Category: The Writing

I’m hearing voices again.  Of course they’re not the voices I’m *supposed* to be hearing right now.  *glares at Sig*  I was having a ton of fun at the Evil Day Job with Java (and I don’t mean my favorite kind that comes in a cup) and I heard him.  He was leaning against the railing of a porch staring up at a gorgeous sunset with whooperwills calling in the distance.

Sam Elliot.  I mean, Ty Connagher.

Virginia was there too.  He was actually talking to her, not to me, but I was able to hear them both laughing and talking plain as day.  Damn, she’s missed him something awful.  And that’s when the dreamy, peaceful scene started to go dark.

I have an idea that her story’s two stories in one.  It’s the past with Ty, before they had children, and the current story with the possibility of a new man.  How they weave together, and who this other man is, I have no idea.   I don’t hear his voice.  I can’t see his face.  He’s not younger than her.  He’s someone even Victor would respect.  But WHO, I don’t know.

As long as Sig isn’t cooperating, I guess I’ll listen to Ty and see what he has to tell me about his great love and her future.  Because of course HE knows.  The dead see things we can’t even begin to understand.  He’s there to help her in some way.

But I’m afraid he might need Miss Belle’s help.

I haven’t been timing myself – but rather working as I can a little bit at a time, while doing other things when I get bored or frustrated.

• I started by reading my notes.  I was surprised how little I actually had.  I had two separate projects in Scrivener, but neither had much substance.  Is the problem Scrivener itself?  I haven’t yet successfully written an entire project there yet.  Hmmm.  Worth noting.  (I wrote Lady Blackmyre entirely in Word.  Same with the Zombie Category Romance, the last project I finished.)
• I made a few notes about things I needed to research for the world.  Lady Wyre and her men are heading to a new planet, and I needed to do some worldbuilding and thinking about the characters and situation.  I had to research the First Opium War and Empress Cixi.  She’s a little late for “Regency” but I can’t resist her situation.  She’s a woman in power in Imperial China, a feat indeed, and she totally fits into my “When ladies ruled the universe” story world.
• I was a little messed up by how few children the Emperor had at the time.  I was envisioning more of a succession fight between brothers, but in reality, there was only one son and one daughter.  I was thinking Curse of the Golden Flower succession fight, but I think this acually makes it *more* interesting and unique.  Still, a wrench, that requires a little more brainstorming for Cixi’s motivations.
• I added a new character, Prince Gong, one of the Emperor’s brothers.  I think he has a tie to Seven Crows, a story I worked on awhile back in this universe but never finished.  (Originally I thought he was the Crown Prince, but again, back to the only one son situation.)
• I started a Pinterest board for this story to gather ideas and add inspiration.

I’m going to try plotting a bit more tomorrow.  I have a big scene in mind at the end, but not much in the middle.  I need a few more candybar scenes!

Progress!

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m having a hard time moving on some books I really really want and need to finish.  I don’t know *why* I’m having a problem with them, but I have to get moving.  I *need* Lord Regret’s book done.  He’s messing up all my plans!  I also need to get Phantom done – same problem.  But I’m tackling Lord Regret first.

Instead of sulking in the corner like him, I came up with a plan of action.  I’m going to schedule 30 mins every day for just him.  I’ll start by re-reading all my notes and attempts at plot and free writing.  It might be like pulling teeth, but if I touch him (har har) every day, I’m hoping eventually I’ll at least figure out what the hell’s wrong with him.

I’m going to brainstorm, free write, jot notes, use tarot, etc. WHATEVER IT TAKES.  I’m not giving up on him.  It might be slow going, though, and I’ll go insane if I don’t feel like I’m making measurable progress.  That’s why I’m limiting my time to 30 mins only.

So the first thing I did was pick up some schedules and calendars from Clean Mama Printables.  Hopefully that will help me keep organized and not distracted.  Other than working on Lord Regret each day, I’m giving myself a few small, well-defined tasks to work on.

