NaNoWriMo: Are you ready for the craziness?

For those of you who don't already know, I am a HUGE NaNoWriMo cheerleader. I badger encourage everyone I know to participate in NaNoWriMo each year. So many of us have a novel inside, but we're positive we can never write it. I used to feel that way too. What's great about NaNoWriMo is you can't make any excuses--you just have to sit down and write that novel. And guess what, you will write it. Honestly, you will. I don't claim to have a vast pool of writely wisdom to bestow on others, but I do have some NaNo tips that have helped push me past the hump, and that have made me a more productive writer overall.

1. Just write. This is the most important one and, on the surface, it's the easiest one. However, it's more complex than most people think. I know the drill. Been there, done that. I can't write because I'm not inspired. I can't write because I don't have any good ideas. I can't write because I don't have time. Those are just three of the excuses I've used in the past, and I'm here to tell you they're nonsense. Really, they are. If you want to write, you have to put yourself in front of your keyboard or your pad and pen and you have to write words. Just write them. Don't worry about whether you're making mistakes or if your plot makes sense, just write.

The first year I did NaNoWriMo, way back in 2010, the novel I wrote was a hot mess. It's seriously unworkable, but that didn't make it any less valuable in the end, because it was the year I proved to myself that I could sit in front of my keyboard and bang out words, no matter how little I wanted to do so.

I think people underestimate how important it is to prove to yourself that you can do something. Even if you do it poorly, there's still a huge sense of accomplishment that goes along with completing a task you'd convinced yourself you couldn't complete.

2. Challenge yourself. When NaNo 2011 rolled around, I decided to mix things up a bit. Each year, I would pick a new genre and write a novel for it. My choice for that year was young adult dystopian, a genre I was pretty much 100% positive I couldn't pull off. The end result was Contributor, which is still one of my personal favorites. For NaNo 2012, I wrote a fantasy novel: Asleep. This year I'll be tackling new adult romance. The title is Starstruck, and I've sneakily included the cover for the book on my NaNo profile. Next year? I'm toying with trying out my hand at writing a mystery/suspense novel.

3. Have a routine. This isn't strictly necessary, but I find that establishing a routine gets me in the right frame of mind for writing. One year I drank pumpkin spice coffee every day during NaNoWriMo. I'm obsessive about the pumpkin spice, and that little treat gave me the incentive I needed to get working. I still associate pumpkin spice coffee with NaNo.

4. Reward yourself. I do a lot of bargaining with myself: If I write X number of words, I can play The Sims in the afternoon, or I can watch that movie I've been dying to see. Choose whatever works for you. Giving yourself rewards makes it easier to get motivated to get it done, and it feels good. Rather than drowning in guilt because you're fooling around when you should be writing, you can revel in the enjoyment of your reward while also feeling the warm glow of satisfaction at having met your goals for the day.

5. Prepare. Sometimes my prep is pretty extensive and at others it isn't. This will depend on your topic and how you write--I tend to be a pantser. This year I haven't done as much prep as in the past because my book will be contemporary. I have some basics down about my characters, and I have a rough sketch in my head of the setting. The previous two years, though, I did a lot more prep because I wrote dystopian and fantasy respectively. I did the world building ahead of time, outlined how the societies would work, wrote up character descriptions, etc. Getting this stuff done in advance means you can't come up with excuses not to write when you're in the swing of NaNo. You've done the groundwork, so all that's left is to put the words on the page.


6. Have fun and take risks. Throw in that outrageous plot element. Make your characters do something insane. Push yourself outside of your comfort zone. It'll keep you on your toes, make writing more interesting for you, and ultimately make your book better. Plus, imagine how great you'll feel when you pull off that crazy idea you want to try.

7. Do NOT give up. You'll reach a point where you feel like you've hit the wall. You're frazzled from caffeine overdose on top of a lack of sleep. You hate the plot twist you introduced ten pages ago, or your characters are giving you no end of grief, or you feel like you've completely lost the threads of your narrative. Yep, I've been there too. This is the hardest part about writing. The best thing you can do is push past it and fix it later. Giving up isn't going to make you feel good. As painful as forging ahead may be, you'll feel all that much larger a sense of accomplishment when you cross that finish line.

I'll be talking a lot about NaNo in the coming weeks, cheering on my fellow participants and describing my own trials and tribulations. One of the things I love most about NaNo is the community spirit. Writing can be a lonely endeavor, and I love that each November is when everyone is an author and I realize how alone I'm not.

If you'd like, add me as your NaNo writing buddy. I can never have too many of them. Best wishes and, most of all, happy writing!

Gender Flipping: Why I wrote Asleep

One of the experiences that has most colored my life is the simple fact that I am a woman. I'm happy being a woman, and there are some things I really love about it, such as shoes like these and Coach purses. My love for Coach purses borders on obsession. But there are some things about being a woman that I wholeheartedly dislike, such as the constant pressure for our bodies to look a certain way, being told I'm good at something "for a girl", etc. I could make a whole list, but that's not the intent of this post.

