Duchess of Evil

 This is going to be a long post. I know it's been awhile, journal. I've been pretty busy. With what, you ask?

With this:



Yep. That is the print cover of my first published book. It is a novella, and it is, of course, the first publication in what will be known as my Telepathic Space Pirates series. You may remember it from my many posts and tags. It is currently up for pre-order on Amazon, here: 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BAC847M/

But this post isn't about telling you where the pre-order is. This post is about the journey it took me to get here. I know a lot of the old LJ gang isn't around anymore (on LJ or Dreamwidth), but I think a few still are. And I would be very remiss if I didn't post here and talk about how very instrumental your role has been in getting me here. When I joined LJ back in 2003, I was very active in fandom. I was writing fic and visiting forums and participating in chats with a lovely group of ladies who were also huge fans of the TV show, Alias. I started writing Sarkney fic before it was a thing (seriously - there was only one other writer at the time writing genuine Sark/Syd that didn't involve ugly rape-fic, and I wish she was still around to be reading this. Wherever you are, Rach, your stories gave me the confidence to write again.) This was during a period of my life when I had lost confidence in myself as a writer. I'd gone to a writing con, and a big time NY editor ripped my work to shreds in front of a room full of people. At the time, I thought I was okay. What was one woman's opinion? But I stared at a blinking cursor on my screen, and didn't write another word on that WIP. Ever. I didn't write another word of original fic for a very long time. Only discovering fandom and finding a safe place there allowed me to pick myself back up, dust myself off, and write again. I wrote, I posted, and people gave me instant feedback! They asked for more, they were positive and encouraging, and many of them became my friends. Without the confidence they gave me, I would not be here, looking at my book up for pre-order, looking at that gorgeous cover with my pen name on it. 

For a long time, Livejournal was the center of my writing world. Not just for fic writing, but for my own original work. I posted progress meters, snippets, and talked about what I was doing when I finally started writing my own stuff again. The agent who originally asked to see the full manuscript of my first draft of the first Telepathic Space Pirates book, did so because someone she knew had pointed her to my Livejournal, and told her "I think you would like this." Even though I journaled anonymously, when I queried her for something else entirely, she recognized me, and asked to see the full draft of Nemesis when it was finished. 

That was my first lesson in "you never know who is reading you online". A good lesson, thankfully. 

That book, the book that was Nemesis, will be going up for pre-order in March, and will launch in June. I already have a gorgeous cover that is so stunning, I cried when I saw it for the first time. It wouldn't be happening if not for Livejournal, if not for those fandom friends who supported me, encouraged me, cheered me on, acted as beta readers, told me I had what it takes, and were generally the best damn group of friends a girl could have. Maybe someday, some hopeful writer will be writing fanfic of my worlds, and won't that be a kick? Words will never express what this community has done for me. Even though most of us have moved on, I will never forget it, and I do not regret spending the money for a "lifetime" Livejournal account. At times as I wait out this pre-order period, I am happy, excited, so anxious I want to throw up, and filled with self-doubt. And I remind myself, "This is no different than putting your fanfic out there for the world to read." And I take a deep breath, and know it is all going to be okay. Thank you, members of the Harem. You know who you are. I still think about you all. Some of you, I keep up with on Facebook, and some of you, I have lost touch with completely. But you are never, ever forgotten. 

This is a copy of the acknowledgements I wrote to include in this first book. It doesn't say everything I wanted to, because I was limited by word count, which is why I wrote this post. I love you ladies. I hope you are all having excellent lives, and achieving your dreams. 

Writing update:





Almost to the halfway point. Well, realistically I think the halfway point will be happening slightly after 50k words, more like 55-60k. 

Most of my favorite bits are spoilery. But since it's been awhile, have a whole snippet, that mostly isn't:

 Super tired tonight, but officially over 1/4 done with the book. Not 100% sure the last chapter will stay in its current form, but we'll see when the alpha readers and critique group get back to me. 



Ironically, it was really tough to choose a favorite bit for this one (ironic given I'm not sure the chapter does what it needs to! Ha ha.). You can check out yesterday's snippet if you like, or here's another (smaller) favorite:

“I understand why family might be the most difficult for you to trust, at least at first,” Cannon conceded. “That doesn’t change the fact that you need training, and someone to keep an eye on you as you recover.”

