Silk & Shadows

Currently working on: Page proofs for DARKNESS UNDONE!
Mood: Focused

Putting together a book for your reading pleasure seems to take forever. After writing it comes the rewriting and then revisions, then more revisions, then line edits and copy edits. In between, there are cover conferences and back cover copy proofs, and finally* — finally! — page proofs which is the writer’s last chance to tweak the words. That’s where I am now on the fourth Marked Souls novel, DARKNESS UNDONE, which means the story is now in its almost final form — finally!*

So here is the cover — finally!* — of DARKNESS UNDONE, a novel of the Marked Souls.

The war between good and evil has raged for millennia, and as a powerful new enemy ascends, the Marked Souls are pushed to the ragged edge…

Sidney Westerbrook has always studied darkness and damnation from a sensible distance. Now, to earn his place as a league Bookkeeper, he must discover why Chicago is such a battleground of soul-linked warriors. But the research becomes personal when he finds himself over his head and under attack — and at the mercy of a waif with demon-lit eyes and a deep yearning in her heart.

Alyce Carver has been alone longer than she can remember, battered by the living nightmares that haunt her city. Cornered by yet another gang of demons, she unwittingly joins forces with a handsome scholar who can salvage her past, and she in turn may be the key to his investigations. But she won’t let him go until he shows her everything she’s been missing.

What begins as an experiment in possession becomes a trial by desire so powerful it threatens both their lives, even as it binds their souls.

Read the first chapter here.

* By “finally” here, I mean “not really” here. DARKNESS UNDONE will be “actually” available in March. But Sid’s story is available for pre-order at:

Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes & Noble
Powells | Indie Bound | Indigo | Blackstone Audio

I do, however, have an actual cover flat, which is a printed version of the book jacket. If you’re interested in such things, leave a comment on this post and I’ll have random.org draw a winner for a giveaway next week.

Currently working on: Unpacking
Mood: Sandy

My parents were in town this weekend and the weather was that gorgeous secret of the Pacific Northwest: the sunny week in October. See, right before the rains close in, nature gives us one more week of glorious blue skies and balmy temps. A cruel taunt? A promise? Whichever.

So we headed up to the Olympic Peninsula for a bit of walking, then back down Hwy 101 to the Oregon Coast.

While we walked, I thought about the new story I’m working on, and it seems to me, that our hiking and my story have a lot in common.

1. The stuff

When I start a new idea, I am excited and overwhelmed by all the stuff I might stuff in the story. Secondary love triangle! BB guns! String theory!

Much like my car has five doors for stuffing, I figure my story has many, many openings to be filled. But as you can see, Monster Girl is concerned about where she will fit. So it goes with my story; I have to ask myself — fun though it might be — whether I really need a talking, one-armed octopus.

2. First steps

I love the beginnings of hikes and the beginning chapters of a story. Both are so filled with promise. I feel strong and confident, with plenty of chocolate in my backpack.

The way ahead doesn’t necessarily look easy. There are barriers to be surmounted, but the adventure calls.

3. Lost

This part is less fun, but it seems to be true of hikes and stories, at least for me. Okay, I’m not EXACTLY lost, but there comes the moment where I definitely want to sit down, where the way seems a little more hazy and bleak than just a few steps or chapters ago.

This is where hikers and writers are made, I think. To quit? To continue? Walking out into the waves isn’t really an option (not on a Pacific Northwest beach, at least, not without a dry suit!) but I could parallel the shore on a new path.

Or build a boat of driftwood and dreams.

4. The view

I must continue — somehow — because I know — somewhere — I will come to the point where I can SEE the point. THIS is why I am here.

5. Panting fun

I’ve said before, I love love love The End. Whether writing or hiking, coming to the end (in mostly one piece with relatively few debilitating blisters) is a great feeling of satisfaction. But the satisfaction does seem relative to the exertion. Some of our best hikes (and by best, I mean make the best stories, of course) have been the worst technical hikes. Too long, too wet, too ridiculous, waaaay too much panting. But in The End, totally worth the reliving.

Especially if there’s a little chocolate left.

Do you find a certain pleasure in some kinds of hard work? Got any favorite hikes I should try someday?

Currently working on: Obsessively refreshing my sales ranking to see if somebody somewhere bought one of my books
Mood: As mentioned, obsessive

This is release week for VOWED IN SHADOWS. Book 3 of the Marked Souls officially hits shelves tomorrow, and I am:

A. Frantic
B. Terrified
C. Horrified
D. Utterly sleep deprived
E. Thrilled
F. All of the above

Yeah. It’s F.