For as long as I've been a writer, I've been a reader and a consumer of various other forms of media. One thing that has always disappointed me is the lack of female heroes, particularly when it comes to movies and television shows. Female heroes are easier to come by in books, but even in literature--even in literature written by women--it is a very common thing to find a female character who needs a man to defend her, to give her a reason to live, to help her define her life. I'll put it simply: I don't like this.

Now, I have one caveat to add here: there are times when having a weak female character can serve a specific narrative purpose. It's not that I'm against weak characters, male or female. But what I don't like is this deeply-ingrained assumption that women need to have a man in order to function, and that there are certain things men can do that poor, delicate women can't. I also don't like the assumption that women are one way and men another. I'm sorry, I just don't buy it. Sure, we may have different biology, but men and women are people, and we share many of the same personality traits, character flaws, hopes, and aspirations. Society wants us to believe that men and women are so profoundly different, but I reject that notion.

Long, long ago, I wrote a book called The Eye of the Beholder. That book was a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, but the twist I wanted to put on it was to also tell it from the beast's point of view. Along with writing from the beast's point of view, I wanted to write a Beauty who wasn't afraid to stand up for herself, so that's the sort of Beauty I wrote. When I published the book, I thought I'd sell maybe 100 copies in a year. Imagine my surprise when I passed the number by a factor of ten.

Since that book was so successful, I started thinking about writing other fairy tale reboots. Confession time: I've always loved fairy tales and princess stories. Always. I love the frilly dresses, the dragons, the handsome princes, and everything that comes with them. What I do not like is that warrior princesses are so much less common than warrior princes. So when I chose to put my own spin on Sleeping Beauty, I decided I wanted to shake that tale up a lot. Instead of magic, I wanted to have the captured party be drugged, that way I could also tell the tale from their point of view and have them interact with the villain. I also decided that, instead of a damsel in distress, wouldn't it be interesting if it were the prince who was captured and the princess who had to save him?

I liked this idea, but I decided that, in the world I was creating for Asleep, I didn't want there to be anything out of the ordinary about a princess who uses her weapons to fight for the man she loves. I didn't want her to be the exception to some sort of rule. In the world I constructed, some women are warriors and some men are. Some of the monarchs running their Realms are men and some are women. Sometimes it's the women who go off to wage war, sometimes it's the men. What I did, very, very deliberately, was try to remove gender roles and, instead, focus on who the characters were as people. So Jess is the warrior, the confident one who wears the weight of her responsibility easily. Dev is the one who's more of a tactician, who has problems with self-doubt, who isn't convinced he'll be good at reigning.

What's the result? Well, reception has been mixed. Some readers were thrilled to read about a warrior princess, while others were a little confused by it. Some readers didn't mind the lack of magic while others didn't like it. This is kind of what being a writer boils down to: some people will like your work and others won't, which is not only fine, it's cool. The world would be such a boring place if we all liked the same things. I'm a huge fan of variety, so I'm all for people having differing opinions.

But the gender question in particular has been interesting to me. Lately, I've been watching a lot of videos and reading a lot about how women are represented in media. For an excellent summary with tons of great links to things like book cover swapping, how men and women are portrayed in advertisements, the treatment of female gamers, and the Hawkeye Initiative, read this great article on Junkee.

I am a feminist and not ashamed to call myself one, but feminism for me means total gender equity. It means men can be sensitive and cry, can become dancers, can play with baby dolls without fear of censure from society, a society that currently tells men they must be macho. It means women can be scientists, warriors, and able to provide for themselves without living in a 50s scenario where it's the man who calls all the shots. The status quo is good for no one, regardless of whether you're male or female, or if you identify with a gender other than the one you were born into. I want to get away from the male/female dichotomy. Instead, I just want us all to be people.

That's why I did a gender flip when I wrote Asleep. I want there to be more warrior princesses, so I wrote one. I want there to be more male characters who aren't afraid to show their vulnerabilities, so I wrote one. I understand that not everyone will be on board with that, that it will make some people uncomfortable, and I'm okay with that. But I'm not going to stop doing it because I know I'm not the only one who's been longing for warrior princesses.

Book Launch Day: Asleep is now available!

In 2012, I decided to try my hand at self-publishing. I wrote Contributor for NaNoWriMo 2011, and it was a novel I wanted to get into the hands of readers rather than sitting on my hard drive collecting dust, which is where all my other manuscripts were. It wasn't ready for publication yet, though, so I decided that, in the meantime, I'd polish up a manuscript I'd written and loved but never thought would be considered marketable enough for me to try shopping it to agents. My goal was to sell 100 copies in the first year. With a great deal of trepidation, I clicked the publish button on The Eye of the Beholder.

