Category: The Writing

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Review and a Note about Tomorrow

First, an incredible, tear-wrenching review from My Beloved Sister Molly Burkhart for THE BLOODGATE GUARDIAN:

This book isn’t a page-turner. It’s a page-devourer. The demons and their hell are chilling. The sense of danger surrounding the hero and heroine is suffocating. And yet, in all of that darkness, there is a light. And that light is always Joely’s gift to her readers. It shines in all weather, and it cannot be quenched, though her characters sometimes lose sight of it.

Hugs, wipes tears away.  Thank you so much, Sis!  Read her entire review and watch me blush.  Also, she got an incredible review herself for My Gigolo over at Whipped Cream Reviews!

Tomorrow I’ll be Tia’s guest for Writer Wednesday at Debuts & Reviews.  My workshop will be On Writing Sex, covering the basics from LB&LI Transformative Sex  from last year and the Coyote Con panels with an exclusive sexy scene from THE BLOODGATE GUARDIAN.  Please stop by if you get the chance and share a transformative sex snippet or ask questions!

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Synopsis Xibalba

My only goal through MayNoWriMo was finishing the Maya#2 synopsis.  That sounds easy — until you realize I haven’t written the book yet.

So really what I had to do was build my characters, plot out the story, and THEN write the synopsis.  I had Tara and Quinn started thanks to an axed subplot from THE BLOODGATE GUARDIAN, but they needed significant work in order to carry an entire 60K+ story. 

Then, the plotting.  My favorite thing to do.  Not.

The problem (for me) in writing this synopsis was I couldn’t pare it down to the bare bones, because I don’t have the book.  If I came up with a cool development or crucial understanding (for me as the author, whether it would end up directly in the story or not), then I had to write it down, for fear I’d forget if I didn’t.  I mean, it might be months before I get back to this book.  I know I’ll never remember all those little details.

I’m thrilled to say that I finished the synopsis tonight.  *angels singing*

On the down side, it’s a MONSTER.  6K!  The absolute longest synopsis I’ve ever written.  *boggles*  I detailed internal and external conflict; character traits; antagonist motivations; Maya mythology details; the romance arc; and of course, the plot.  I used the hero’s journey and mapped out Ordinary World, two major turning points, the Dark Moment, and the final Climax and Resolution. 

There’s absolutely no reason I shouldn’t be able to sit down and write this book straight through without any difficulties or confusion thanks to this outline, yet I’m still worried.  Have I written this detailed synopsis only to kill my excitement for the story?  Nooo, I don’t think so.  I’m still excited about the story…just sick of the synopsis.

Of course a 6K synopsis isn’t something I’m going to torture my editor with.  *evil laugh*  So before the end of the month, I need to revise and strip down to something she might actually want to read instead of all these notes and details for myself.  Once I get something useable, I’ll blog more about how I used notecards to plot and write the synopsis.

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Carina Press is Live!

What a journey this has been!  Carina Press launched today with great books from Carrie Lofty, Shannon Stacey, Megan Hart, and Bonnie Dee, just to name a few.  Take a look, read a few excerpts, and enjoy 20% off any title purchased.

Oh, and The Bloodgate Guardian (releasing June 14th) is available for pre-order at Carina, Amazon, and B&N!

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Busy Work

Sorry for my slow blog and e-mail responses lately.  I’m still trying to recover from MayNoWriMo and Coyote Con, which means I’ve got a thousand things I didn’t do last month that I have to get through now.

First and foremost, I finished the first-round edits on Victor (HURT ME SO GOOD) and sent them back to my editor tonight.  I’ve also got several guest blogs I’m working on for the Carina launch and release of THE BLOODGATE GUARDIAN on June 14th.  Whew!

Not to mention the MayNoWriMo prizes still need to be divied up.

Meanwhile I’m *this close* to finishing my synopsis, while I’ve started a new holiday novella that I’m shooting to finish this month.  I’m also excited about the opportunity to have a Writer Wednesday workshop at Debuts and Reviews (date TBD) on sex scenes. 

AND, the monsters are out of school so we have the fun chore of shuttling them to activities.  Luckily we were able to hire a very reasonable babysitter to help out during the day.  Tonight, I took all three monsters to a “finger weaving” class at Yarn Worx where I took my knitting class.  The two oldest have finished their scarves, and I’m still helping Littlest with hers (she was right on the border of being old enough to attend).  Overall they really enjoyed it, and the scarves are really, really pretty considering how easy they were to pull together.  Picture forthcoming once I help the youngest finish hers.

So let me get back to work!  I have a shipment of stuff going out to tomorrow, so if I still owe you a book, it’s coming very soon!

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Attention Victor Beta Readers!

I want to appropriately thank everyone who helped me polish Victor before I turned him in to my editor.  If I’m missing anyone, PLEASE, please shout out and correct me!  Also let me know how you’d like to have your name in the dedication (whether full name, real or pen, shortened).  Right now I have:

Sherri, Pearl, Nicole, Susan, Christine, and Sharon

Thank you!

I’m in the final sweep of first-pass editor notes before sending Victor back in, so I do have a little time to handle corrections if I’ve messed anything up.

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MayNoWriMo Finale

I hope you’ve enjoyed the MayNoWriMo guest posts and the interesting panels at Coyote Con (the transcripts will remain up all year).   I met so many new people this month, and it was incredible to watch them reach their goals or learn something new about themselves and their writing process.  I’m working with Deena to possibly set up some new group functionality that will allow all the Coyote Con people to remain connected until next May.  (Once we finalize a few details, I’ll post the writing group link here so you can join if you’re interested.)

As for me:  I didn’t finish my synopsis.

However.

I expanded characterization for Quinn and Tara, wrote up backstory for them, and sent both through the Emotional Toolbox.  I have my major turning points outlined with supporting notecards.  Plus, I do have 1754 words toward the synopsis — it’s just not *finished*. 

All in all, I’m pleased with the story and the plotting effort so far and I shouldn’t have any problem wrapping things up and getting it to Alissa in June.  Also in June, I’m going to try and write  30K holiday novella.  *dies*

No rest for the weary!

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Plotting with Notecards

My only MayNoWriMo goal this year was to get a synopsis written for Maya #2.  The only catch:  I haven’t written the book yet.

While I haven’t had as much time to work on detailed plotting as I hoped, I have made some interesting discoveries.  The main color scheme for this book has been purple and blue (every book has a color scheme–The Bloodgate Guardian was orange and green).  No theme song yet.

I spent a lot of time developing Quinn and Tara.  I researched more about Ix Chel and Yum Cimil.  I had several scenes from an earlier draft of BGG, but I wasn’t sure if I could still use them.

The more cards I wrote up for the beginning sections, the more confused I got.  I couldn’t figure out how the new stuff I’d developed still fit with the old things I really wanted to keep.  I was getting bogged down in details, little scenes at the beginning that hid the main path.

The trick (this time) was concentrating only on the hero’s journey.  I wrote up the main event cards for each character without worrying about the other’s hero journey — and then I was finally able to figure out how they fit together.  I made cards for the key turning points/journey events in their own color — and then filled the character-specific stuff around them.  MUCH EASIER!

Tonight, I sat down with hot pink notecards and did the same general thing for the romance journey.  Instead of inciting incident — I have first meet.  I still need to work on these cards a bit more, but it’s really helping me figure out the arcs.

When I’m all finished, I’ll take a few pictures.