I suppose I could have stopped at D because in the past two weeks, I’ve had multiple dreams about falling off cliffs, getting rolled under by tidal waves (although those could be because of Japan, not release week), being important places without my shoes, hiking up an endless mountain (once, right before I fell off a cliff), and cookies.

The cookie one is obvious; no subtext needed there.

Release week is when the pages hit the pavement. The work is in the wind. Where it goes…Who knows? Hence, A through D above. It’s unnerving to know the spine — the book’s and, in a way, mine — will be cracking in someone else’s hands.

But that’s the point — for me, anyway — of writing. Hence E above.

When I started writing, I always intended to get to this point. I just didn’t have a good sense of what “this point” would look like.

Strangely enough, it looks a lot like walking up an endless mountain without your shoes and staring off the cliff to the raging seas below. The cookie (hopefully hermetically sealed against salt water) is somewhere down there. If I dare throw myself over.

Scary, but maybe more rewarding than walking down the mountain barefoot.

I guess, honestly, I thought there’d be more flying; maybe there is more flying for some writers. I have flying dreams occasionally, and I really like them. But in the release week version of the dream, it’s mostly slogging and plummeting. And the cookie fuels the next hike back up the mountain.

Not sure what it’ll take to earn my wings. Maybe New York Times bestseller? That’d be awesome. Maybe just more cookies. Then I’d HAVE to hike, to burn off the calories.

For tonight, I’ll just hope to dream about something that doesn’t wake me up with my heart pounding. I’m saving the pounding heart for my trip to the bookstore tomorrow to see Jonah on the shelves

Since it’s release week I HAVE to give away a signed copy here along with a set of Marked Soul romance trading cards. Leave a comment anytime this week for a chance to win! And thank you, as always, for reading.

Two lost souls
One last battle
None will walk away
Untouched

Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Borders
BooksAMillion ~ Powells Books ~ Indigo ~ Indiebound

The war between good and evil has raged for millennia,
with the Marked Souls caught in the middle.
Now two lost souls will tip the precarious balance…

Possession by a demon cost Jonah Walker his faith, his humanity, and his wife. Once a righteous missionary man, he endures immortality with nothing but a body for battle and a bent for retribution. But his last devastating fight left him wounded beyond healing and his only chance to redeem his soul lies with a fallen woman.

Thrust into a wicked underworld of shadows and sin, Nim Hamlin can’t believe her wanton ways as “the Naughty Nymphette” enthralled a demon…and a damned saint. The world she knows doesn’t deserve deliverance. But the touch of this good man’s hand holds an unholy allure–and she’s never been any good at resisting temptation.

As darkness gathers in the sweltering Chicago summer, Jonah and Nim must conquer the demons of their past to face even fiercer monsters in one last assault.  But first they must put aside their doubts and disbeliefs and let their passion for each other burn through the shadows to ignite their furious power…

Read Chapter 1 here

Happy Valentine’s Day!

First things first, random.com has chosen a winner for the early galley of VOWED IN SHADOWS – Congratulations to Kayleigh! Email jessa@jessaslade.com with your address and I’ll make a PO run. Thanks (and virtual butter cookies!) to everyone who commented.

Second item of business: We’re going to be shifting things around here at Silk And Shadows. This has been a place of us to meet people and play with ideas. Now we’re going to settle down to some of the finer points of writing and we’ll be ranging further afield on weekdays, instead of concentrating on one topic a week. Why the change? Because the writing world is always changing and we’re eager to explore.

And now onto my regularly scheduled post…

False starts

My writing group met this last weekend and I was on a Q&A panel of new published authors. (OMG am I still considered new? I feel ancient.) We A’d all sorts of Q’s from our fellow writers, and one that particularly caught my attention was this:

What do you do about false starts?

I thought this was interesting because there are so many ways to interpret the question. False starts in what? A story? A career? (Or a blog?  ) What constitutes a false start? Is a false start different from a test run? Who decides it’s false?

I think it’s inevitable that everyone has experienced this: You’re going along, thinking everything’s cool… Right up until it isn’t. The smooth-rolling wheel catches, and suddenly you’re airborne.

(And then, at least according to this illustration, your head pops off.)

False starts don’t always happen near the start, which makes it worse. But when that sinking feeling comes (and it comes shortly after the airborne feeling ends) I try to deal with a minimum of moaning.