Now, a year later, it's still my most successful book. I not only sold those 100 copies, I sold a lot more than that--more than ten times what I'd hoped to sell. I had no idea a Beauty and the Beast retelling would resonate with so many others. I've always loved fairy tales, but I was sure the book was something no publishing company would ever touch, so self-publishing was a huge boon to me.

Since publishing that book, I've published several others. I was a bit like a kid in a candy store. I love to read, love to write, and I wanted to just writing everything I could. Each of my books is special to me in its own way, but The Eye is extra special because it proved to be the little book that could.

Writing a bunch of different things in a variety of genres has been fun, but when NaNoWriMo 2012 rolled around, I wanted to get back to my fairytale roots, and I decided to go with a reboot of Sleeping Beauty. Asleep is the end result.

I won't lie: the book gave me some serious headaches. I had fun doing the world building, and I loved the characters, but I had a hard time wrestling the book into submission. There was much stressing as I tried to figure out a timeline that would work and as I wrote and rewrote chapters to try to make everything mesh together. Then, one magical day, things finally began to fall into place, and I'm quite pleased with the end result. I hope you will be too!

**Note: This book contains some mature content**

A reimagining of the sleeping beauty tale.

When her beloved Prince Devaran is abducted from her parents’ castle during their engagement announcement ceremony, Princess Jessmyn vows that nothing will stop her from bringing his abductors to justice. Rescuing Dev won't be easy, and Jess will have to form an alliance with the other Realms if she's to win the most important battle of her life.

Imprisoned in a forbidding tower, Dev tries to find a way to warn Jess of the perils she’ll face. Weakened by deprivation and by the drugs administered by the madwoman who kidnapped him, Dev drifts between sleep and consciousness. As he relives cherished moments spent with Jess, Dev wonders if he’ll ever again be with the woman he loves.

Asleep is available on Nook, Kindle, and Kobo.

Special thanks to the awesome SM Reine, who did Asleep's fabulous cover. If you think Asleep's cover is beautiful, be sure to check out the gorgeous covers she does for her own books. They'll look fabulous on your ereader! Happy reading!

Announcement: Review copies of Asleep are up for grabs!

At long last, the release date for the second book in my Elizabeth Darcy Fairytale Collection series is on the horizon: on or before June 13, 2013, Asleep will be available for purchase!

How would you like to get your hands on an advance copy? If you're a member of LibraryThing, I have a week-long giveaway going there with 50 copies up for grabs, and it starts today. NetGalley users will also be able to request copies soon, and I'll post further details once the book is available there.

Without further ado, feast your eyes on the lovely cover:

**Note: This book contains some mature content**

A reimagining of the sleeping beauty tale.

When her beloved Prince Devaran is abducted from her parents’ castle during their engagement announcement ceremony, Princess Jessmyn vows that nothing will stop her from bringing his abductors to justice. Rescuing Dev won't be easy, and Jess will have to form an alliance with the other Realms if she's to win the most important battle of her life. 

Imprisoned in a forbidding tower, Dev tries to find a way to warn Jess of the perils she’ll face. Weakened by deprivation and by the drugs administered by the madwoman who kidnapped him, Dev drifts between sleep and consciousness. As he relives cherished moments spent with Jess, Dev wonders if he’ll ever again be with the woman he loves.

Wouldn't it look nice sitting on your to-read shelf on Goodreads?

What's in Store for 2013

2012 was a great year for me, one that exceeded my wildest dreams. Confession time: I had this secret hope that I could sell 100 copies of my books in a year. Well, as of  December 29, 2012, I've hit 1,000 sales (and this doesn't include borrows) and counting! To say I'm happy and excited about this is the understatement of the century.

I've made some rookie mistakes and learned a lot in 2012, so I'm going into 2013 feeling like I finally have some idea of what I'm doing. That's been great, because it's helping me to focus and set some good, solid goals. So, here is what I'm looking to accomplish in 2013:

1. More books: First will be Asleep, book two in the Fairytale Collection., followed by Infiltrator, the second book in the Contributor series. I'm also going to try my hand at an 8-episode romantic comedy serial. I have most of it outlined and I'll share more details once I'm closer to having it ready for publication. Other possibilities: a companion book to Phoning It In that will focus on one of the secondary characters and another novella in the Creators sequence, which takes place prior to Contributor.

2. Expanded distribution: when my exclusivity period lapses with some of my works, I'm going to expand to other markets, such as Kobo and Barnes & Noble. I've had limited success with these in the past, but I want to give them another shot because I really dislike the idea of restricting the outlets where my readers can get my books.

3. Mailing list: I'm planning on quarterly newsletters with exclusives for members: giveaways, access to extended excerpts, etc. I'll also use the mailing list to alert readers of new releases. One thing I will never do: spam my readers. Ever.

