WordPlay

Oh, a Wild Thing snippet! I had such a good time with this one–short and fast, and since I had already written the first two Sentinel books before tackling this prequel (prequelette?), it was vast fun to write. I already knew all the gleeful little details!
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Watch her, Nick Carter had told Mark Burton, and sent Mark into the night after Tayla Garrett—into the sporadically lit Phoenix park she patrolled this night. Watch her patrol, watch her stalk the night greenways—a little sideways jog to avoid a loose dog, so casual and then all her attention back on the night, on the people within the park and only Mark’s excellent warding keeping him from her scrutiny.

Watch her. As if Mark had been doing anything but watching Tayla Garrett since his recent reassignment had them crossing paths in Sentinel field activity. Not to mention in the Phoenix brevis regional office, in the hallways…in the damned security lot where she sometimes parked a scooter and sometimes parked a bike. But she’d made it clear enough she still—after all this time—preferred to keep her distance, and he’d reluctantly, achingly, respected her wishes. In spite of the restlessness, the aching, and the tendency to offer her name at intensely inappropriate moments in his personal life.

Not that he’d expected to see that particular date again, anyway.

She’d always done that to him. As an awkward fourteen-year-old, growing into impossibly long legs, learning to hide her natural speed from the world and to finesse her cheetah shift, while Mark, a much more mature and worldly eighteen year old, learned that he was indeed human-bound in shape, regardless of his parentage and obvious peripheral shifter skills—the physical prowess, the tracking skills, the prescience…

She runs the Phoenix city parks at night…

posted on Wednesday

And look! It’s another snippet!

Rounding out the first chapter of Sentinels: Wolf Hunt….

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A nudge of her long muzzle and refined nose brought Nick’s head down; she commenced to cleaning his face–his eyes, his strong cheeks, his ears. The submission of an alpha to a wolf-bitch of his choosing.

Or maybe that had just come from within, after all.

posted on Friday

It’s simple, really.  I know people try to make it complicated, but it’s not.

If you want the books–the high caliber submitted-chosen- edited-professional books–to exist in the first place, you’ve got to contribute to the writers who create them and the publishers who put them out there.

That means buying the books, not taking stolen freebies off the ‘net.

Oh, everyone’s got their reasons for taking.  Some are philosophical, some are tangled with the frustration of the floundering emarket as it tries to find good working business models, some are pure entitlement.  Some have no thought behind them at all, but just want.

The thing is, those reasons don’t matter.

The bottom line for me is the same.  You’re stealing from me.  You’re making it harder for me to buy food while I write the next book.  You’re enjoying (I hope) the fruits of my labor without offering anything in return.

The bottom line for you is the same, too.  You’re making it harder for this business to find its way through a world of changing technologies.  You’re narrowing what the publishers can afford to offer you.  You’re pushing authors out of the business and putting publishers closer to the edge.

Do you think  it doesn’t matter, in these days when publisher/retailer/device provider squabbles are big news?  When new authors/new series have no leeway to build an audience, but must perform out of the blocks?  When established series stutter and die, already tangled in distribution and warehousing issues?  You’re wrong.  It matters.

You matter.

You may not care.  You may say, “Hey, throw the ‘net open to whoever wants to put their work out there!  That’s the way it should be, and then we can read it all!”

But hey…are you paying attention?

Because I am.  And I’m more than just a writer, I’m a reader.  I’m as greedy as any thief, in my way.  I want more than any old book–I want good books!  I want to see my favorite authors survive and thrive and have the chance to write what their heart tells them to write.

Because you see, whether or not my own work is published, I’ll always write.  You can’t take that away from me.  But my opportunity to read the kind of amazing work that’s produced by stable publishers supporting the mature brilliance of a writer so driven that s/he’ll do this work with the discipline it takes to reliably turn out a book worth savoring?  That, you can mess with.  That, you have messed with.

Oh, yes.  You matter.

Please stop stealing my books.

The Friday Post

Look!  I’m a product!

Sort of.

And hey, not only am I a product, I have a monopoly on me. Oh, the shame!

I never expected it. Truly. I thought I could just write my books. And before the Internets, there was even some truth to that. But now, with the Internets in full swing and a beloved new book on the shelves, I’m doing things I haven’t considered before.

Never mind the postcards (which I adore making and then use for bookmarks my own self) or the book signings (which I now do rarely since the year of I don’t think so that included being denied the use of the bathroom and, at a different store, being searched.  You know,  in case I had shoplifted books while I was signing.)

No, this year it’s the RECKONERS  book trailer.  And now, it seems, I have a tag line.

Me!  Imagine!

It wasn’t something I planned. I’ve got a thing going over at Fresh Fiction (wavewave to Fresh Fiction)–a couple of contests and some ad banners. One of their suggestions was for an author brand banner. In another area, they asked for author info…including a tag line.

Author brand. Tag line.

Uh wuh?

So one afternoon while I was so very happily playing with graphic goodies to create that there banner, I ran head long into the notion of these things, and I thought, what’s my tag line, then?

