Category: Archive

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

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

One year H&R Block lost our entire return…

The first year we moved to MO and had MN taxes to file at the same time, I paid an accountant over $250 to file both state returns. The MO return was wrong (despite hiring a MO accountant!!!), and I had to pay penalties…

Another year, the “fast tax” place on the corner filed our child tax credit wrong and I had to pay penalties…

And so I’ve been doing our taxes ever since using TurboTax. I figure I can’t do much worse than these other places. Right? RIGHT?

I always change my mind about midway through and kick myself for not hiring someone else. I persevered, though, and the 2007 taxes are done! E-Filed! And we don’t have to pay! *whew*

My reward: watching Gordon Ramsey puke on Hell’s Kitchen. Priceless.

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

My very dear writing partner has her first Ellora’s Cave release out now: The Emissary by Jenna Reynolds in the Ellora’s Cavemen, Jewels of the Nile I anthology. Jenna builds an incredible world, blending Japanese culture into a futuristic setting that I really enjoyed. And steam… *whew!!* I haven’t read the rest of the stories in the anthology yet, but I highly recommend Jenna’s story!

Blurb:

In the far-distant future, Shina, a courtesan-in-training, is eagerly awaiting the ceremony whereby she will lose her virginity and become a full-fledged courtesan. But that ceremony may be delayed because the Hegemony has encountered its first alien race, the potentially hostile Kjartans.

The Kjartans send an Emissary to the Hegemony. Upon his arrival he requests the services of a courtesan. A virgin courtesan. Shina is chosen for the assignation. She will be the first human to have sex with an alien. Will she be able to please him? And, most importantly, just how inhuman will he prove to be?

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

Not counting today, I’ve written just under 25K in March. Not bad… but not where I need to be. I’m at 59K for the year, and averaging just over 1K a day. Now that’s pretty good, actually. 1K a day ends up to be three full-length novels. Considering that I’m writing a full-length novel from scratch right now (I don’t count the old first draft from like 3 years ago), and have significant revisions to several other full-length stories in the works… I need that 1K a day.

This week, I’ll continue Gregar’s book, or The Road to Shanhasson. I’m almost through the wedding. *snorts* Remember when I was trying to decide where to start and I almost skipped the wedding? Now I have over 20K just to get through it. See why I thought about skipping it? However, some really, really wonderfully horrible conflict came out of this first night. That stuns me — 20K and I’m not even through one night yet. Gulp. I feel some summary coming on very soon. I have so much story to get through….. Maybe some of this angst will get cut in revisions. Oops, Gregar is not liking that idea and is rolling the ivory rahke on his palm.

I’ll also try to work on Gregar’s prequel a little this week for a new Friday Snippet. Whew, he sheathed the knife.

Deena also asked me about perhaps another Keldari-themed novella to accompany the others, and of course gave me an incredible, challenging idea to think about. That’s percolating on the back burner. Something with FIRE of course, but an entirely different angle from the others.

Don’t forget Letters. Or RHP. Or Night Sun Rising. All slated for significant revisions this year. I must keep the pipeline full!

Beautiful Death is in editor revisions and the first pass will likely come very soon.

I’ve been mailing out bookmarks like a fiend. VistaPrint definitely loves me.

I have a home office trip in two weeks.

I still need to do our taxes! *panics*

Sigh. I have so much to do! And so very little time.

April goals: hit at least 50K in Road and hopefully make weekly snippets of The Shadowed Blood. How about you?

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

Suzanne Francis from Sage Fire Reviews wrote a great review for The Fire Within:

The descriptive passages in The Fire Within are as evocative and wide as the deserts within which this book is set. I soon felt caught up in the long histories of conflict and fate within the Green Lands and Keldar, which the author layers seamlessly into the narrative. Heat

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

My super brilliant editor, Deena, called Gregar lethally sexy. I totally agree.

I hinted last week that I had some ideas for Gregar’s prequel. This little story will be most meaningful to those who’ve read The Rose of Shanhasson and need some Gregar action to tie them over until book 2… but I’ll do my best not to give away too many spoilers or depend too heavily on the overall series arc in the main series. Of course, if you love Gregar’s story, he’s a very important character in the series and you will definitely want to read more. *wink wink*

If you want to read more about how Death Riders are first Called to sacrifice, check out the free read Touch the Sky.

I don’t know how many scenes I’ll get out of this, nor if I’ll hit every single week or not, but I’m jumping into the Well and will trust Gregar to guide me. When I finish the whole story, I’ll put it into a pdf and load it in the freebie section. This is the opening section I wrote Dark and Early this morning to:

The Shadowed Blood

The most honored Death Rider stood on a smoldering black ledge above a lake of fire in the heart of the Mountain and wept.

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

Thirteen Songs on my PlaylistI always love reading other people’s playlists because I nearly always come away with a new inspiration song to try out. I write to music, and each story has a theme song or three. Some characters have their own theme too, or certain relationships. Since I’m deep in The Road to Shanhasson, book 2, “Gregar’s Book”, these songs are heavily on my mind. 1.Faith of the Heart by Susan Ashton, overall series theme song: Cause I’ve got faith of the heart I’m going where my heart will take me. 2.Kiss From A Rose by Seal, Shannari’s theme song: You became the light on the dark side of me. 3. Everything I Do (I Do It For You) by Bryan Adams, Rhaekhar’s theme song: I would fight for you I’d lie for you Walk the wire for you Yeah, I’d die for you. 4. Behind the Crimson Door by H.I.M. Gregar’s theme song: Your love will be the death of me. 5. Secret by Heart, Gregar and Shannari’s theme song: We know it’s dangerous For us to be together How do we keep this secret. 6. Strong, Strong Wind by Heart, Rhaekhar and Shannari’s theme song for book 2: Now it would take a strong, strong wind To take me from your arms again. 7. Alone by Heart, Dharman’s theme song for book 3: You don’t know how long I’ve wanted To touch your lips and hold you tight. 8. I Didn’t Want to Need you by Heart, Shannari’s theme song 9. Desperado by the Eagles, book 3 theme song 10.What About Love by Heart 11. All for Love by Bryan Adams 12. Against All Odds by Phil Collins 13. Heartless by Heart Any other similar songs you can recommend?