4. Author website: This blog is limiting, and I'd like to have a central presence on the web for my bibliographies, blog posts, etc. I'm also the author of a fairly popular work of fanfic, and I think I'm going to out myself and host the fanfic on my site. In addition, I have ideas for some fun stuff: short daily stories, a forum for interacting with readers and getting feedback that will influence the way serials pan out, etc.

5. Social media presence: Though I'm still planning on Tweeting, pinning things that interest me on Pinterest, and posting to FB, I'm going to be devoting most of my efforts to Google+ and Goodreads, as I feel that these are the outlets that allow me to best interact with readers. I'm a big fan of Google+ Communities, and I'm thinking about dabbling in the Hangouts. As for Goodreads, well, I fell in love with that site a couple of years ago and use it daily as a reader, so it goes without saying that I love the idea of what I can do with it as an author.

6. Physical copies of my books: Several readers have expressed interest, and I'd love to offer the option to them. Since I already have covers for my books, I need to look into having these changed so they'll meet physical copy requirements. I've used several different cover designers, and I'm hoping to be able to negotiate with each of them so that I won't have to change any covers.

7. More group promotions: I love working with other authors and have found some amazing books thanks to my self-publishing journey. I already have one promo lined up for late January/early February, and I will try to participate in others throughout the year.

That's it for me! Thanks to all my readers for making 2012 such a memorable year for me. I wish you the best for health, happiness, and good fortune in 2013!

Feature Fridays: Dev is captured

I've had my struggles this NaNoWriMo, but I think I'm really hitting my groove with this novel.  Once I started easing up and just let it be what it wanted to be, I started to feel better about it.

When I started thinking about what I wanted to do for NaNo, I knew I wanted to write another Elizabeth Darcy book, and I decided to use the sleeping beauty story as an inspiration.  However, I didn't want to do the standard tale of the damsel in distress being rescued by the handsome prince, so I decided to have the princess do the rescuing.  Here, in its very rough form, is the scene where Dev is captured.

*****

Opening his eyes required a lot of effort, and he put the last of his remaining energy into it, managing to open them enough to see a narrow slice of the room before him.  A cloaked and hooded figure knelt before him, and at first he thought he was hallucinating, because the face looked so strange, like that of a scarecrow.  His confused brain tried to make sense of what he was seeing, and he finally realized that the other person wore a mask, which might explain why he or she didn’t seem to be all that bothered by the smoke.

“Who are you?” Dev ground out, his voice so low he could barely hear it.

“Ah, but we’ll have time for introductions later,” the voice said, each word like a caress.  The sound made him want to shudder, but he didn’t have the energy for it.  It wasn’t a voice he recognized and, besides that, it was accented, so he knew it wasn’t anyone from his realm or from Jess’s. 

“You’re from Moritan.”

“My, aren’t we a clever prince?”

“That would explain why you reek of sheep.”

Another pair of footsteps appeared, and Dev caught his breath as someone struck him across the face.  His head snapped back and he bit his tongue forcefully enough to make it bleed.  The tenuous hold he had on consciousness began to slip away.

“Enough,” growled the first voice he’d heard.  “We need him alive.”

“He’d be just as good to us dead,” a guttural voice responded.  Was it the man who’d struck him?

“No, you idiot, he would not.  The only way to lure Jessmyn to us is by using him as bait.  If he’s dead, she’ll attack, and we’ll never get close enough to get to her.”

“My apologies, greatness.”

Fear bolted through Dev, jolting him so strongly that it woke him from his stupor.  All fatigue forgotten, he lashed out at his two attackers, his swings wild.  His fist struck something solid, and he heard a grunt and a thud as the guttural-voice man dropped next to him.

“Subdue him,” the first voice ordered, and now Dev realized it was a woman.

His flailing took on a new desperation as two more pairs of feet approached.  Who would want to harm Jessmyn?  As far as he knew, her realm was on good terms with Moritan.  Moreover, it was not at all like King Mallaric to commit an act of such dishonorable subterfuge, and Dev knew Mallaric valued honor above all else.  No, if Mallaric felt any ill will toward King Amin and Queen Farah, he would make it plain.

Desperate, Dev tried shouting, but his voice failed once again.  The other two assailants descended upon him and, though he fought savagely, using his fists, feet, and teeth, he was simply too weak to beat them off.  They pinned him to the floor and he sucked in great gulps of air that seemed only to make him breathe more deeply, as if what flowed in wasn’t sufficient to feed his lungs.  The black borders of his vision filled more rapidly and he was lost, his lips unconsciously forming Jessmyn’s name.

Woo Hoo Wednesday: I'm obsessed with coffee

It's time for Woo Hoo Wednesday, the weekly (well, usually) event where I take a few minutes to share some thoughts about the little joys in life.

