Author: Joely

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

The fifteenth floor of the hotel is sweltering. I have my window open, listening to the traffic of downtown St. Paul. It sounds strangely familiar, since we lived in an apartment here for over a year before Princess Monster was born, directly across the street from the fire/police station and across the freeway from a hospital.

Work has been crazy but fun as I get to catch up with people I haven’t seen in months, and some I’ve only talked to on the phone and never met face to face. Today I have a 3 hour meeting and then another 1 1/2 hour meeting in the afternoon. Sounds like fun, huh? Meanwhile, of course, I have tons of programming, reading, and documentation tasks I need to complete. I typically have to “go home” to get my “normal” work done.

I’ve been getting up at 4:00 a.m. so I can write. Yesterday I got 1264 words and finished a 713 word guest blog which will go up at Southern Fried Chicas Wednesday (huge thank you to Tanya for the invite!). Today I got 1315 words. Gregar is pleased but also pushing me harder. I was hoping to get 10K this week, and a total of 50K by the end of the month. I can make it, if I can keep up this pace.

Tonight I have dinner plans with several people from work so I have no idea how late we’ll be out. Getting up at the butt crack of dawn has only been possible because I’ve been going to bed well before 10:00. We’ll see if I can make it tomorrow morning. I meant to go to bed at 9:00 last night but HAD to finish The Duke of Shadows. Oh, dear, how I bawled. Even Passion didn’t make my blubber so much. THAT is the reason I haven’t been able to get my arms around RHP, because I want that kind of emotion and characterization in the story. Unfortunately, my character was named Emmaline too. So her name will be changing when I get back to those revisions.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I’m writing this blog entry from lovely St. Paul, MN where I’ll spend the week visiting the Evil Day Job home office. Some notes about the trip up here:

1. Despite our lawn needing to be mowed, it was SNOWING when we left the house this morning.
2. We left the house at 4:30 a.m. so we could eat breakfast together at the IHOP. It’s tradition.
3. It was FRIGID on the plane. After a few minutes, the pilot came on the speaker and informed us the heater was broken, but he assured us the plane would warm once we were in the air. Oh, goody, it’s always comforting to hear that something is BROKEN on the AIRPLANE. Even something as little as a heater.
4. A few minutes later, the pilot came on the speaker again and said that since it was so cold on the plane, they’d emptied the water reservoir to ensure it didn’t freeze. (Yes, it was that cold.) And so they couldn’t make coffee. I’ve been up since 4:00 a.m. and there’s no coffee??? *dies*
5. The flight was uneventful (and warm once we were in the air). I’m reading Duke of Shadows by Meredith Duran.
6. After landing, we sat on the tarmac for 10-15 minutes or longer. I don’t know exactly. I did say I was reading. But Wanda definitely had to wait on me to hike out of Concourse C and find my baggage.
7. Wanda and I spent an incredible day talking, shopping, drinking coffee, talking, eating, talking, talking books, talking…
8. So far, I haven’t needed my jacket HERE although there is still snow on the ground in places. Okay, I did get a little chilly after dinner, but it was still bright and sunny.
9. I’m heading to bed shortly because I plan on getting up around 4:00 a.m. tomorrow to write before getting read for work. Yes, I am insane but Gregar is adamant. My biggest worry is that Caribou Coffee doesn’t open until 6:00 a.m. and so I’ll have to drink hotel swill.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Dandelion at The Long and Short of It reviewed The Fire Within:

Despite the physical, emotional, and psychological torment Eleni and Zahak must endure, the way they find hope and power in each other is inspiring. Ms. Burkhart has created a strong story that will leave a lasting impression on her readers. If you

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Week 1
Week2
Hot off the press again, but it took all evening to get through this. I couldn’t decide where to stop, and ended up doubling the length. It needs some work, but here’s the next installment.

Wrapped in the Shadow of Death, Gregar crouched in the waist-high grass, invisible to the two warriors standing not ten paces from him. In the distance, thousands of tents dotted the foothills with the thrice-crowned Mountain rearing up in the distance. This night, Vulkar

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Ann did a review of The Fire Within – Thursday Thirteen style! The full review is here (scroll down beneath Larissa Ione’s awesome Pleasure Unbound.

The author- has been sharing snippets and encouragement with me for almost two years now (that’s how long I’ve been blogging- not her), and I

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Thirteen Signs that I’m Losing my Mind1. I’ve been talking to my characters. 2.And they answer back. 3. I’ve been drinking a couple of gallons of coffee a day. (Up at 4:30 this morning) *pops a Pepcid* 4. I had yet another story idea today. No, I didn’t do anything with it but crawl in the corner. *whimpers* 5. Still waiting to hear about a contest I entered Letters in. *gnaws nails to the bone* 6. I promised my editor to have Gregar’s book (The Road to Shanhasson) to her by early July for possible release in September. I currently have less than 30K. Ideally, first draft (80-100K) needs to be done by May 3st, so I can revise in June. *listens to Gregar, types faster* Gregar is KILLING ME, but what a lovely way to go….. 7. Beautiful Death edits and promo will be going on at the same time. (Releasing in June) *frantic* 8. I committed to writing another Keldari novella to bundle with the other two, likely 20-30K. This year! Oh, but I had this really killer idea already… Oddly, inspired by the hymn we were singing in church on Sunday: He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock… 9. I still have to finish expanding Letters and kick it out the door. *Conn revs his black Mustang impatiently* 10.I need to drag out RHP and decide whether the plan I spent months on for revisions will actually work. And then, you know, MAKE THOSE REVISIONS. *gulp* Another full length novel this year. 11. Take last year’s NaNoWriMo novel at 63.5K and do something productive with it. Like revisions and kick IT out the door too. Another full length novel…. *babbles* 12. Evil Day Job trip to MN next week!!!!! *Squee – I get to see WANDA!* 13. Oh, yeah, and where’s Charon’s book (that follows Beautiful Death)? *blubbers*

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here! The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I must admit to holding Laurell K. Hamilton as a sort of role model for a long time. Even after Narcissus in Chains (a major turning point in the Anita Blake series; fans know exactly what I’m talking about), I was still a big fan. Still am, truth be told, despite all the problems with her stories. She creates such fantastic characters! I adore Nathaniel, and Damien, and the Darkness, and Rhys… I can’t leave them, even though I’m sick of Anita Blake. The last Merry Gentry book was one of the best in latter years, too. I just “steamboat” a lot over words or situations that don’t add to the story.

