rarely for specific recipes.

A friend recently showed me a white eggplant Alfredo recipe that I really want to try, but I haven't been able to find any white eggplant.

Today, I'm hoping to finish the action draft of chapter two of the vampire WIP and to start on the draft. With the husband gone, there will be a lot less to clean up (I love you, honey!) so I'll be able to spend a lot more time writing.

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: 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.