Last week, our toaster oven died, so I made a journey to Bed, Bath, & Beyond to get us a plain old toaster.  It turns out that 4-slot toasters are way fancier and a little pricier than I'd expected, but I eat toast nearly every morning, so a new toaster was a necessity.  Anyway, after finally settling on a new toaster, I also stumbled on the Aerolatte.  I'd seen it a few times and thought about buying it, and because I was there with coupons in hand, I decided to get myself one.  I've used it several times now and I love it.  Using my Keurig, I can make myself a coffee, heat some milk in the microwave, froth it up with the Aerolatte, and I have myself a delicious coffee treat.  Yes, it's the simple things in life that please me.  Woo hoo for Aerolatte!

Another woo hoo because I finally figured out how to use the birthday reward that had been loaded onto my Starbucks gold card.  Not that it's complicated, but I'd assumed it would just automatically come up when I paid with the card.  Actually, you have to tell the barista that you want to use it.  Yesterday, I had a nice Peppermint Mocha Frappuccino and it was free.  Free is always my favorite kind.

Are you sensing a theme here?  I sure do like my coffee, don't I?

I'll throw in a woo hoo for finding a TV show I love.  I'm way late to the party, but my hubby and I started Netflixing Bones and we're totally hooked.  We don't watch a whole ton of TV because we're pretty picky, so we're always excited when we find something that we like.  The mysteries on Bones aren't always all that difficult to figure out, but I absolutely love the quirky characters, especially Temperance.  Characters are always king for me, and I think that tends to come out in my writing.

Lastly, a woo hoo for my being close to finishing NaNoWriMo.  I've been stressing about it a lot because I know some people really enjoyed The Eye of the Beholder (yes, I do read reviews--they help me see my writing in a different light and give me some really invaluable ideas about areas to focus on for improvement), so I really want them to like this book.  I mean, I want everyone to like it, of course, but I want to feel like I'm really writing something great for those who buy another of my books, putting their faith in me to deliver a good read.  Writing Asleep is a very different experience because of this.  Before publishing, I wrote books that I thought worked, but now I want to be sure I'm trying my best to give my audience what they like and want out of my books.  I've always been a perfectionist, but now I'm exerting another form of pressure on myself, and it's very eye-opening.

Well, that's that for me this week.  Hope you're all having a lovely week and having lots of moments that make you want to shout, "Woo hoo!"

Monday Musings: My characters have a life of their own

This NaNoWriMo, I'm noticing the same phenomenon I noticed during last year's NaNoWriMo: my vision for what the story would look like and the way the story began to take shape aren't necessarily the same thing.  This is something I think most writers can identify with.  Usually, I don't consciously realize a story would work better if I did it a bit differently.  For me, it tends to be more unconscious.  I'll write something, read it, and think, "Oh, that does make more sense, doesn't it?"

I think a big part of my anxiety over this project comes from the fact that The Eye of the Beholder has been a lot more successful than I'd imagined it would be.  I'm thrilled I've found an audience, and I am very grateful for my readers.  However, I'm also aware that having this audience may lead to expectations.  When I wrote just for myself without ever knowing if anyone else would really read it, I didn't worry too much about the turns my stories took.  I just let my characters do their thing while taking me along for the ride.  But now I'm afraid that if I deviate a lot from the style I used in The Eye, I may let my readers down.

I didn't feel this same level of anxiety with Contributor or with Phoning It In, because they were different.  I'm interested in a lot of genres, and I knew some of my readers might like one genre in which I write but not another, and that's perfectly understandable.  It also frees me from having to worry about expectations, because I've already set up the expectation that what's coming is going to be different from what's already out there.

However, Asleep is meant to be my second in the Fairytale Collection, and it's shaping up to be a different book from The Eye.  The Eye was my take, but it was still pretty much a straight up retelling of the beauty and the beast story.  My inspiration for Asleep is the sleeping beauty story, but the tale I'm telling is far, far different from the Disney version.  There are elements I've straight up left out--the fairies--and elements that I've inverted--the princess being the rescuer while the prince is the rescuee.  So, while Asleep is also inspired by a fairytale, it doesn't stick as closely to the fairytale as The Eye did.

The major difference between this year and last is this: I'm having trouble letting go.  When Contributor started to turn out a lot differently than I'd anticipated, I went with it and was happy with the result.  I'm more nervous about Asleep because I've got something out there for it to be measured against.  At the end of the day, I need to be faithful to the characters and the way the story wants to progress.  I think any writer will say that if you fight this and try to make the story fit your original vision, the end result will be something that's not worth reading.

I'm gaining a new perspective on being an author with at least one published book.  When I first plunged into the world of publishing, I worried what my readers would think when they compared my work to that of other authors.  Now, I worry more about what my readers will think when they compare my previous novels to my newer ones.

Feature Fridays: Taking a flying leap

I'm making serious headway with Asleep, having hit the 25k mark today.  While I'm officially halfway done with NaNoWriMo, it will take more than 50k words to wrap up this story.

When it comes to the writing itself, there are portions I'm loving and other portions that rouse the vicious self-doubt monster.  There's nothing worse than trying to keep yourself going when that mocking little voice in your head says, "This stinks!  You think you're a writer?"

