Um... it's not Friday anymore is it?

I had all good intentions about posting my Friday's Five yesterday. Then my internet connection crashed.

It was back up this morning, but I launched myself into my last edit of my anthology submission, so I'm actually even later posting here than a had to be. To make it worse, I can't remeber the five things I was planning to post before I went to be last night.

So I have a new five things -

Five quotes for writers:

1. "The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any." Russell Baker.

2. A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. Thomas Mann.

3. Eighty-five percent of what goes on in a novelist's head is none of his business. Stephen King.

4. All of us learn to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things. Bobby Knight.

5. Finish. The difference between being a writer and being a person of talent is the discipline it takes to apply the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair and finish. Don't talk about doing it. Do it. Finish. E.L. Konigsburg.

I found way more than five quotes I liked, so there'll probably be more next week :)

...

Other news:

Writing: I'll finish the third Lust bite in my little collection of them today. I've managed to make exactly the same mistake on this one as I did on the last (large sections which should have been written from a different point of view). At least I'm consitant. Tomorrow I start work on the fourth and final Lust bite in the collection. Hopefully I'll find a different mistake to make on this one!

Editing: My anthology submission is printed out and undergoing proof reading. I need to write the synopsis and the blurb, make the proof corrections and I'll submit it to my editor tomorrow.

That's it.

Hope you're having a good weekend everyone :)

Five things... about series

In my infinite wisdom I've decided that once I've cleared a few short stories (and possibly two lust bites, have to work out when I need them by first) off my to do list, I'm going to start working on a new series.

So, before I finish those short stories, I'm trying to work out what I need to have done.

Here are the five things I've thought of so far.

1. Titles. I have six plots in my head. That means I need six individual titles and a series title. It would be nice to have them all to start with, or I'm going to drive myself crazy re-naming files every time I change my mind. I have a few ideas. The series one in particular is proving problematic. The best one I can come up with fits - it sums up the series perfectly, yet somehow... don't know.

2. Character names. I've named one so far. He appears in all the books, so it's nice that he's picked a name for himself, but now I have to convince the rest to do the same. My theory is, if I pick them all in advance I can make sure I don't fall into my usual trap of naming half a dozen people with nearly identical names.

3. Character discriptions. I don't want anyone changing their hair and eye colour half way through. And I don't want to find out there I've made all the submissives blonde and all the dominants dark or something daft like that. If I'm going to have that many main characters, I want a bit of variety! I think I need a new spread sheet.

4. Basic plot points. Each story might have a dominant and a submissive man in it, but I don't want them to have the same conflicts to content with or any of that. I don't like to write the same story twice in any circumstances. I'm particularly determined that it's not going to happen in this series. I'd like someone to be able to sit down and read from the begining through to the end without stopping to thing, hey that happened in the other book!

5. Location. I think I need a map. I'm creating a place for them to live. It's going to be a fictional city in Wales, but I still need to pin down all the specifics. What's it called, where abouts in it the characters live.

Yep, I know I'm totally over annalysing the whole thing. It's not reasonable to expect to know what happens at the end of book six while I haven't started book one - especially when I don't usually know how a short story is going to end when I start writing it, but there you go. I never claimed to be sane.

...

Other news:

It's still snowing, but people *touch wood* are able to get from A-B better. The thing is, we live in a valley. You can go along the base of the valley fine, but it's steep sides with narrow streets that haven't been cleared with snow - you have to get to the base of the valley first, and a lot of people can't at the moment. They've also closed the roads going over the top of the mountains between the valleys, which makes trying to go east - west interesting! They say we'll have more snow over the weekend.

Writing: Second short story will be finished tonight. I'm pretty sure once I've finished the four shorts, I'm going to read them over and find out that I've got the first chapter of four different novels.

Editing: Finally got some work done on my anthology sub. Still hoping to finish the second draft by the end of the weekend.

Publishing: Secret Service is out on Monday!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry, but it's the last blog post before then. Got to squee about it a bit :)

Have a good weekend everyone.

Five things... I was going to do in January

Just an end of the month round up today. At the start of January, I told you five things I wanted to get done. Here's how that went for me...

1. Write and edit a lust bite length story for Total-e-bound. I'd like to get that written by the end of this week and submitted around the middle of the month all going well. 10-15k. This one went well. Gaydar was submitted and accepted earlier this month. Release date 30th March.