1. Expand the short story Well of Sky, renamed Bloodgate, for release (as a free read on Smashwords, etc.) in August to help promo The Bloodgate Warrior.  If you’ve read that story, I’m no longer going to “shut the door” if you know what I mean…  I don’t expect this to be a lot – just 2-3K maybe.  Plus a fresh edit.  The cover will be made by Book Graphics.

2.  Pull out the Zombie Category Romance and decide what I’m going to do with it.  I have a few revision ideas in mind.

3. Write a synopsis for Her Grace’s Stable and incorporate reader feedback.  I’d like to submit by the end of the month.

As time permits…

4. I’ll pull out The Fire Within for a light re-edit and format for re-release.

Don’t worry – this isn’t a post about the “right” way to write or why you’re doing it wrong.  (Trust me, I’m doing a lot wrong myself but hey, it works.  Mostly.  Sometimes.)  This is more of a philosophical dilemma I’ve had, especially in reflecting about Lady Blackmyre.

As I told my friend Raelyn in my regular update today, I wish I could write faster.

Now you might be snorting with disbelief, because it may seem that Lady B came in a flash.  I wrote 40K+ since May 1st to finish her story and it’s in fairly polished shape already.  Not too shabby.

But what I mean by “fast” is all the prework and thinking that writing normally takes.  I can’t sit around and wait for every story to come to me in a flash like Lady B.  That was rare, sadly, but fun.  Most stories require planning (for me).  Or at least some mulling in my head about what I want to say, who the characters are, how they struggle on their journey, etc.  I’ve shared all kinds of tools over the years on different ways to plot and brainstorm.

Great.  But what do you do when the problem isn’t the brainstorming — but the writing?

See, more and more the last few months, I’ve been struggling to just write.  My output seems to have dropped.  Exhibit A:  I have nothing on submission right now, and counting Lady B, I only have two completed stories that I could consider submitting.  (I have other partials and shorts that would need too much work to consider hauling out and working on right now.)

Exhibit B:  After August, I have nothing scheduled for release.  That scares me.  A lot.

But the more I think about what I ought to write and plan to write those things, the slower my brain seems to work.  What is that about?

I’m glad I wrote Lady B, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not the “right” story I should have been working on.  That’s Lord Regret’s sequel.  But he’s not cooperating.  Why?  I have no idea, don’t ask me!  I’ve brainstormed.  I’ve plotted.  I’ve played with tarot.  I’ve tried setting up a project in Scrivener.  Not once but twice!  I’ve free wrote some stuff.

It’s just not there.  It’s like floundering around in the Grand Canyon with a firefly to light my way.

I love the story world.  I love the characters.  I love the new world I was taking them to.  I know the villain (and she’s almost as wickedly delicious in her own way as Majel).  Yet I can’t get the words on the page.

Sometimes that’s the way it is.

So do I write on the “wrong” thing that my muse thinks is pretty darned cool – so that I’m writing something….

Or do I continue to struggle on the “right” thing that’s not going anywhere?

If I stick with Lord Regret and grind through a few rough, ugly chapters (I’ve re-read passages where the muse is not engaged, and trust me, it’s ugly — it’ll all have to be rewritten completely), will he finally open up and cooperate?  Or will the whole book be that brutal?

(Note it’s not contracted, or I would have no options.  So far, I’ve only contracted finished works, so I have complete flexibility in what I do, at least as far as my contractual obligations are concerned.  Note however that flexibility is not always a good thing for a Gemini!  It can make me feel schizophrenic.)

Why can’t writing the right thing be as easy as writing the wrong thing?

Keep in mind I have a day job, so it’s not like I can dedicate four or more hours a day to writing.  I can’t keep grinding and spinning my wheels indefinitely or I’ll never get another work contracted.  On a normal day, I have an hour in the morning (if I get up Dark & Early, hahaha, that hasn’t happened in awhile) and maybe an hour at night in between dinner and family stuff.  A 30-45 min lunch but only if I skip my exercise routines (winces, I’ve been bad about that.)