At any rate, I'm avoiding reading the bulk of the work because my NaNoWriMo motto can basically be boiled down to this: Just Keep Going.  No matter what happens, no matter how many typos I know I've made, no matter how much I hate the particular section I'm writing, Just Keep Going.

As with last week, this is completely raw, so there are likely some typos and random weirdness that may make little sense.  Consider yourself forewarned! ;)

*****

As the world went black, Jess’s face once more appeared to him, but this time she was around ten years old, and her eyes flashed in challenge.  Tanvir lurked nearby, but he’d already been disqualified from this particular challenge, due to his age.

“Your age must have two digits; otherwise, you’re too much of a baby to participate,” Jess told him loftily.  “Shall I explain that to you?”

“I know what two digits means!” Tanvir squeaked, his seven-year-old voice high with indignation.

“Watch and learn, children,” Dev’s cocky, twelve-year-old self called out.

“Dev, I don’t know if this is a good idea.  That tree is really high, and if you jump—” Tanvir protested.

“Keep your lessons to yourself,” Dev instructed, rolling his eyes.  “I’m not your tutor, so you won’t score any bonus points with me for cleverness.”

“Well, you’re certainly good at earning high marks for stupidity,” Tanvir snapped back.

“Or are you just trying to conceal the fact that your brother is more courageous than you?” Jess challenged.

“You’re both stupid, and I’ll have no part of this.”  Tanvir stamped his foot and ran off, heading back toward the castle.

“If you’re going to do it, best do it now, before your brother has a chance to tattle,” Jess said.

“Right you are.” 

Extending his arms in the air, fingers pointed, as he’d once seen an acrobat do, Dev launched himself from the branch on which he’d perched, feelings a rush of exhilaration as he flew through the air.  His confidence was high, his fingers steady.  There was no doubt in his mind that he’d catch the next branch, and so it came as a very rude surprise when only the tips of his fingers smacked into the branch, and he felt his hands clawing futilely at the air.

As he plummeted toward the earth, he heard Jess’s scream of horror and he couldn’t help but smile at the knowledge that he had managed to ruffle the seemingly unflappable princess.  His body striking the ground wiped the smile right off his face.  Fortunately for him, he landed rear first, which cushioned the impact.  Still, he fell back, his head striking the ground, causing his teeth to snap together.  Blood and grit filled his mouth and he felt dizzy.

“Dev!  Dev!  Are you okay?” Jess cried, suddenly appearing at his side.

Disoriented, he looked up at her and gave her a smile, some blood dribbling out of the corner of his mouth.  “Are you an angel?” he asked, before he lost consciousness.

There was no forgetting the aftermath of that little episode.  It had caused some tension between King Amin and King Adar, both of whom knew they had impetuous and sometimes foolhardy children, but who both, in their distress, wanted to blame the other.  Dev had earned a sever concussion for his trouble, and he spent days in bed while he recovered, his head pounding, vision swimming all the while.  The boredom was almost more of a torment than the physical pain.  Eventually, his mother’s fears that he had permanently addled his brain were laid to rest, but there was no repairing the chip to the tooth on the top right side of his mouth.  As it was right next to his front tooth, it became a prominent part of his smile.  The truth was, he would have leapt from that branch again, because he had never forgotten how lovely Jess looked as she hovered over him, fearful for his well-being.

Monday Musings: My head is cluttered

This month, I feel like I have this nonstop shot of adrenaline coursing through my veins.  There's just so much going on, and it's tough to keep up with it.

My biggest source of anxiety is the fact that I'm juggling two novels right now.  While I'm very anxious to get Phoning It In out, it was also important to me to participate in NaNoWriMo this year, so Phoning has been shelved for the time being.  I will get it out by the end of the year, though, and I have a cover all ready to go.  I'm itching to do a cover reveal, so it's now just a question of deciding when, exactly to do that.  Feedback and suggestions on that front are very welcome!

As for NaNoWriMo, the manuscript is coming along nicely.  I made it over the 10k mark today, so I'm very pleased with my progress.  I set a goal of 3,500 words per day, five days a week.  Trying to write every day really stressed me out last year, and I've noticed that, lately, I get a bit twitchy when I don't write.  The problem with trying to make a career of being an author is I find it hard to just relax and unplug at times.  I always feel like I should be doing more work, so I'm making a conscious effort to treat this like a regular job, with certain hours being "work" hours while other hours are exclusively for family time, including weekends.  This does ease things for me.

That aside, I'm having a lot of fun with Asleep, though it is hard to drown out my inner editor at times.  I usually have a lot of anxiety when I write my first drafts, and I tend to think a lot of what I've written is bad.  This is why NaNoWriMo has been so invaluable to me.  It's taught me to push past those moments, get the words down, and then go back and polish things up later, and I think my writing is the better for it.  It's not always an easy thing to do, but it has definitely made me a much more productive writer. 