1. Is this a false start?

Sometimes what feels like going off track is really something else. Exhaustion, boredom, burnout, lack of needed information or skill or confidence, all these can manifest as the feeling I’ve gone astray. I have to stop and assess: Am I lost or do I just wish I was lost so I could make my way back to a path I already know?

If it’s the latter, if I’m secretly just trying to weasel out of a difficult moment and lying to myself about it, then I scold myself soundly and get back to work. (Not really. I have other, crueler techniques too but that’s not this post.) If I have legitimately gotten lost…

2. Ditch it and do something else.

There’s a school of thought that says finish what you start. And pathological non-finishers should recognize that weakness in themselves and correct it. But most often, I don’t believe in throwing good energy after wasted energy. I have projects that will never be finished and some of those give me a twinge of regret. But I had good reasons for letting those go, and I know I’ve put that time and effort to better use elsewhere.

3. Make truth out of false starts.

Usually I find a note of truth in every false start. When I’m writing the hot draft, I often start my story about three chapters too early. I have a lot of back story, info dumps, and unnecessary characterization. It’s painful to realize that the start is all wrong, but in those soon-to-be-cut words, there are pieces I can use: a hint of the character’s issue, a telling detail of physical description, whatever. Because I know to watch myself now, I try to NOT write those false starts and JUST keep the diamonds buried in the dust.

Sometimes I waffle back and forth between giving up too easily and clinging too long. I think it takes a lot of practice to find the balance, and each step of practice requires a start. So get started.

Which are you, a quitter or a clinger? Do you find that you tend toward the same trait in writing and in real life?

Currently working on: Wrestling Book 4 to the ground
Mood: Mouth full of dirt

On my morning alley walks with Monster Girl, the grass has gone to seed and the air smells like cider from all the fallen apples. The shadows are getting so long.  But the heat isn’t over yet because here at Silk And Shadows we’re sneaking in a week of hot love scenes.

And speaking of hot, y’all are now seeing the first posting of VOWED IN SHADOWS, Book 3 of the Marked Souls.  Here’s Jonah, the hero, in all his blond bad boy glory, with the sweltering city behind him (it’s August in Chicago, after all) and a demon storm on the horizon:

Maybe it’s just the humidity making me swoon.

We’ve met Jonah briefly in SEDUCED BY SHADOWS and FORGED OF SHADOWS. This righteous missionary man lost his wife when he was possessed, and he can’t imagine ever loving again.  So when the repentant demon within him sets him on the path of rampant unbound etheric energies that leads him straight to the Naughty Nymphette — dancing tonight at the Shimmy Shack! — he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he will never, ever, in an eternity fall in love as Archer and Liam did before him.

But he is a man of strong convictions, and he’ll do whatever it takes to make sure the Chicago league of immortal demon-possessed warriors bring this newest fighter to their side. And by “do whatever it takes,” I include doing her…

*                                  *                                  *

From VOWED IN SHADOWS:

Jonah sat and crossed his arms. He needed her demon ascendant before he made his move. She wouldn’t believe his story otherwise. “Dance for me, Nymphette.”

Physical stress triggered the demon’s rise. Dangerous, but necessary since the newly possessed needed to find a way to balance the demon within them. Males traditionally drank and fought their way through the other-realm emanations coursing through their bodies. He’d been told it worked differently with the females. Just as well, since his balance was shot.

“Call me Nim.” Her voice turned husky, not with the demon, just a generic come-on. She swayed closer. “Nymphette is such a mouthful. And maybe you want me to save my mouth for… other things, right, Cap’n?”

“Don’t call me captain.”

Read the rest of this entry »

First of all, today is Memorial Day here in the USA.  I hope everyone celebrating has a good BBQ, safe travels, and a chance for a quiet moment of remembrance.

Currently working on: Almost release day!
Mood: Whee!

This week’s topic here at Silk And Shadows is “the hardest part of writing.”  But I’m hijacking the thread, because this is a celebration week for me.   Book 2 of the Marked Souls, FORGED OF SHADOWS, comes out tomorrow, June 1, 2010!

The war between good and evil has raged for millennia, with the Marked Souls caught in the middle, but the new girl doesn’t play by old rules…

Liam Niall never meant to be a leader. Barely surviving the horrors of the Irish Potato Famine with body and soul intact, he escaped to Chicago…where he lost half his soul and gained a wayward band of demon-possessed warriors. Now, as the talyan face a morphing evil, Liam grows weary and plagued by doubt-until a new weapon falls into his hands. Her name is Jilly Chan. To save her demon-ridden soul, Liam must win her to his battle…and his bed.