2. Edit an anthology submission I've already written and get that sent off by the end of the month. It stands at 15k at the moment, I can go up to 20 if I need to. Checked the cut off date and moved the anthology sub back to next month. Decided to do Sealing the deal instead. That's undergoing a final edit and will go off early next month.

3. Write two more lust bite length stories and set them aside to be edited at a later date. The first drafts should be 10k each. Wrote one. Realised I don't need to write the other one until this one has gone off to the publishers. Used the time to extend Sealing the deal by 8k instead.

4. Write two anthology subs to be edited later in the year. One first draft needs to be 10k, the other needs to be 15k. I'm not entirely sure if I'll be doing these anthologies or not, the ideas I had seem to be growing into novels. I decided to write Fair Play instead. I should finish the first draft tomorrow.

5. Spend at least a little bit of time doing things that aren't writing. More about that next week. My energy levels crashed, so I spent a lot more time doing nothing but feeling a little bit sorry for myself than I planned. Does that count?

Not fantastic over all. Next month I'm working on setting better goals :)

Have a good weekend everyone!

Friday's Five things it's good to know when you start a book.

I've always thought of myself as someone who just wrote without doing much planning first. But, lately I've noticed there are five things I've got into the habit of getting straight in my head before I start to actually write a story - in no particular order.

1. Word count of the first draft. If I don't have a word count in mind, I tend to go off on tangents. If I know I have 15,000 words in which all the things I want to happen need to happen, it keeps me on track and focused on the main points of the story. I often end up coming back to put in details, emotions, and whole scenes, but it's easier to write short and add later than it is to write long and have to cut and tighten all over the place.

2. Who's point of view. For shortish stories I like to pick a character and stick to their point of view all the way through. If it's longer or neccessary in a short, I like to have the point of views balanced about evenly. Ideally, it's great to know at which points in the story the pov switches are going to occur too.

3. How many chapters and what needs to happen in each one. Again, this is about keeping my focus. I also like to put a little mini hook at the end of each chapter - if I can't find an appropriate hook in close to the right place, I start to worry - something interesting should be happening at some point!

4. Character names. Characters don't gel until you give them the right name. I had this with a character recently - I went through two drafts with him being a Cody and he just wasn't right. I converted him to a Matt and snap - he clicked perfectly. (By the way, Matt is in Gaydar, Cody has been reincarnated into a character in another book - a character that suits the name much better.)

5. Title. I don't like to start a story without knowing what the title can be. I don't know what to call it in my to do lists, I don't know what to label the files and it messes with my whole system. I also find the title sets the tone, and I like to mention the title somewhere in the text. But yeah, the main thing in the admin one.

And there it is.

It all sounds very organised, but it's not actually like that. As often or not I miss out some or nearly all of the points on the list. But at least I have a theory I'm working on - that's something :)

(I may well expand this post tomorrow since it's almost midnight and this was a bit of a last minute rush.)

...

Other news:

Contracts were filed on Gaydar and In the Heat of the Moment. They are officially accepted. Gaydar has also been edited and submitted to final.

Still writing Fair Play - Getting towards the last chapter of that.

Still editing Sealing the Deal - It's grown from a short into a novella, but it's coming along nicely. Still keeping my fingers crossed that it will go off at the end of the month.

Friday's Five... steps to writing a book

When a lot of people think of the things you have to struggle with when writing a book, they talk a lot about finding time to write, getting the right idea, having learned your craft and a million other things.

They don't tend to talk about the things that really make a difference to if the book gets written or not. It's the little things that make a difference. In my experience here's how writing a book actually happens.

1. First, obtain a sugar high. The best way to do this is to get a cake. The most effective ones are iced fairy cakes with sprinkles on the top (in the US, you'll probably find a cup cake that's similiar enough for the purposes of this stage in the writing process). It's important not to waste time, so eat this cake while you start up your lap top.

2. Somehow manage to drop one of the sprinkles off the top of your cake. Watch the sprinkle disappear into the tiny gap between the space bar and the body of the lap top. Shrug. Open up a document and start typing.

3. Find out that the sprinke has somehow wedged itself under the space bar. Discover that while there are some keys you can live without while writing a book, the space bar isn't one of them. Turn the lap top upside down and shake it from side to side. Blow underneath the keys. Tap all available sides of the laptop and try to shake the sprinkle loose. Between each step (...each of which needs to be repeated at least half a dozen times, because obviously what didn't work last time is bound to work this time...) repeatedly press the space bar and find out that it is still stuck.