And my muse said, “For paranormal romance, your tag line is this:

“Finding the Other; Facing the Other…Loving the Other”

And I said, “Are you sure? That came pretty fast.  I’ll think of something else. Something way better. Something way more clever.”

And then I didn’t.

So my muse said, “I told you so.”

At which point I threw my hands up and said, “If people laugh at us, it’s all your fault.”

So for what’s it’s worth, there it is.  (Hey, I dare you.  Tag line your work…see what you come up with!)  And if you laugh…talk to the muse. She has a monopoly on me, too!

Also:  Total Bonus Piccie of Miss Belle, Picturesque
(Cheysuli’s Silver Belle, CD RE PAX MXP4 MJP3 OFP EAC EJC CGC)

The Monday Post

This is the second Monday in the new home!

On this Monday, the office is in minimal working condition–no stereo yet, boxes on floor diminished but present, no pictures hung.  Internet access still relies on ArroyoNet, a remarkably stable WIRELESS WIZARD WIN! as long as a certain wireless phone at the broadcast end isn’t being used.

On this Monday, Duncan Horse is one step closer to his first ride in his new place–the modest north flat now clear of machinery and introduced on a nice walk-in-hand.  He has also observed his large donkey neighbors up the road with much indignant strutting of his studly stuff, to which the donkeys said, “Got it, you’re a horse, yada yada yada.”

There is still a lot of mud.  Much of it is now on Duncan.

On this particular Monday, I get to start the week knowing that over the weekend, I not only unpacked things, drove out new routes to old places from this totally opposite approach to the city, beat up on non-functioning new appliances (marginal success, sigh), spread shavings and straw over the aforementioned mud,  and cleared the garage of some freecycle items, but I slammed through a huge chunk of the second pass through Demon Blade (the next Nocturne novel) and wuh!  Finished it!

The last couple of previous books, I worked second pass on directly on the computer…logistics made it more viable.  But this one hit hardcopy early, and it went everywhere with me.  To doctor’s offices, where long waits ensured work time.  To the vet’s–yes, even to the doggy ER on New Year’s Eve while I was waiting for the vet to return with ConneryBeagle’s x-rays.  On the road between the old house and the new, every time we drove over to check on progress, plan out the fence line, or try, once more, to figure out where the little barn would fit.  If I went, the battered manuscript pages went, too.

It’s been a busy and well-traveled book, yes it has.  Me, my customized clipboard, my stack of papers, and my Energel pens.  Purple or green, please.

Tomorrow I start putting changes into the laptop, and then it’s time to make sure all the threads hold together and all the little rough spots are polished.  And then I get to call it a BOOK!

I am almost inspired to cackle with glee.

(Ha!  Maybe I even did it!  You’ll never know!)

What’re you cackling about this week, out there?

ConneryBeagle Crate Countdown: THREE DAYS!!!

PS: WordPress spellchecker suggestion for “ConneryBeagle” = “anaerobically.”

reposted from Harlequin’s Paranormal Romance Blog

Ooh, boy. Wolves. Best shapeshifter fun ever, right? And here I am with not one, but two of them!

And the best part about that (because it gets better, at least for the writing!) is, they’re coming from separate worlds.

Nick Carter is one of my Sentinels. He hails from Brevis Southwest–well, that’s putting it mildly. He pretty much runs Brevis Southwest, even though technically he doesn’t hold that position. But the fellow who does, the Brevis Consul, hasn’t been truly paying attention for a while now. He’d notice if he thought Nick was stepping into his shoes out of turn, of course…hoo boy, yes. Snort and bother, you can imagine.

This leaves Nick in a bit of a dicey situation–protecting his people without giving away the game. And all while there are darker things afoot. If you saw the first two Sentinel books, you already know that the field Sentinels have been tripping up over inexplicable little drop-outs in communication and loss of backup. In fact, one could say that I’ve made life very difficult for certain characters. (And, that because I’m evil, I enjoyed every moment of it.)

When it comes to shapeshifters, Sentinels make up Nick’s world–it’s what he knows. So maybe it’s understandable that when he meets Jet, he believes her to be one of his own. In most important ways, she in fact is. But in another, truly crucial way…she is nothing the same at all. She comes from a different world; different understandings. Different foundations behind her decisions, her reactions, and what drives her life. Different beings.

So here’s Nick–a man driven to excel, and driven to responsibility, and driven in so many ways to hide what he is. I won’t use the word “repressed.” I think that’s so ugly, don’t you? Besides, he’s not, really. Just ask Marlee Cerrosa, who works IT at the Tucson Brevis HQ and whose hair stands on end every time Nick walks into the room. (If you want to talk repressed, though, we could take a good look at Marlee…)

No, Nick’s just got priorities. Hiding who he is, that’s one of them. It has to be–if he didn’t make some effort to do it, the otherness of his nature would draw far too much attention. If he hadn’t learned to think of Brevis first–his people first–he wouldn’t have kept the region intact in spite of the constant nibble of damage coming from within the system.