I have to write in between work, monster squabbles, cooking, dishes, laundry, and That Man’s quality TV time.  Lately he’s been taking the monsters two nights a week to the pool after he gets home, so I have an incredibly precious hour of blissful silence after dinner to try and get some work done.

That’s all I have.  I can’t sit for hours — which is days or weeks for me — at a time beating Lord Regret up because he won’t cooperate.

How do you get a sullen assassin to bare his soul?  If you know, please share that information.  I’ve asked Gregar but he just laughs.  *mutters something unpleasant about the Shadowed Blood*

To write right — or wrong — that is the question.

I have good news, and even better news. 

This weekend, I finished the first draft of Her Grace’s Stable.  Woot, Snoopy dance!  I love finishing new material!

Immediately the next morning, I woke up with an idea for a scene I’d left out.  Oops.  So I worked on that in between laundry.  That scene led to another new scene that I’d hinted at in the beginning but skipped.  Yeah, I’m a coward sometimes.  I made myself go back and write that scene in excruciating detail.

Then I made a revision pass to smooth everything and figure out where these new scenes went.  I answered all my [notes to myself] and [go back and do xyz].  I put in chapter breaks.

I had to research British Army regiments, officer positions, various battles and place names in the Penisular War, and looked up countless details about the Duke of Wellington’s life to see how far I could break the rules and how much actually made sense.  Thanks to Lady Blackmyre, I also now know what a puissance wall is.

She’s sitting at 40,700+ and I can’t think of a single new scene that I need to add.  Yet.  That’s the down side of writing in the zone.  I tend to get blinders in my mad rush to hit the end, and I don’t always realize that things are missing until later.  If she holds up another day or two without needing any new words, then I think she’ll be ready for the first readers to take a look.

This book has me nervous on so many counts.  It broke so many of my personal taboos that it’s not even funny.  But how else am I to grow as a writer–and a person–if I don’t try new things and explore where no lady has gone before?  In the end, I adore how it came out.  I love this world.  Lady Blackmyre whipped my back bloody and I still love her too.  Part of me wishes I could have written this book in this world without the pony play — which is going to be a hard pill for many to swallow.  But she would have none of that.

This is the way Lady Blackmyre required her book to be written.

My favorite passage from Her Grace’s Stable, her personal message to me.

“You need to stop worrying so much about what’s right or wrong and simply concentrate on what you feel in your heart.  I don’t care what Britannian Society will think about me running my men around the ring like the ponies they are.  I don’t care if Queen Majel would faint dead away at the thought of my big brute of a stallion taking me when he’s wearing a tail.  I couldn’t care less about what anyone says or thinks about the Black Duchess, as long as you and Cole are happy and satisfied.  My question to you, Arthur, is do you trust me?  Honestly, pet.  You have to be willing to put yourself completely into my care.”

 

I’m well into Act 3 now.  Queen Majel has made her appearance.  Lady Blackmyre has visited with Wellington and survived without killing the old hag.  Really, the only thing left is the huge happily-ever-after threesome.  🙂  Yes, it will be epic.

My pace has slowed to about 1K a day with Vicki’s release, but I’m definitely in the home stretch!  Shooting for 35-40K before it’s all said and done.

Snippet:  this pretty much follows the last one where Arthur ignored Lady Blackmyre’s commands and she turned her back on him.

As though she didn’t have a care in the world, she strolled away from Arthur.

He snorted, trying to draw her attention, but she ignored him.  If the pony doesn’t listen to my commands, dear boy, the pony doesn’t exist.

Leaning casually against the railing she waved a hand at Dottie, inviting her to come down for a chat.  “What’d you think?”

Her eyes were so big that Violet couldn’t help but chuckle.  “I’m astounded.  But what happened?  Are you done?”

She tapped her friend lightly on the arm, drawing her gaze away from whatever Arthur was doing behind her.  Smiling, she pointed at herself and lifted her chin, trying to keep Dottie from even looking at him.  “Oh, most definitely.  When the pony misbehaves, he’s punished.”