“Reaper.” Mercy leaped on the name, so fast it startled even her.

Cannon stared at her. He couldn’t have looked more shocked if she’d pulled out a disrupter and stunned him. He looked over at Doc and Vashti. The latter shrugged.

“For some reason, she trusts him.”

 So, the last week and a half or so has played hell with my time to write. It is always chaos here leading up to the husband's annual trip to Japan. There is a lot that goes into traveling to another country for three weeks, let me tell you. Plus, I always get kind of cranky and depressed before he leaves, so that didn't help.

But now he is over there, and I have a quiet house all to myself. what to do, but write? So here is the latest update:



You guys, I am almost 20% done! Only 80% more to go. Ha ha. 

Favorite bit: Emotion swept her, the same feeling she had watching a solar storm erupt on the surface of a star, as though she was looking at something as terrifyingly beautiful as it was powerful and deadly. 

 Yesterday was an awesome day of writing accomplishment, which carried into this morning. Weekends will be tougher, I think, because the husband and I are often busy, but my weekdays are pretty free for the next few weeks at least, so these should start showing a lot of progress.



I will say that having my storyboard done is really helping things to roll very smoothly, indeed. I had the catalyst happening at 12k words, and I am right on the precipice of it now, so everything is proceeding as I had it paced, and I am not having any moments of being stuck with where the story is going. Instead, I get to do scene planning in my head. How I want to lay things out, specific things I want to make sure and include, how I want to approach it through my MC's POV. So far, so good. 

Favorite bit:

It felt exactly like that time she and Atrea got into the old Wolf’s private stash of Bennethan rum, and drank the whole bottle between them. When he’d caught them, too late, Captain Hades took one look and said the morning would be punishment enough.

He wasn’t wrong.

 After all of that storyboarding, the first chapter went nice and smooth! I am very pleased so far.

Current word count total:



Favorite bit: Whenever Mercy woke, her mouth dry and tasting faintly metallic and gritty, something would be different. Her clothes. A fresh tube of water. A new stock of nutritional bars. One time, her hair was cut. The heavy, dark length of it, threaded through with hints of red and gold without the necessity of a nano-treatment, was gone. The air prickled her skin, blew a cool shudder over her head and down her neck. She reached up with a tentative hand and found a short, prickly stubble covered her crown. 

 I'm reading this awesome writing book called Save the Cat, and it's changing the whole way I approach structuring novels. I have been restructuring Nemesis, and I think this is possibly the best thing to happen to my writing in some time. 

Anyway, one of the steps is coming up with a logline for your book. This is a one line summary that identifies your protagonist, and what they must overcome, and it should contain a sense of irony and emotional impact. A sample one for the movie Die Hard goes like this:

A street-wise cop comes to L.A. to visit his estranged wife, only to find her office building taken over by terrorists.

An enhanced, more detailed logline would be something like: On the brink of a divorce, a bullheaded, street-wise, New York cop is trapped in his wife’s office building by terrorists, and teams up with an L.A. “desk cop” to stop them; but when his taunts of the terrorists risks exposing his hostage wife’s identity, he must learn to adapt and change to outsmart the lead terrorist and prevent the true goal of a billion-dollar heist.

Here is what I have come up with for Nemesis:

A galactic courier with the outlawed gift of telepathy is searching for the mother she lost fifteen years ago, when she is kidnapped by pirates - the family who tried to kill her as a child, but now need her to embrace her gifts if any of them are to survive. 


What do you think? Would you be intrigued and want to read that book? Yes or no. All feedback is appreciated. Any suggestions for tweaking it further?

ETA: (new version)

A resourceful space pilot with a troublesome telepathic gift is searching for the mother she lost fifteen years ago, when she is kidnapped by pirates outlawed by the government for their own psychic abilities; but when she discovers her kidnappers are also the family who once tried to kill her as a child, she realizes the mystery of her mother’s disappearance holds deadlier secrets than she knew, and she must embrace her gifts if any of them are to survive. 

 There should be a word count meter update later today, but the last couple of days have pretty much been used as world building time. I needed to nail down some stuff that will have a huge impact to the entire series, and I think I've got the bare bones taken care of. Needs more fleshing out, but some of that will happen outside of writing, and some will happen organically as I write. 