What's been really great about NaNo so far is feeling these characters come alive.  I had a pretty vague idea of what they would be like, and did a bit of planning the last few days of October, but I admit I'm mostly pantsing this one, and I'm really happy with the way things are working out.  I'm also developing a bit of a crush on my male lead, so hopefully I won't be the only one who finds him loveable!

I'm very excited to announce that, this Thursday, I'll have my very first post on YA Indie.  If you haven't taken a look at the blog yet, be sure to stop by.  A great variety of authors participates, and the blog features lots of great posts. 

That's it for me for now.  Stay tuned for details on the Phoning It In cover reveal, as well as details about a late November promo that's in the works.  I'm really excited about it as it'll not only help me reach out to a broader audience, it'll help introduce my readers to some other amazing authors.  Happy Monday!

Feature Fridays: First look at Asleep

It's day two of NaNoWriMo, and I've got 7,163 words under my belt, so I'm feeling pretty good about that!  My project for this month is Asleep, the second installment in my Fairytale Collection.  Asleep is my reboot of the sleeping beauty tale and, while I was looking forward to writing it, it's proven even more fun than I thought.

Today, I had some struggles with my inner editor, but I managed to beat her into submission.  The rules of NaNoWriMo state that there is to be no editing, so the excerpt I'm posting here is raw, uncut, and likely has a few typos--don't worry, they'll be fixed after NaNoWriMo, when I can edit to my heart's content.  This excerpt is from the very beginning of the book.  I can't guarantee it'll stay like this once I get down to editing, but this should give you a feel for the book.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

*****

I don’t have time for this.  I have drills to run, that supply issue needs to be resolved…  I wonder if security is tight enough.  I hope my father didn’t entrust it to that buffoon Wynart.  Surely he closed that gap in the north tower by now?

Jessmyn tugged impatiently at her gown.  She had to admit, it was stunningly beautiful, but she’d have preferred to be in her plate at the moment.  It was one of life’s great mysteries how a gown of satins and lace could feel more confining than a sixty pounds of armor.  She’d have to keep that question in mind for the next time her seamstress asked her what sort of gown she would like, so that she could instruct the woman to fashion her something a little less encrusted with pearls and small jewels, one that would allow for greater freedom of movement.

When Jess was truthful with herself, she knew the weight of her gown had nothing to do with the disquiet state of her mind.  It was nerves that were eating her alive.  Though royal protocol was old hat to Jess, she had never before been a part of something so monumentally important to her realm—nor had she ever experienced anything of greater personal importance.

Forcing herself to stand still, Jess closed her eyes and thought of Dev, tried to imagine how he was feeling at this moment, how he looked.  A small smiled played about her lips as she imagined him, though she also felt a sense of exasperation.  No doubt he was handling it all much better than she was.  He was probably busy cracking jokes with his attendants, making them roar with laughter.  At this image, her smiled widened and she opened her eyes, feeling somewhat settled at last.  Dev always had that effect on her.  It was part of what made him so essential to her life.

Still, she knew his jovial exterior likely hid just as many nerves as she felt.  For all Dev looked as if he hadn’t a care in the world, he felt things very deeply, even if others weren’t always aware of this fact.  He could not have captured Jess’s heart as it had were it otherwise.  This was both good and bad.  While Jess had to admit that she enjoyed knowing she understood this hidden part of Dev, it had also caused him some pain due to the blithe unawareness of others.

“Are you ready, your highness?” Lady Lilia Vindar asked.  Shyly, she glanced up at Jess, searching the princess’s face.  Jess could tell from the look in Vindar’s eyes that she was caught up in the romance of the occasion, and it made Jess smile.  Lilia always did love a good fairytale.

“I am,” Jess confirmed.

Lilia and the two other ladies in attendance dropped low curtsies and then took their positions behind the princess.  Jess squared her shoulders, tilted her head slightly back, and began her slow procession out to the main hall.

The crowd was noisy, boisterous and jubilant because of the celebration.  Music and voices competed with one another, creating a blend that somehow still managed to please the ear.  It was impossible to distinguish any conversation from this distance, but Jess could still hear tones that we somewhat unfamiliar to her ear, evidence of the attendance of the mighty and influential of the other realms.  This was the biggest celebration in the history of the Five Realms, and it was this more than anything that made Jess nervous.  Having so many important people in any one place was always an enormous security risk and, despite herself, she found her eyes darting around as she walked, looking for evidence of guards.  It didn’t matter that she had trained most of them herself; she could not help but feel anxious about the possibility of some sort of disturbance.

“There are twenty guards in this hallway alone,” her father said, coming to stand at her side and speaking in a low tones, so only she would be able to hear.  He had been waiting down the opposite corridor, and she had been so distracted, she had noticed neither his approach or the that he was watching her.