Waging a one-woman war against the threats to the street kids she mentors, Jilly won’t be any man’s woman or weapon. But Liam-with his hard eyes, soft brogue and compelling hands-is a danger to her rebellious independence…and her heart.

These two halved souls sharing one fierce passion will sear a fresh scar across the city. Who’s in danger now?

“[F]or readers who love J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood, the Marked Souls series will hit the spot.”
–4 Stars RT BOOKReviews

This is only my second book, but so far, it seems to me that release week  is one of the EASIEST parts of writing.  Because by the time release week rolls around, it’s too damn late.  Everything has been done.  The story is written, edited, wrapped in a manly chest — or backside, as the case may be — printed, and shipped to the stores (hopefully) to appear on shelves.  From thence to fall into book baskets everywhere (again, hopefully).

Sure, there are other things for me to do: Bite my nails, obsessively click refresh on the Amazon ranking page, self-medicate with chocolate syrup (I already ate all the cookie dough).  But the story itself is done.  All that remains is for someone, somewhere, to read it.

If YOU want to read some of it, you can:
Check out the first chapters here.
Or read the alternate beginning here.
Or even buy it.

This is the moment (okay, months) of truth for a story.  I’ve heard of writers who say they write for themselves, but I write to share.  The release of the book into the wild is my chance — finally! — to share.

I sincerely hope you like it.

To celebrate, I’m giving away a $25 bookstore gift card this week.  Just tell me which of the two beginnings to FORGED OF SHADOWS that I posted in the links above you like better, and you’ll be entered for a chance to win.  Tell a friend about this giveaway, and have the friend enter your name in her comment, and you’ll both be double entered for a chance to win.  Thanks for celebrating with me!

Each writer has a process unique to them. Not right, not wrong, just unique. Case in point, I chuckled when I read Jessa’s post yesterday. She and I approach the fresh beginning of Chapter One in very different ways.

For me, beginning a new book is exciting, yes, but also terrifying. Here I am, in love with my story idea, feeling warm and fuzzy about my hero and heroine, and then the worry creeps in: I won’t be able to capture those delightful feelings on paper, it’s impossible, I don’t have the skill.

Funny thing is, I’ve completed seven manuscripts and that worry continues to plague me. I think it’s because the magic in my head at the start of a new book is so wonderful, so perfect, that words seem too mundane to bring it to life. Nouns, verbs, adjectives. Subjects, predicates, punctuation. How can these unwieldy concepts possibly do the job?

Of course, my fears are always unfounded. Language has a magic all its own, and it’ll grace the pages later—in draft two or three. To get draft one started, I simply need to flip the kill switch on my internal editor, who fusses over every nuance.

My first few pages are awkward and uncomfortable. Full of fits and stops. My beloved characters are uncooperative and moody, and I realize that despite all the time I’ve spent getting to know them, they still harbor deep mysteries and act with motivations I never suspected. Motivations they still haven’t confided to me. I’m on a voyage of discovery, and there are surprises lurking in the mist, some of them requiring complete rewrites.

I’m one of those writers who can’t build on my story if I believe the foundation is unstable. This means I spend more time at the very beginning of the book than I do writing subsequent chapters. I don’t mean finding the right setting or the right starting action—although those are vital, they can be reworked—I mean testing my characters to find out how they really think and feel and act under pressure. By Chapter Four my characters and I are bosom pals. They’ve spilled the beans on the inner workings of their minds. There’s almost always a surprise or two left, but the fundamentals are down and I can move forward with confidence.

So, yes, I love to start a new project. But I also love to get the first few chapters under my belt. That’s when the story truly takes off.

Some authors are truly amazing at building an emotional connection between reader and character right from page one. What are some of your favorite reads where this happened? Did you notice it at the time, or only after you closed the book with a contented sigh?

Currently working on: The heroine’s betrayal
Mood: Sadistic

I love first chapters. My first three hit the page with a speed that I won’t match again until I start the next story. I’m not saying they are great chapters. In all honesty, they usually suck and often have nothing to do with the story itself. But that doesn’t lessen my enthusiasm for first chapters at all.

Because I think of first chapters like first dates. (You probably started to see the correlation with the ‘usually suck’ part.) Hey, I’m a romance writer at heart. (The previous parenthetical comment notwithstanding.)

Ah, the passion and promise of those first chapters, when the story is young and fresh, not to mention thin and pliant. This is no time to think about the sagging middle…

So what’s your best worst first date story? When did you realize the magic was gone?