Dottie gasped and fluttered her hand in front of her face like she needed air.  “Oh, dear, that sounds dreadful.  Are you going to beat him?”

“No.  I’m punishing him much more severely.”

“I hope I didn’t offend you with my ignorant comment.  Of course you wouldn’t hurt him.”

Violet let out a husky laugh.  “Oh, I would certainly hurt him under the right circumstances.  If he wanted me to give him pain for his own gratification, I’d be perfectly willing and able to deliver his most painful wishes.”

“You would enjoy it?”  Dottie asked in a small voice, lacking any sort of condemnation but revealing only honest curiosity.

“Yes, I would, if he were enjoying it too.”

“Then why didn’t you whip him just now?  I don’t know a thing about horses but even I could tell he was deliberately disobeying your commands.”

The hair prickled on the base of Violet’s neck.  Although she didn’t hear his stealthy approach, she didn’t need the faint quiver of her friend’s glance behind her to know he was close.  She could almost feel his body heat burning her back.  “If he looks me in the eye and begs me to whip him until he cries like a baby, I’ll give him exactly what he requests.  But I won’t be manipulated into giving him anything.  He doesn’t want me to hurt him so he can enjoy it.  He wants me to hurt him so he can lump me in with every other woman who’s betrayed him and I shan’t do it.”

Is still an incredible blazing speed.  Her story is up to 22.5K+ this morning.  I didn’t make it Dark & Early after a long weekend, but hopefully I can get some nice wordage tonight.

I’m definitely in the dark moment now.  Time is running out and she has to push Arthur harder than she really wants to.  It hurts her to break him as much as it hurts him to fall apart, but it’s necessary.  Even though I’m deep into this darkness, I think I’ll still have 10-15K to get through.  This story feels like at least 35K, if not 40K by the time I wrap up all the plot strings that are still dangling out there.

This snippet is from the first time Arthur runs in the ring for her.

She lifted her chin, expectation forming in her body before her order came, and he found himself tensing, alert and ready.  If he’d had horse ears, they’d have been perked toward her, awaiting her command.

“Very good, Arthur.”

In the space of a few minutes, she’d already praised him more than any mistress he’d ever worked with.  Yet he wasn’t fooled into thinking she was soft.  The warmth in her voice was there, but underneath, the icy core waited.

“All I’m going to do today is put you through your paces.”  She paused a moment and gave him a smile that was nothing of warm encouragement and everything to do with the cold determination to bend him to her will no matter what it took.  “I won’t be so easy on you again.”

Her right arm flicked out and the tail of the whip slithered across the ground.  Nowhere close to striking him but he flung up his head and raced in the opposite direction anyway.  Too much energy blazed in his body to settle into a staid trotting about the ring like Cole had done.  God, he felt so strong, so invincible.  Like he could gallop for days, leap any obstacle, race like the wind.

The whip cut him off and sent him charging in the opposite direction.  He didn’t mind.  The slide of his boots in the loose dirt of the ring felt too good to complain.  In the center of the ring, she trotted along with him, her face as hard as porcelain with supreme concentration.  He tried to turn back but she caught him with the tip of the whip right in his flank.  It stung enough to make him growl.

Fine.  Your direction, Your Grace, but my speed.

He ran harder, pumping his arms, digging his boots in so deeply that he flung clods of dirt up on her clean white shirt.  He tore about the ring, forcing himself harder, faster, ignoring the burn in his lungs, the sweat stinging his eyes.  Outrace her.  Tire her.  She can’t possibly keep up for long.

But he was wrong.  She didn’t have to keep perfect pace with him, not with the whip in her hand and central position of command in the ring.  As he began to tire, she pushed him harder, using the tip of the whip to remind him to keep moving.  As long as she was moving, he had to move too, in the direction she told him to go.  He ignored the stitch in his side.  The sweat blinding him.  His fool pride demanding that he outlast her.