Then again, there’s such a thing as going too far.

But ahhh…Jet. Jet doesn’t question who she is. She doesn’t try to hide it. She doesn’t second-guess her instincts. There’s so much about the situation she now faces that she doesn’t understand, but she doesn’t fret about what she doesn’t know or what she can’t change. Jet is a woman driven to survive–and so very well-equipped to do just that. And Jet is a woman who knows what–and who–she wants.

And the thing they have most in common? That would be each other. Whether they know it or not.

Okay, that was the best shapeshifter fun ever.

PS Also, please to notice, best dramatic paranormal guy cover pose double ever.

Today I am all about the Fiendish.

*pause to go practice this face in front of the mirror*

Caught in earlier fiendishness, with Beagle looking over my shoulder…

Because the book is rockin’ and rollin’ on toward the BIG FINISH, and that means my muse is turned loose on my characters, and boy have I learned…it’s really best to give her just what she wants.

And what she wants is to explore the best in people, by seeing how they overcome the worst.  I know that’s not why everyone writes, and it’s not why every reads (it’s not always why I read or write, either, but it very often is).  But for this book, this moment…that’s where it’s at.

(Okay, plus the muse thinks the magic bits are really cool.)

What that means exactly for Devin and Natalie in Demon Blade isn’t quite clear yet, because I tend to discover these details as I go along.  I know the bad guy has them in a very difficult spot.  (Mwah ha ha!!)  I know he’s a very, very bad man indeed.  And I know that in order for them to get out of it, they’re going to have to overcome their personal demons…and to accept some unexpected consequences.

But in the meantime, my muse is rubbing her hands together in a rather wicked glee.  And Devin and Natalie are in for indeed, a difficult afternoon.

Did I say Mwah ha ha! yet?

First posted: Harlequin’s Paranormal Romance Blog, May ’09

Ending at the Beginning…. I had no awareness I was doing it that way, or I’m sure it wouldn’t have happened at all. I would have done it the sensible way, you know. In order. And what a treat I would have missed out on!

I contracted for the first Sentinel book (Jaguar Night, this May) before the Bites were even launched…and for the second two before I then had the chance to pitch for my own Bites idea. So I’d written all three books before I sat down to write the novella, Wild Thing, that would introduce that world to readers.

I’d expected to slip in some world-building as a matter of course–each of these works stands on its own. I think it’s more fun if you read them in order–there’s a quiet, three-book story arc in the background, for one thing–and more fun if you read them all, but if you read them totally backwards, that’s okay. If you read one and not the others, that works, too. So that means each of the books has enough world-building to stand there on its own, and doing it for the novella was a familiar feeling.

It’s the same with the characters. Although each book has its own starring relationship, there are supporting characters who play a role in all three books–and of course there are glimpses of the couples we’ve seen along the way. Especially in Wolf Hunt, when the characters from Jaguar Night and Lion Heart find their way back into the active plot (and oh, how fun was that!). So I was used to introducing them…summing them up, letting them find a spot or two in which to place their own unique stamp of presence.

So what was different?

Usually, when I’m kicking off a series, I’m discovering all these things for myself. I’m stopping to ponder the supporting characters,and at that point I don’t always know how they’ll be involved along the way. (Even with outlines, I do a lot of my writing by the seat-of-the-pants method. Sometimes, one might say, in spite of outlines.) And when a supporting character goes full-form during the course of a book and ends up playing a significant part, then I go back and retrofit him or her into the book. In this case, with the trilogy, characters developed over the course of the series. The Sentinel team member mentioned in passing in the last third of Book One was, by Book Three, endowed with a name and hints at a backstory.

So the unusual luxury in writing Wild Thing was…I knew all that! For all of them! And although I do hope very much to write more Sentinel books, the first three-book story arc is complete, all its nuances and participating characters established…and yet there I was, back at the start. And it meant two things:

I didn’t have to pause the writing to make up the details.

But oops…I didn’t have my usual freedom to make up the details.

So this was me in the writing:

“Wheee! Oops (delete)… Wheeee! Oops (delete)… *gigglegigglegiggle*”

It’s good to have dignity.

A big part of me is tempted to change my ways…to plan so thoroughly, so completely, that I can hit every single book at whee-speed ahead. But reality strikes…I’ve had complete and detailed outlines before. I make it up as I go along regardless, following the outline as one might follow a parallel but separate road. That’s part of the spark and joy of the writing–discovering it all. In this case, knowing what I already knew left me free to devote that element of discovery entirely to Mark and Tayla and their realization that what they thought they knew about each other…

Well, wasn’t.

Wheee!

Mark and Tayla now inform me that they deserve their own full-length book. And those supporting characters I mentioned? I’ve already had requests for one of Jaguar Night‘s Sentinels to have more air time…it makes an impression! That’s where readers come in…what do you think? Do you have favorites? And once you’ve read a novella about a couple, do you think there’s still more story to explore? Inquiring minds want to know.

After all, the whee awaits!