 So, some exciting things are afoot these days. One, the new job is going really well. I kind of love it, and while the teaching part is mostly fun and makes me feel like I'm using that expensive education that I will owe money on for the rest of my natural life, yes, the schedule is a HUGE part of my happiness. Why? Because it matches my husband's, and because...it LEAVES ME PLENTY OF TIME FOR MY FIRST LOVE, WRITING. (No worries, the DH knew that when he married me, and besides, he has a first love, too. We have often joked that his was actually part of our wedding vows: "...and I promise not to interfere with your soul deep need to continue training in the martial arts and go to Japan every year to train with people better than you." No, really.)

Anyway. Yes, the job goes well. The writing goes well. It makes me happy, and there is stuff that I'm SUPER excited about that I cannot talk about on social media, even a locked LJ post social media. Suffice to say, I have more incentive than ever before to get my butt into gear and whip this manuscript into shape. 

And while yes, I can take as much time as I like to do that, I am giving myself a self imposed deadline to finish the first draft by mid-June. I already have around 40k words, but I had an epiphany last night about the beginning that means I am going to have to rewrite some of them (but it will be so much better! I am excited by this, rather than put off.) So, my goal is 100k words (about) by June 15th. This should be pretty doable, given my schedule and the fact that my current job ends on May 30th, so then my schedule will be really open.

In the meantime, Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays are my lightest "work days", which means they will provide me with ample opportunity, and I plan to write every single day. If I look at it as a whole block of words (disregarding what is already written, which will give me a nice jump start anyway), I will have to write 2,325 words per day. This is totally doable. Back when I was writing all of the time, some days I averaged 5k words or more. Obviously, some days were less, but that's okay. That number isn't really accurate anyway, since like 30k words are very likely already written and won't be changing much. The point is, I've done the math and I know I can do it, and as long as I do my word count thing here and keep reasonable track, holding myself accountable, I have pretty strong faith that it will happen.  

So, be prepared for lots of daily word count updates to return. There may be small snippets. There will be pirate icons and such. I don't even know how many people are still on LJ who would remember the first time around. Hopefully it won't be too obnoxious having me post about the same thing all of time. :)

This is what they will look like:

 Hey guys.

Cutting to the chase: It's taken me nearly two years and a handful of rewrites, but I think Nemesis is finally where it needs to be.  Or, you know, firmly going where it needs to be.  It bears such faint resemblance to the original draft I sent to beta readers, I marvel now that I ever thought that draft "done" and "polished".  Along the way, I've gotten invaluable advice from beta readers, critique partners, industry professionals, and friends.  But at the end of the day, I'm the one that has to decide what makes the story good, and when and how to implement those changes.  I've cut so many pieces that didn't really belong in the old draft, and beefed up and concentrated on others I never thought mattered.  

Mercy as a character has come so far.  I hope it's far enough.  At some point, a writer becomes too close to the work to really know.  I never realized before, that people weren't able to connect to her emotionally as well as they should.  A fault in how I wrote her.  A lack of the reader's ability to know what Mercy was thinking and feeling, because I just didn't put it in there (even though I really thought I did.)  

Now, things are different.  Now, the reader gets to know not only Mercy's innermost thoughts, but also Reaper's.  (Something that has made my beta readers very happy.  His POV did not really exist in the original drafts.)  

I know I've mentioned occasionally here that I'm working on the rewrite(s).  That has had a few starts and stops, as I've struggled with what to get rid of, and what to keep and expand.  But the extra time it took me was worth it, because it allowed me to put some space between the old draft and my connection to it, to look objectively as some things I would never have considered getting rid of before.  

Now, here I am on the fourth (fifth?) rewrite since that old draft, and I'm feeling better about the book than I have since I was so certain that old draft was the draft.  I'm rewriting scenes I never thought needed to be rewritten before, and cutting out whole chapters, and adding new ones.  I think only a handful of scenes from that old draft even resemble themselves anymore, and that's not a bad thing.  It's a better book.  A stronger book.  

So, have a word count meter:



I'm averaging about 8K a day, and hoping to keep that up until school starts on Tuesday this next week.  

Oh, and have a snippet:
 ( Brotherly affection. )