4. Dig the vacuum clear out from the cwtch under the stairs. Vacuum the keyboard on you're lap top. Pray that none of the keys are loose and none of them get sucked up into the machine. Mentally try to work out which keys you think you could live without if that did happen. At this stage in the process it's important to forget that you like to write in the middle of the night. Wake everyone else in the house with the noise of the vacuum cleaner.

5. Test the space bar. Find it's working. Offer up prayers of thanks. Put the vacuum cleaner away. Appologise for waking every else up. Retreat to a completely different room to eat the rest of your cake. Go back to your lap top. Make yourself comfortable. Press the space bar a few dozen times to reassure yourself that it is indeed working. Try very hard to remember what the hell it was you were going to write in the first place.

Like I said, it's the little things that have the ability to make or break a writing session, lol. And yep, I have followed these steps - embarrassingly enough, far more than once.

...

Other news...

The date for Gaydar is definite. March 30th 2009. Very excited about that. I'll be making a page for it on my website later.

I started a new first draft. Fair Play. Wrote 2000 words of it yesterday. Not entirely sure what length I'm aiming for. Probably somewhere between 15-20k for the first draft.

I'm also starting a new editing project today. Sealing the deal. I'd like to send that off to someone by the end of the month. It's currently 12k, but I think it might go up to about 20k during edits.

I've also got a story idea that I'm tentatively hoping might be something that will come in at a word count under 5k. Short stories aren't my strong point, but I might give this one a good when I get a free day or two.

Don't forget that introductions are still going on at Writer's Evolution - it's the editors day today. Link in the right hand side bar.

Five things... I'd like to get done in January

As part of my whole, not planning to far in advance, I'm posting January goals rather than new years resolutions.

Here they are, if you're interested...

1. Write and edit a lust bite length story for Total-e-bound. I'd like to get that written by the end of this week and submitted around the middle of the month all going well. 10-15k.

2. Edit an anthology submission I've already written and get that sent off by the end of the month. It stands at 15k at the moment, I can go up to 20 if I need to.

3. Write two more lust bite length stories and set them aside to be edited at a later date. The first drafts should be 10k each.

4. Write two anthology subs to be edited later in the year. One first draft needs to be 10k, the other needs to be 15k.

5. Spend at least a little bit of time doing things that aren't writing. More about that next week.

Okay everyone, hope you had a great new years and you're raring to go for 2009.

Other news:

Not much, lol.

I'm editing my round robin submission. That will hopefully be gone by the end of the week.

I've written a bit of the first lust bite story I'm writing. Hope to finish the first draft of that by the end of the weekend too.

Five more things... I've started stories with.

Hi everyone,

Hope you all had a great Christmas.

I was going to post something festive and seasonal and do a last plug for The Gift before everyone had their fill of Christmas and Christmas stories.

But my editor just sent me an e-mail to let me know that she's offering me a contract for the last story I sent in - In the Heat of the Moment! So excited about that. It's the tenth story I've had accepted, so I thought I should do a post to celebrate that.

Quite some time ago I posted five things I started books with. Now that I can add another five first lines to that, I thought that would be nice to add them all together.

So here are ten things I've now started stories with.

1. Flickering firelight lent an enchanting glow to Nicky's body.
- The Gift

2. Sheridan Haswell put a final touch of red paint to the heart on his left bicep.
- Secret Service

3. Zachariah Radcliff ran his fingertips over Charlotte’s throat, slowly tracing the line of her jugular.
- Whispers

4. The twirling spotlight hit the table dancer for one perfect moment.
- Turquoise and Leather

5. Luke Anderson was not going to come first.
- You First

6. “This is an incredibly stupid idea.”
- Between Tooth and Paw

7. "Don't waste your time."
- Silent Night

8. Brennan Talbot was not going to stare at his best friend's arse.
- Time To Do

9. “If you’re too prissy for a bit of kink—”
- Imperial Topaz

10. “I thought you’d like the look of him. Rumour has it he’ll do anything you want. Really—Anything.”
- In the Heat of the Moment. (No link, and nothing finalised so pretty much everything is subject to change at the moment.)

And that's it for now.

I'll post up the blurb and a little bit more about In the Heat of the Moment when I have some definite info for you.

Happy Boxing Day everyone!

Ops, almost forgot my other news...

