Category: The Blog

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*

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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

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.