Faltering a moment, she coughed.  He took the opportunity to explode back in the opposite direction, hoping to catch her unaware.  Yet the whip came in and snapped a warning on his thigh perilously near his groin.  Arousal throbbed through him, inflamed by the small pain.  Whip me again, Your Grace.  Give me the pain that will allow me to hate you.

With the bit clamped hard in his teeth, he kept charging against her command, ignoring the threat of the whip.  But the pain didn’t come.

In fact, she didn’t even try to stop him.  Slowing his headlong charge, he risked a glance in her direction and what he saw drew him to a halt.

Lady Blackmyre had turned her back on him.

 

Her Grace’s Stable is up to 18.5K – in four days!  I know, that’s an insane pace, but she’s relentless.  I think I’m almost 2/3 of the way through the story.  The Dark Moment is ahead.  Plot-wise/journey-wise, I’m definitely on the verge of beginning the final act, but I’m not sure in word count if I’m truly near the last 25% or not.  I believe there will be a massive smexy scene near the end that might take up way more words than I can guess. 

This is Arthur’s first trip into Lady Blackmyre’s stable.  Squick warning:  pony play in action!

“Welcome to Lady Blackmyre’s private stable,” the man said in a low voice, motioning Arthur inside.  “I’m Dain, a friend and colleague of Her Grace.  This is the only entry to this part of the stable, and I’m locking the door behind you.  No one else has a key but Lady Blackmyre and myself.  What happens here stays within these walls.”

Arthur hoped his eyes weren’t bulging from their sockets and that his mouth was appropriately closed instead of slack while he gaped like a fool.  Dain was clearly a horse master, dressed in the same riding clothes as Her Grace.  He gazed at Arthur with the same calm, steady appraisal that he’d devote to a new horse at market, as if he didn’t need words at all to access his wellbeing and comfort.

“Come, Arthur, I’ll show you to your seat.”

In a daze, he followed the man, trying to see everything all at once.  The high roof soared above the ring and boxes had been built in two concentric rows, just as a small theatre.  She might have meant him to sit and enjoy the scene, but he paused at the rail, unable to look away.

Cole ran… no, trotted… about the ring completely naked.  The recent mauling Arthur had given him was evident in an angry-looking bruised bite mark on his shoulder.  The man wore a simple leather headpiece… er… bridle.  And a tail.  That part made Arthur swallow hard, though he couldn’t look away.  It looked authentic.  The way Cole carried himself…

Head high, neck arched, he picked his feet up quickly and smoothly with a little sashay that sent that tail swishing back and forth across his thighs.

Arthur could almost feel the prickle of long hairs down his legs, and he wondered… God help him, he wondered exactly what it would feel like for his arse to be filled up while he trotted, moving about the ring, with that hair tickling his flesh.

He swallowed hard again, his throat aching, and he clenched his hands on the rail.  The longer he watched, the more he felt like he was sinking.  Drowning.  Losing himself into the steady slapping of the pony’s hooves on the ground, the gentle flicker of the whip, and the cool, still mistress at the helm.

Blowing hard, he backed away from the ring.  From her.  The vision of the pony–Cole!  His name is Cole!–sucking him under, rolling him down to deadly depths.  A place of darkness.  I’m losing myself.

“Steady now, boy.”  Dain slapped him lightly on the shoulder, a sting of comfort that shook some of the suffocating fear away.  “This is a place of safety.  No one’s ever hurt or terrified here.”

You don’t understand, he tried to cry out, but his throat was locked shut.  He was afraid if he tried to speak at all, only a desperate whinny would escape.  It wasn’t pain he feared.  Pain would drive him to the killing rage that would ground him back in reality.  He feared losing himself, all sense of humanity, all decency, all pride, forever.  God help me!

“Watch her, boy.  Look at the way Cole responds to her.  They’re one, woman and horse.  He’s so fully under her spell that he’d try to stop breathing if she willed it.”

Exactly.