Finished writing Parry's War yesterday. Planning to edit and sub that somewhere in February as the first in a new series.

Also started writing my new project - another M/m, BDSM novella for an anthology call. Hoping to finish the first draft of that by the end of the year ready to edit and submit either in January or February next year.

Five things that... Wordle

I've always loved words, I've always thought words were beautiful. I've just found a way to make them look even more fantastic than usual.

It's a sight called Wordle. You copy and paste text into a box and the programe makes a pretty picture out of the words in the text.

Here are five I made using various excerpts from The Gift. Clicking on the picture takes you to a larger version (I could only get little pics on here, the bigger ones are soooo much better - please do check them out if you have time).

The text above them links to where you can read the text I used to make it.

1. Blurb Wordle.



2. Exerpt of Charles and Nicky's first meeting.



3. Excerpt of decorating the Christmas tree.



4. Excerpt of packing a special present.



5. Excerpt of the start of the book.



Caution: making wordles is fun, but it's also very addictive!

Have fun if you try it :)

Other news:

In the Heat of the Moment has been printed out and should be ready to submit tomorrow.

The edits of Between Tooth and Paw came back to me, all done bar an extra little scene that needs to be added in the middle. That should go tomorrow as well.

Parry's War is my new first draft and it's at an early stage, but it's going okay so far.

Five things that... link

Hello everyone,

I've been meaning to post some of these links for quite a while. Others I've just found. No theme or anything, just pages I've visited recently that made me smile or that made me want to pass the news on.

1. The Mom song. on Brynn Paulin's Blog. Watched this video clip way too many times. Still giggle every time.

2. Dakota's new backdrop. Do I need to explain?

3. TEB's Christmas competition. All you have to do is enter your e-mail address how much easier could it be?

4. Chelle Hicks has a new contract, new cover art, new website and new blog. (Some of these could probably be discribed as new-ish. Sorry it took me so long to remember to link.) Congratulations on all the great news Chelle.

5. You really thought you were going to get away before I mentioned it again? The Gift.

.....

Other news.

I'm now editing my Summer story. In the Heat of the Moment. It's already touching the top end of the word count. Lot's off cutting bits to make room for other bits left to go.

Tomorrow I'll start back working on the wip I set aside to write the summer one. Sealing the Deal, first of a new series. Needs 6k done on the first draft.

That's it. Sleep well people.

Five things... about five different projects

Okay, it's a bit of a mish mash of a post today. I've recieved different bits of news for a few different stories, so I thought I would share them all at the same time.

1. Between Tooth and Paw - it's been accepted for the Caught in the Middle anthology, to be released on May 11th 2009. Very excited about that.

2. Secret Service - part of the My Secret Valentine Collection - now has cover art! It's stunning - it's also on my other computer. I'll drop it into a seperate post later on.

3. In the Heat of the Momment - the one I told you all I wasn't writing any more. Well, I'm back with it again. Possibly for a call or maybe for a stand alone short or something else if the call doesn't pan out.

4. The Gift - part of the Christmas Spirits collection - four days until it comes out and counting down all the time. Very excited about that. Enough said there.

5. This one's not actually about a book I'm writing. But I forgot to post about it before, so I'll do it now before I forget again.

TEB has a competition running. The cover art is the m/f version of the Christmas Spirits cover art I've got for The Gift, so I'm adopting it on that rather vague basis. The picture below is the link. Click on it - really it couldn't be easier to enter!

Five things that... made me go ohhhh, sweet!

A somewhat lazy post today.

My excuse is, I've actually been productive with my writing.

Between Tooth and Paw just went off to my editor.

A Model submissive hit 50,000 - I finished Nanowrimo late last night. (I still have about 5k to go to finish off the story line, and I'm going to do that over the next few days, but anyway...)

and so, I thought I would share five photos I recieved in a forward.

So sweet...

That's it for me.

Nos Da.

Friday's Five things... I was going to be when I grew up

Okay, I’ve been entirely out of sync all week. I just realised it was Friday five minutes ago.

Kaenar Langford has been over on Hitting the hotspot today talking about the ten jobs people would love to have. You can see that post here.

Anyway, I thought I would post up my five things about the five things I almost spent my life doing before I threw myself head first into writing and really committed myself to it.