One of the things I’ve long admired about LKH is her ability to write two fantastic, popular series at the same time. When she finishes up an Anita book, she always starts the next book in the series before getting too deep into Merry’s next book, and vice versa. Since I just finished up Beautiful Death again…

I didn’t exactly start the next book, but I did start a list of all the story threads I deliberately didn’t resolve yet. What is Hera going to do? Who’s going to rule Macedon? How soon can Hades take over? What battles will he have? What about… You get the idea, without me giving away too many spoilers, hopefully. I also made a lot of mythology and “explanation” type notes to the editor in the pre-pass I made a few weeks ago, all good information that might make sense to include on the website, so I started a very rough page that will likely change a lot over the next few days or weeks.

I know that Charon is the protagonist of the next book, and the first thing I need to research (before I can write him effectively) is post traumatic stress. He suffered a great deal of torture in Beautiful Death, and his sanity wasn’t the best beforehand. He’s going to be one tough hero to redeem, let me tell you. He’s Molly’s favorite character in the series (which she swears has nothing to do with the fact that I imagine him played by Vin Diesel *snort*) and I’m afraid I won’t live up to her expectations…

Oh, dear, now Gregar is stomping about muttering that he thought HE was her favorite character and that I should be afraid of HIM. Well, I am, my Shadowed Blood, but I have to get these notes finished before I can keep writing YOUR story…

Excuse me, I’m being dragged off to write more on The Road to Shanhasson now.

(Please don’t mention to him that I also have RHP and NSR and Letters to work on this year.)

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

As you know, I’ve been reading The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I haven’t been as regular in getting my “morning” pages (I don’t do them in the morning–that’s my precious writing time), but I’ve been journaling at least a few times a week and working on keeping myself open to the creative “force” that is all around us.

This weekend, I needed to grind through the first pass of editor revisions for Beautiful Death. I’d already read through all the suggested changes, and we’d both agreed that one particular scene needed to be entirely rewritten. Changing that scene would require changes filtered down through the other related scenes, and to make this more difficult, the scene in question was a sex scene.

I write progressive love scenes. They don’t happen by chance, or for titilation, but for a reason. The intimate journey is just as important as the outer mythic journey and the inner quest to remove the mask. So to entirely rewrite an early sex scene…. meant all the others in the story would need significant work.

The problem? I hadn’t decided the best way to handle that scene yet. It’s complicated, but my original vision for this story was more Laurell K. Hamilton style. I was testing a personal boundary, decided I didn’t like how it was unfolding, and started over again with a new vision for the story. But some things, once they’re decided, have a tendency to stick. I was definitely stuck, and I couldn’t think of the best way to fix it.

Friday and Saturday, I did all the “easy” edits except for the last 80 pages or so. Sunday we had church, and it was the first glorious day we’ve had in weeks. It was sunny, instead of rainy, and the monsters wanted to play outside. Yet I had this massive amount of work to do on BD and I’d promised to have it back to the editor today (Monday). I knew, though, that I wasn’t ready yet. The pieces hadn’t fallen into place.

So I sat outside with the kids while they played and I worked on the last 80 pages of easy edits. Then Middle Monster wanted to ride her bike further than our little driveway area, so I took the computer inside and went walking with her. We got in a good 20-25 minute walk, just enough to get my blood pumping and enjoy the weather. The whole time, I deliberately pushed the lingering story problem out of my mind, but I consciously remained open. Just absorbing things, listening, I guess.

We returned home and I left That Man outside with the kids while I returned to work. I opened up the laptop and started Napster, my music source on the laptop. I hadn’t opened it up all day, so it took me to the home page where it lists the current top tracks.

There, at number one, sat a song that I’d never heard of before. Didn’t know the artist. (We listen mostly to country and classic rock in the car.) But any of you who know my writing will immediately recognize the appeal that a song titled “Bleeding Love” would have, by Leona Lewis. I played the song and pulled up the lyrics so I could see them as she sang. I deleted the other songs from my Beautiful Death playlist (Wings of a Butterfly by H.I.M and Fix You by Coldplay) and ran Bleeding Love on a continuous loop.

And I fixed that scene in about 2 hours. 2240 words. I knew exactly how to tackle it, how the arc of the love story would then play out. By 10:00 last night, I’d made the filter down changes through the whole manuscript and fell into bed.

Moral of the story: remain OPEN and look for inspiration. It does come when you need it.

Have you had an unexpected inspiration from Creation that helped you with a difficult scene or story problem?

Keep bleeding, keep keep bleeding love. Cut me open.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I was going to post this as a “review” but Bethanie is commenting more about my writing style in general and not a particular book. I love seeing posts like this, because as I wrote earlier, it’s often a very difficult rahke’s edge to dance when trying to please both fantasy and romance readers.

As a reader, you are imperceptibly drawn into the worlds her characters inhabit until you are there, no info-dump necessary, thank-you-very-much.

The heart of the reason I like Joely

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Week 1

This is hot off the press; literally, I wrote it tonight while watching Survivor.

Bone-white bark cut into his face, but Gregar didn