Some martial master I am!  I don’t even notice when my own father and his ten attendants approach!

Looking at her with some exasperation, as if he could guess what was going on inside her head, her father shook his head.  “My beloved Jess, can you not relax, just for one day?  This is a day meant for you, and for Dev.”

Woo Hoo Wednesday: True heroes

It's that time of the week, where I take some time to celebrate the small things that make life awesome.  So what made you want to say "Woo Hoo!" this week?

First off, my readers have once again made me shout WOO HOO!  After a slow start to the month, I had a couple of crazy, amazing days where my sales rose high enough for me to be in the top 100 in my subcategories.  As of today, I have now had my best month ever for sales of The Eye of the Beholder.  I want to sincerely, sincerely thank each and every person who has read the book, because you're making my dreams come true--really!  Because of you, I feel I can actually make a job out of my true passion in life, and there really aren't words to express how happy that makes me.

My second woo hoo goes out to NaNoWriMo.  I haven't taken as many days to prepare for it as I would have liked, because I've been so busy with edits to Phoning It In, which I want to have out by the end of this year.  However, I've had a LOT of fun over the last two days making plans for Asleep--and I do mean a LOT of fun.  I can hardly wait until tomorrow, so I can finally start doing some actual writing!  Because The Eye of the Beholder is doing so well, I was inspired to take on another fairy tale reboot for NaNoWriMo, and I can hardly wait to start sharing samples of it with all of you.  My readers ROCK!

However, all of this pales in contrast to the real news of the week, which is Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath.  My heart goes out to all those who have lost loved ones, and all those struggling to rebuild and get their lives back in order.  It's inadequate to say a woo hoo for those courageous first responders who have been rescuing people trapped by the flooding, who have been evacuating hospitals, who have been protecting citizens.  These people put their lives on the line every day for the greater good, and I can't imagine a more heroic thing to do.  If you ask me, our culture has a tendency to make heroes out of the wrong people.  My heroes are those doctors, nurses, police officers, fire fighters, EMTs, and Coast Guard personnel who put themselves at risk to help the rest of us.  Thank you so much for your service.  You have proven to us time and time again that your courage is unshakeable, even in the face of terrifying disasters.

If you're able, please join me in donating to the Red Cross here.  Monetary donations are so important, because they give the Red Cross the funds they need to buy supplies necessary to provide disaster relief.  You can also help by donating blood, and more information on that can be found here.  And another big woo hoo and thanks goes out to the Red Cross relief workers who go into disaster zones to help those affected.

Monday Musings: My mind is a playground

Ever since I was a kid, I've loved roaming around in my imagination.  It has always been my favorite playground.  And what's awesome about my life now is that my job is to wander around my imagination and see what I can find in it.  There are days when I honestly have to drag myself away from the keyboard, lest I end up with a serious Vitamin D deficiency due to lack of sunlight.

Today is one of those days where I'm having tons and tons of fun frolicking through my imagination.  As some of you know, NaNoWriMo is coming up (and if you don't know what that is, check out the link!), and you may also know I'm planning on working on another Elizabeth Darcy/Fairytale Collection book during November.   Today, I started laying some of the groundwork for that novel.  I didn't write any of the novel yet--that would be cheating, and cheating makes puppies cry, something to which I am vehemently opposed!  But I did start working on character and setting sketches.

So far, I've sketched out my main male and female characters, and I'm just going to come out and admit it: I'm already kind of in love with my male protagonist.  I'm also very happy with the way my female protagonist is shaping up.  I spent some quality time with Scrivener, using their nifty character sketch sheets to help me get a picture of what each of them will be like.  I'd already been working on my female character in my ol' brain, but I now feel like I have a much better idea of what makes her tick, and what her relationship with the male protagonist looks like.

From there, I started working on setting sketches, and that was so much fun!  The place templates in Scrivener really got my ol' imagination working.  I got to imagine what the settings looked like, what made them special and distinctive, and that inevitably led to me picturing lots of castles and beautiful vistas and other fun things. 

Basically, what I'm saying is, I was in nerdtopia today.

My writing style has always been distinctively pantser, but it only took me one attempt at NaNo to realize I needed a little focus or I risk ending up with a stream-of-consciousness mess that looks nothing like a manuscript--and that's exactly what I had at the end of NaNo 2010.  Last year, I started out by doing some background world building before I ever typed a word, and it made the writing flow a lot more smoothly.  The product of NaNo 2011 was Contributor, and I have lots of fond memories of drinking copious amounts of coffee while pounding that story out.

During the month of November, my blog will become something of a NaNo journal, complete with excerpts from the work in progress, which I'll post on Feature Fridays.  You'll get a first peek at the uncut version of Asleep, my reimagining of the sleeping beauty tale.  If you're planning on tackling NaNo this year and want a writing buddy to urge you on, feel free to add NCiacchella.  Good luck and happy writing/reading!