1. Does anyone out there realise that knees are really important if you want to join the army? Well, I can tell you that they are really important I was about this *holds thumb and forefinger really close together* close to joining the army – actually getting accepted and going through the officer boards and all that - sort of close. My knees got buggered up (highly technical medical term) about six months into training and that was the end of that.

2. Engineering was top of my list of things to do for the rest of my life for quite a while. It seemed like a sensible thing to do. I do have moments when I’m sensible and practical and make decisions that make sense – honest *Grin*.

3. Embroidery and textile design. Well, I still do this. But it’s more of a hobby when I get time in between writing now. Patchwork and blackwork are my favourites but I’ll enjoy pretty much anything that involves a needle and a thread. I might make a good go of this one day – I’ve got the designs, now I’m looking for time to stitch them up.

4. Librarian. I suppose this is one every writer has thought about from time to time. Spending the whole day surrounded by thousand and thousands of books. What’s not to like? On the days when I still manage to be at least a little bit sensible, I suppose this is my back up plan. This is what I’ll probably be looking for if I ever get a traditional 9-5 job.

5. Perpetual student. You know those books of course information from various universities that you get through the post now and again? Well, I tend to look through them, ticking the ones I’d like to do at some point or another. I tick almost every course in the prospectus. For quite a while I studied with the Open University. I’ve got the first year of a BSc along with the first year and part of a second year of a BA to my name so far.

I finished a course in Ancient and Medieval Cities at the start of 2008 and I decided to take a year out of studying to see if I could make a go of writing if I really concentrated on it. After all, what was the point in having a back up plan if you never actually had a good go at the first choice plan?

I’d been writing pretty solidly (1000+ a day, every day) for quite some time before this, but I guess focusing all my energy on writing paid off. I wanted to send something off to a publisher before I turned 25. After a few minor false starts, I sent my first story to TEB a month before I turned 25, and it was accepted a fortnight later.

That one’s not coming out until March next year, but I’m incredibly chuffed to have The Gift come out in 2008. (Yep, you can be pretty sure I’m going to mention that in every single post until December 8th, lol)

…

Other news:

I’m on 37,500 for A Modal Submissive. On track as far as Nano is concerned.

I’m about half way through my first edit for Between Tooth and Paw. I’m pretty sure there’s not enough time in the word count for them to have sex as often as they would like to. One of the sex scenes is going to have to go so I can make more room for a bit more plot to happen. Other than that, it’s shaping up not too badly.

Friday's Five Things that... are harder to write than I expected

Okay, here's a question for you all - have you ever sat down to write a story and then ended up just sitting there staring off into space or scratching your head. These are five of the stories that I expected to find far easier to write then I do.

1. Sweet Romances. I've looked back over the writing I've done for the last few years, and I've realised that two of the ones I lost interested in and didn't finsh were the ones where the characters were too sweet. Don't get me wrong, I like the characters, I even liked the plots, I jus didn't have this desire to know what would happen next. There was no spark to them.

2. Vanilla. Other people seem to be able to write it no problem, I'm starting to realise I'm just not wired up to wirte about sex that doesn't have some sort of kink in it. It doesn't always have to be much, a bit of power play, a pair of hnadcuffs and I'm fine. It doesn't even have to look like kink - everything that's kinky about it can happen inside a character's head and that's fine with me. The kink just has to be there somewhere.

3. MFM. I write about men and women having sex all the time. Writing about one woman having sex with two straight men should be easy, right? Wrong. I have two main problems with this little subgenre. First of all - the two guys keep guying each other up - I write a lot of male/male. If there's three people in the bed, it does seem a waste not to let all of them play with both the other people in the bed. Secondly - my guys tend to be possessive - why are they inviting another man into their bed to have sex with a woman they feel possessive over? I've just finished writing a MFM and I'm about to start editing it. And I'll admit I have struggled with the psycholoy. In the end the only way I could make it work was to go down the paranormal route. I think it works now. I'm keeping my fingers crossed I still think that once I've started editing it.

4. Historical. Believe it or not, when I started writing, I was all about sweet Regency Romances. I even wrote a whole 80k first draft. The thing is - research. I never feel like I've done enough. 20 books on the Regency period later, and at least quadripple that number of websites, and I never felt like I even scratched the surface. I've come to the conclusion that I'm better off writing psydo-history/fantasy for those plots and characters who aren't happy living in the hear and now.