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.

Whoa, doesn’t Deena do incredible gorgeous work? The new, different look of this cover is perfect, because this is an entirely different series and world from the rest of my work. Meet Isabella Thanatos, First Marshal of post-apocalyptic Athens.

The monsters know her as Beautiful Death.

Edited: Coming June 15, 2008 from Drollerie Press.

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

From The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron:

Art is an act of tuning in and dropping down the well. It is as though all the stories, painting, music, performances in the world live just under the surface of our normal consciousness. Like an underground river, they flow through us as a stream of ideas that we can tap down into. As artists, we drop down the well into that stream. p. 118

Years ago, I had someone discourage me from writing “in the zone.” I blogged about what the zone meant to me here, although my understanding has changed considerably since then. I deliberately and consciously gave up that rush of writing, the joy, the dream of just me and the story in the night. I slowed down and concentrated on structure and plot and characterization, all important skills I must develop as a growing writer. While my once sleek–and naive–midnight car sat along side the road, stripped, rusted and withering away under the blistering noonday sun.

Those of you who’ve read my blog since around 2005 know that I came really close to throwing in the towel. I lost that joy. I lost that sense of magic, the wonder and awe when something I included in the story purely by chance suddenly became a powerful and meaningful element to my theme. That magic was gone and I didn’t know how to get it back. Everything I touched was crap.

It took over a year, but the crawling, wounded bug that my butterfly had become finally soared with the completion of Beautiful Death, a story full of butterfly metaphors. Finishing that story put me back in my car driving on my silent, empty road at night. It was pretty rusty and beat up, but the poor old car did run. It ran enough to help me finish more stories. I used some of the craft I’d learned (while not managing to actually WRITE) and polished and edited several stories until finally, my sense of confidence had returned.

I didn’t realize that I was recovering my sense of connection (week 7) and my sense of strength (week 8 ) but that’s indeed what had happened over the past few years. I wrote and wrote some more, and my artist slowly recovered its voice. I began to write with authority. I refused to surrender my Story, my vision, no matter what that meant. However, I didn’t always have that sense of joy that I used to have. I chalked it up to innocence lost. My eyes had been opened, I couldn’t sleep any longer, and all I could do was keep moving, slow and painful as that might sometimes be.

I wasn’t always writing from the bottom of the Well.

After all, it’s rather scary in the Well. I might drown in all the darkness and emotional issues that wait down there. Only by knowing and accepting all of myself, all the emotions that I pretended I didn’t have for one reason or another, could I even find the Well. Sometimes I fell in the Well too suddenly and forced myself to face cold hard facts totally unrelated to writing. Those emotions sometimes bled into what I was writing, which was painful and scary, but also necessary. I didn’t understand why, but I knew it was important.

I go back to the positive affirmations:

My creativity heals myself and others. My creativity leads me to forgiveness and self-forgiveness.

So many things have become clearer. Now I understand why some characters and stories might have spoken more clearly to me than others. I know why I was haunted by some stories that had to be written. More importantly, now that I realize when I’m at the bottom of the Well and how I got there, I understand why Gregar is my Muse and always has been.

He lives in darkness, you see. He’s always known about the Well. With his ivory rahke gripped in his teeth, he’s been dragging me there by my throat.

Now what makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck is that accidental Well I wrote about years and years ago when Shannari faced a terrible choice (in a craptastic rough first draft of Road that shall never see the light of day again). No wonder she wanted to slide into the Well so badly.

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

Although I’m struggling to still get up Dark & Early before work, I am getting up at least 3 days a week and getting a few hundred words before it’s time to head to the EDJ. Every hundred adds up, especially when I can add another few hundred at night. I had one huge day last week nearly 6K in one day *gulp!* but my average is slowly moving up to around 1K a day. I’d like to bump that up to 1.5K a day, though, so I can catch up with Sven. Gregar’s holding the ivory rahke to my throat, whispering Type faster, faster yet…

His book, The Road to Shanhasson, is up over 15K. Yeah, that surprises me. Here I feared that I wouldn’t have enough story to fill 90K and now… I’m making a mental tally of all the story I have to cover yet and I don’t know that I’ll make it.

This week, I’ll pull out my notes for his prequel and see if I can put together something that’s NEW that I can give away week by week in its entirety, without spoilers to the entire series, and won’t detract too much from my progress on the second book in the trilogy. Gregar’s a challenge to rein in, as I’ve hinted already. Covering his prequel and what drove him from his position as the most honored Death Rider — assassin — on the Plains to Khul’s second-status Blood without giving away his most secret heart’s desire will be quite the challenge.

I’m starting to get antsy about a contest I entered Letters in, too. I’m expecting to see a list of finalists any day, now, and if the miracle happens… My revisions aren’t finished. A final would definitely light a fire under my ass, though, so I could whip out the last few thousand I’m planning to expand that work.

It’s the last week of March. What do you hope to accomplish before you have to flip the page over to April?