I had so much fun at ORACon over the weekend. Seriously. Here is my top-ten list of my favorite parts of the experience.
10. The drive. The scenery on the drive was beautiful with Fall getting ready to set in. At one point, I was driving through the countryside during the golden hour. The trees were just gorgeous.
9. The mystical. As I was getting onto the first highway, a hawk flew in front of my car, chasing something Continue reading “Top Ten Things I Loved About ORACon”
What the what?! A double-post day? There’s just SO MUCH GOING ON! Look what I found available for pre-order on Amazon.com:
I also discovered that the release date for Gray Card is earlier than I anticipated—October 6! I know a few people who will be very happy to hear that their wait is several weeks shorter 😀
I’m stunned that it’s already out there. Oh, my beloved not-so-secret, definitely super scifi erotica novella, I hope you do well in the world!
Speaking of books doing well, it’s awesome that Wandering Soul has stayed above the 1 million mark in the Amazon Best Sellers Rank since it became available for pre-order on March 24. At least, I think that means it’s doing well. I haven’t really figured out what the Amazon Best Sellers Rank means yet. Wandering Soul has been out there for over two months, so this seems like a good thing.
I hope everyone who pre-ordered Wandering Soul enjoys the book! And for those of you looking for a little lot of hot alien action, check out Gray Card!
It has been surreal to think about the events of Wandering Soul taking place each day as I’m living my normal life.
Walking through the grocery store, I’m picturing Elsa and Dante in Florida. They would be eating breakfast at about that time. Are they having pancakes? Cereal? I didn’t write that moment, so I don’t know for sure.
My awareness is stretched across two worlds—the real one, where I need to gas up the car and cook for my family—and the one I’ve created, where time travel is a given and love is the miracle.
It’s amazing.
I try to be careful about keeping track of when things occur in my stories. This is especially important when writing series with books that contain overlapping events. Wandering Soul is actually the first of three books that will hopefully mark the beginning of such a series. The next two occur over the same three-day span (I pack a lot into those three days). And it all takes place this year—in 2015!
To make sure I had everything straight during edits (and while writing the second book—which is already submitted *fingers crossed*—and plotting out the third), I figured out when things happened and wrote them down in my actual yearly planner. My system for separating my real life and the lives of these characters is simple. Anything that’s a book event is in brackets (<>).
It is so cool to see things like, “<Dante’s Birthday>” and then flip a few pages and see “Real-person’s Birthday”. And I noticed something extra-special this week—the first event of Wandering Soul (you know, that whole, “pulled from certain death” part of the blurb) takes place this very Saturday!
I will absolutely need to do something to celebrate, even if it’s as simple as raising a glass of tea to Elsa and Dante and wishing them luck on their journey. Over the ensuing couple of weeks in their universe, they’ll certainly need it!
I’m not a fan of April Fool’s Day. I don’t like pranks and am always sure to let people know if I suspect they have shenanigans in mind. A particular birthday comes to mind where a friend decided to prank me incessantly even after I expressed my displeasure about it. That was the end for me. But I wasn’t always this way.
One of the more bizarre aspects of my childhood (which is saying something, because there are many to choose from) was that my mom decided to teach us how to use our toes to grasp and manipulate objects. She started when we were babies, holding toys against our fingers and our toes for us to practice gripping. She had read about doing this in a book. We kind of took the skill and ran with it 😉
We never were nearly as dextrous with our feet as with our hands, but being able to do a few things with our toes was actually useful sometimes. I still don’t have to stop and bend down to pick things up when I’m vacuuming–I can just grab whatever small item is in my way with my toes and hang onto it till I’m close to wherever I want to put it. I used to be able to write fairly legibly and could even draw rudimentary pictures with my toes. Oh right, and I used to perform scenes from Shakespeare with my feet puppet theatre-style, much to the delight of my family (I did say that my childhood was bizarre). I wrote a paper about it all in college called “POddity.” See what I did there? Pod + Oddity. Okay, moving on.
I haven’t always used my powers for the greater good, though. I used to primarily use it to mess with people.
In High School, I was sitting in a small study room with a guy I knew. He was doing homework and I was pretending to read. I always wore shoes I could easily slip on and off with no socks for just such an opportunity. He had his back to the only door and no one came in or out while we were studying. I slipped my feet from my shoes, stretched them across the floor, and untied his shoes…then tied his laces to his chair legs. The whole time, I would periodically turn pages in my book, so as not to raise his suspicions.
When he stood to go to the bathroom, his chair went with him. He looked at me like I was an alien and said, “How did you do that?!”
How indeed.
I gave him my most innocent look and said, “Do what?” We had a good laugh and went on with our day.
I’ve fallen out of practice and can’t do much more than pick up bulky things with my toes now. If I try to write or anything more involved, my metatarsals cramp up! Looking back, it’s just another blip in an eccentric life that has fed my imagination. But those memories… I’m definitely going to hold onto them. Get it? Hold? *ahem*
Happy April Fool’s Day.
I re-read my earlier post about not writing during edits, and realized that the word “editing” covers a wide variety of tasks for me. There’s the initial quick-edit of a piece after the first draft is done, just to get in those changes I don’t want to forget. I generally think of this as finishing up the first draft. Then there’s the first round of line-edits and whatever re-writes are necessary after it sits on the shelf for a few months (if my schedule allows for it). This is what I think of as the real editing – the intensive stage where I find it very hard to be writing something new. Then there’s the final polish before sending it out.
Now, I’m entering an entirely new stage of editing – working with an editor (Holly Atkinson!) on Wandering Soul! It is extremely exciting, and I can’t wait to learn more about this part of the writing and publishing process.
I’m also excited to be returning to the world of Wandering Soul and getting to spend more time with these characters that I love so much. The foundation is laid for both sequels, with plenty of back story written out (close to 20,000 words worth!). The outlines for the next two books are nearly complete. The books occur during the same time period, with events affecting both plot lines, so I need to be sure to get their continuity straight. The second book is speeding along, and I hope to have the first draft finished sometime in February.
Now I get to see how well I can jump back and forth between editing with Holly and writing a new piece. I’m keeping plenty of notes on the sequel in case I need to shelve it at any point during the editing process. No matter what I do and learn, I plan to have as much fun with these stories as I can. Wishing you all tons of fun with your stories and characters, too!
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