5. Short Stories. This one has been annoying me a little bit lately. I decided a while ago that I was going to post up a free little short story - maybe 1-2k every Friday. Should be easy right? I got a few ideas together and... suddenly I didn't have 4 short story plots, I have four novella plots. So, I told myself, okay. I'll write a free story to go up on TEB's free story section. That could be longer - maybe 3-5k. A little bit of thinking about it later, my list of novella plots has grown a bit more and I'm still without a short story to my name. Maybe I'm just not a short story writer and that's that. I always want a context around what happens, I want more to happen for the characters than I can fit into a short story.

Okay guys, so what do you find harder about writing or to write than you thought you would when you started writing? Any takers?

.....

Other news:

A model submissive - my nano project - is coming along nicely. I'm on 21,500 words so far, so it's about on target. I'll be passing the half way mark on the weekend.

My secondary writing project - In the heat of the moment - was going to head for an anthology call, but it's going off in an unexpected direction, so it's probably going to end up as a stand alone and not a anthology sub at all.

Editing - I'm taking the weekend off editing. On Monday I'm going to attack Between Tooth and Paw with the intention of subbing it at the end of the month.

And that's it. Take care all.

Birmingham's Five Things.

My Five things about Birmingham...

(Please bare in mind that I do have quite a random thought process.)

1. The first thing I like about Birmingham is the buildings.

I live in quite a small town. The buildings are all Victorian terrances with a bit of Georgian thrown in here and there and the odd 1950's thing stuck up in the middle of it all.

Birmingham is a complete mish mash of styles from way back when to right now. I wish I could find a better photo to show you what I mean. I just love looking down a street and seeing what looks like a high victorian church next to a building like in this picture.

Old and new side by side. Great.

2. We have one in Cardiff. But this is actually the first book shops I've been into since I started writing Erotic Romance and actually saw something like the books I write on the shelf. I was very excited - the people with me were very patient.

They weren't my books on sale there, but maybe one day they could be, if you see what I mean.

They had a gay/lesbian section and an adult book section - neither of which I managed to locate when I went book shopping in Cardiff last. Very cool.

3. The Jewellery quarter. Hundreds of jewellery shops all in one place. Enough said.

It think the credit crunch has had an effect, there didn't seem to be quite as much on offer as there has been on pervious years I've visited, but still a lot of fun.

I bought... well, no jewellery at all. Didn't see anything I fancied - except a book that had a hole cut in the middle to fit a hip flask into it. I collect hip flasks, so it was something I had to add to my collection. I also bought a painted stone egg and a guilded wooden egg - I collect eggs too. I also collect apples, although I didn't see any there on this visit.

4. The Pen museum.

No trip is complete without taking in an obscure little museum. I'd visited this one before. It's fantastic. I made an old fashioned pen nib on the machines like the one in the photo.

(Yes, I am a big kid, lol.)

The last time I went there I got hooked on collecting old fashioned pens - quills, glass pens, anything like that. My handwriting is appalling with both hands (I'm ambidexterous) and I rarely do any writing that doesn't involve a key board and a computer, but they are very pretty on a shelf behind my desk.

5. And the fifth thing I liked about Birmingam - Just getting away from it all for the night.

I just does you good sometimes. Although, that said, I've been all to pot since I came back, and I'm blogging last Friday on a Monday, but still.

It was good :)

Friday's five things that...

Hi everyone,

I'll be posting Friday on Saturday this week - I'm off to Birmingham today and I'm hoping to have five things to tell you about that when I come back :)

Have a great day everyone :)

Friday's Five Things That... I've done for Nanowrimo

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Tomorrow it will be November and it will be the fifth November I spend doing Nanowrimo.

For anyone who's not familiar with it, Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It challenges you to write a 50,000 word novel during November. The idea is, it forces you to write quickly, switch off your internal editor and get a first draft down on paper.

Here's how it's gone for me so far.

1. On The Eighth Day - 2004. This was a high fantasy novel. I wrote the 50,000 during November, but the story was nowhere near finished. In fact, looking back, I'm not even sure the story really got started! At the end of November I set it aside to work on at a later date. I intended to finish it one day (I still do) but it hasn't happened yet.

2. The Red Flag - 2005. Another attempt at high fantasy. Only, in this one something interesting happened. Two of the main characters came to life. Degnal and Mafori - a former sergant in the kings army turned guide across the inhospitable regions of the country and Mafori a former potcher who was caught and branded a slave for her crimes. He buys her in a slave auction because he the only way to cross certain borders is to make an offering to the inhabitants of certain countries. This one went the same way as the last. I wrote the 50,000 in November and then set it aside. It will be finished one day, and you can garantee that Dengal and Mafori will live happily ever after in whatever ending I finally manage to write.

3. Alpha - 2006. This was the first Nanowrimo story I finished. It took my until January 2007, but I did finish it. I did 80,000 in the November. The finally story was 212,500 words. It was the first male/male story I wrote, the first erotic romance story I wrote and the first real BDSM story I wrote.

All in all a huge turning point for me. I haven't really looked back since. I haven't started editing this story yet, but it (in a much shortened form) is going to be part of a series I'm hoping to write in the reasonably near future.

4. Falling Angel - 2007. After spending the previous twelve months writing male/male. This was my first real go at writing a novel length male/female erotic romance story. I wrote 100,000 words in November and finished the story with 112,500 in the December. This is another of the storys in my to be edited pile. Hopefully I will get to it at some point in the near future.

5. A Model Submissive - 2008. This year I'm going for another male/male story. It's BDSM (like pretty much everything I write). I'm aiming for a 50,000 word finished story during November - if I manage it, it will be the first time I've actaully finished by November novel in November.

My screen name for the Nanowrimo website is Pheonix Jones. You can see how I'm getting on here.

See you then.

One bit of other news before I go...

I finished Between Tooth and Paw tonight - just in time to start my Nano Novel tomorrow :D

Friday's Five things that... I love about writing

I had trouble narrowing it down to five, but here's the ones that made the list.

1. The blank screen. Anything could happen. And in my stories it just might, lol. But I love that feeling when you are first starting a story and there are no impossibilities. You can create a whole new world just by pressing a few keys.

2. Being someone else for a while. I like who I am. I like my life. But I can't deny that I like living other peoples lives to. I like to get inside the head of someone I'll never be and see the world through their eyes. And when I've been them for long enough, there is always another character, another life to explore.

It's linked closely to the last one, so it didn't make it's own point. Each new character can change your mind about everything. From things as simple as one character likeing to be called sir, to another one thinking that sort of honerific is a silly affectation. I get to have all the different opinions depending on who I'm writing. I never have to actually make my mind up about the things I haven't decided on for certain.

3. That moment. The one where it all clicks into place. It doesn't mean the story is going to work out. It's often followed by a lot of moments when you think you're writing complete rubbish. But that one moment - when everything is clear, the words are flowing and your typing so fast, you can't think fast enough to keep up - you only know the words when you see them appear on the screen in front of you. Those moment are pure gold.

4. Re-writing the bad bits. Do certain things about the world really annoy you? Do you wish people had the sense to set prejudices aside and just accept individuals for who they are? When you write you can do that - create a world where no one gives a damn about colour or gender or sexual preferences.

On the other end of the scale, you can also write happy endings for the characters who really need them. If a character has been hurt in the past, you can write a way for them to heal. I know that the real world isn't like that, but my world, the one I like my characters to live it, it always gives the good guys a happy ending.

5. Finishing a story. And more often than not, finding out how it ends - I often don't know until I type the last word. Once I finish a story it's out of my head and I can leave it to rest for a while before I go back to edit it. And that makes more room in my head for new stories.

...

Okay, writers out there, what are your favourite things about writing?

...

Other news:

Finished the first draft of The Stroke of Twelve on Wednesday.
Started the first draft of Between Tooth and Paw the same day.
And yesterday I started editing Secret Service.

Busy, busy, busy.

Off to do my writing for the day now.

Have a good weekend people.

Five things that... have changed in the last day or so

Okay, since I have a migrane and staring at the computer screen is not a lot of fun at the moment, I'm being lazy about today's five things.

For administration reasons, some of my publication dates have had to be changed. Conveniently for todays list, five of them have changed.

1. Turquoise & Leather – has moved from the 16th of February to the 16th of March

2. You First – has moved from 16th of March to the 26th of April.

3. Silent Night – has moved from 21st of April to the 1st of June.

4. Time To Do – has moved from 25th of May to the 20th of July.

5. Imperial Topaz – has moved from 22nd of June to the 28th of September.

The changes will be reflected on my website as soon as I'm actually able to focus on the screen properly :)

Other news...

A few opportunities have come up and they have quite short deadlines, so I've set aside what I was going to work on for the rest of this month to concentrate on them. I'll tell you more about them on Monday.

Take care everyone and have a nice weekend,

Nos Da.

Five things that... keep turning up in my stories

There are certain things that seem to get stuck in my for no good reason.

Since I've been editing a few different stories over the last week or so, and also reading over a few of the old drafts I want to edit soon, I've noticed a few things that just keep croping up again and again.

Here are the five things that... keep turning up in my stories.

1. Coffee. I don't drink the stuff. Never tried it, never intend to. I don't even like the smell. So it bemuses me why half the characters I write about are addicted to the stuff.

2. Hamilton Street. It's now turned up in a grand total of six completly unrelated stories. Where does the hero live? Hamilton Street. Where is the restaurant the couple are going to have dinner? Hamilton Street. To my knowledge, I've never been to a Hamilton Street in my life. I've been going around cutting it from different stories and replacing it with different street, roads and lane. I think I've only got one reference to it left and that's in You First. Everyone else has just had to find somewhere else to live.

3. Tony. Never the hero, always the side kick. Does the hero have a friend who needs to turn up, say a few lines and disappear again? Do I need to name a bar man? Is there any sort of male minor character anywhere in the story? You can bet the first name I gave him was Tony. Well, I've been killing all of these repeat offenders off too. There is only one Tony now and I've given him a book all to himself. It's called Fast Track and it's part of a series I'm hoping to write next year.

4. Advertising companies. Does anyone in any of my books have to have a non-specific office job? They'll be working in an Advertising company. Now, I've never worked in one. I've never had some heart felt need to do so. I'm happy for my characters to do other things with their lives, but an astonishing number of them demand to work in Advertising.

5. Foods I don't like. I'm a really fussy eater. I don't eat pasta, rice, cheese, cream, curry, pizza, and a million other different foods. But somehow, put my characters in a restaurant and they'll start ordering things I'd never eat in a million years. It's nice to know I'm not projecting my tastes onto them, but really, I wish for once they would just have something I could eat myself.

So, what about everyone else? Do you find your characters do things like that to you too?

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Other news:

Silent Night edits went back to my editor yesterday.
Time To Do edits went back to her today.
I also started working on my own edits for All Grown Up ready to submit it at the end of the month. Lots more to do on that.
And The Morning After is starting to turn from a story idea into an actual story.

All is quite right with my little bit of the world at the moment.

Oh, and the cut off date for TEB's BDSM Anthology called Night of the senses was today, so there should be news about that soon :)

And that's it for now.

Take care, all

Nos Da.

Friday's Five things that... I've started books with

By the Hour is dead.

I usually start writing a story and write it straight through to the end no matter what. Even if I know I'm going to have to come back and re-write 90% of it at a later date, something that can be called a first draft gets written before I move onto another project. It takes a lot for me to say there is no way to make a story work. In fact it's only happened twice since I started writing seriously.

By the Hour is the third time. I've tried to start it 7 times, and I finally worked out what the problem is. The characters can't have sex. They are perfectly nice characters, but there is no way people in their situation can get it together (let alone get kinky) without being transformed into characters I don't like. I don't want to write about characters I dislike that much, so I'm not going to.

Now, that story is gone and I've been looking through my files for a story to take it's place at the end of the Perfect Timing line up. I've found one and I started it yesterday. I love it. It's called The Morning After. It's sooooo nice to start something from scratch after spending so long doing re-writes.

My other writing project this month is another completly new story (Yay!). It's going to be the third book in the Collared series, but I still haven't picked which story idea I'm going to write yet.
All this means, I've been looking through my file of first lines quite a bit while I was trying to pick the right story idea to fit into each series.

(Yes, I really do have a file dedicated to first lines...)

Many of the lines don't have a story to go with them yet. They're just hanging around, waiting for me to decide what happens next.

For some reason I also note down the first lines of stories I've already written. I thought I would share the first lines of the stories I've had accepted with TEB so far with you.

Five things that... I've started books with.

1. Flickering firelight lent an enchanting glow to Nicky's body.

- The Gift

2. The twirling spotlight hit the table dancer for one perfect moment.

- Turquoise and Leather

3. Luke Anderson was not going to come first.
- You First

4. "Don't waste your time."
- Silent Night

5. Brennan Talbot was not going to stare at his best friend's arse.
- Time To Do (I'll come back and put a link in when I've got something to link it to.

....

And that's it for today.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.