Silk & Shadows

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 �

My TBR pile is less of a pile and more of an ocean. It occupies one corner of my bedroom and is roughly four books wide, three books long and sixteen books tall. I know many of you have bigger TBRs, but mine makes me sad. There are so many good books that I haven’t read. And many of them are written by friends.

Sigh.

And it just keeps getting bigger. My problem is that I don’t read while I’m writing. This is because I am weak. If I allow myself to sit in a chair and bury myself in a book, I won’t have the willpower to put that book down and work on my own manuscript. I’m a slow writer, so reading when I’m on deadline inevitably leads to disaster.

Thus, I tend to read in binges between deadlines, which is what I’m doing this summer. I’m reading. A lot. But I’ve got miles to go before I’m caught up.

Who am I kidding? I’ve accepted that I’ll never be caught up—I make a trip to the bookstore at least once a month and always come home with at least one new addition, often three or four. My brother also gives me books that he’s enjoyed. And I order more books online.

I wonder if my TBR would be bigger or smaller if I had an e-reader. On one hand, a purse-sized device loaded with multiple books would allow me to read whenever I had a chance–while waiting in lines, for example. On the other, downloading new books would be addictively easy.

Anyone out there have any experience with an e-reader? Did it help you make a dent in your TBR, or only lead to a longer list of books you haven’t read?

[Note from Jessa: I met Maggie Mae at the Romance Writers of America conference in Orlando and fell in love with her logo :)  She was such a powerhouse, moving through the conference like a woman with a mission, I couldn't believe she didn't have a half dozen series published in her wake.  I knew we had to have her here so we could say "we knew her when."  Thanks for guest posting with us, Maggie!  (BTW, all, Maggie told me she's a blog virgin; this is her first guest post. So I do hope you'll say hi!)]

Sunday morning dawned bright and early after the big awards gala. My father drove in from Tampa and met my roommate and I for breakfast before ferrying us off to Orlando International Airport. When he asked the question what did you learn at the conference, my brain was overloaded and hyper-caffeinated. I looked at him like he was speaking to me in tongues. It took a few days for my system to calm done from the experience and truly digest all that happened.

Here’s what I learned at Nationals:

• Amazingly enough my favorite authors are people too. People who put their pants on one leg at a time.
• The stupendous solidarity and support offered to RWA members at all levels was overwhelming. It helps validate our sanity when we are having arguments with out characters at three in the morning. Because now we know that other writers do too.
• That yes, one can have far too much rubber chicken.
• For writers who are pre-published, such as myself, getting a thumbs up and encouragement from writers we consider our literary gods will be something we  remember our whole lives.
• Nora Roberts, Jayne Ann Krentz and Sabrina Jeffries are just as entertaining in person as their books!
• That I am entitled to a fan girl moment. Thanks Barbara Vey for being such a good sport!
• Friends should not let friends shop alone at the literacy signing. During the signing I forgot the bookaholics anonymous mantra, “We do not need to own every book we see.”
• For next year, ship all my books before the rush on Saturday.
• That yes, you can have a second fan girl moment when you receive your shipped box of signed books!

So much information, one tiny little brain.

Nationals is unlike anything you will ever experience. I am thrilled I had the opportunity to attend. I applaud the hard work and dedication of the RWA Board pulling off the nigh impossible task of relocating the conference. Whether a newbie or an old pro, it’s worth every cent. I highly recommend attending a conference of this magnitude at least once. I’m already looking forward to Nationals in the Big Apple. A chance revisit the friendships made this year and an opportunity to make new ones.

See you in New York!
Maggie Mae Gallagher

From Maggie’s website, a blurb on her someday-fingers-crossed book:

Born into the nightmare realm Earth has become, Alana Devereaux was raised battling the demons destroying our planet. As a Cantati, it was what she had been bred to do. When humanity’s final defenses crumble, Alana will become the last hope for our survival. Sent back through time, reeling from all she has lost, until she meets the mysterious stranger who fights demons almost as well as she does.

Gaelen Cormac, an exiled Fomorian Fae prince, pulls her into the chess game being played across the globe with the winner taking Earth as their prize. Alana must wage a deadly battle with all the forces of Infernio, even as she wages a dire campaign within her heart.

Alliances shall be forged, ancient enemies shall rise and Alana will be forced to choose. As the last Cantati, she must decide whether she will be humanity’s salvation or its demise. She is…Anointed.

Currently working on: Revising back cover copy for Book 3
Mood: Tweaky

First off, thanks to everybody who commented last week for a chance to win the signed copy of Nalini Singh’s ANGEL’S BLOOD, that I picked up at RomCon.  With the help of Random.org, we have a winner:

JenM, who hiked to Machu Picchu, congrats!

And I finally unpacked from RomCon and found an extra copy (unsigned, I’m sorry) of Jeaniene Frost’s DESTINED FOR AN EARLY GRAVE, which goes to:

cories, who — very sensibly, I think — would rather attend romance cons than work ones

Email me at jessa at jessaslade dot com with your snail mail addy and I’ll make a PO run.

Onto our topic of the week, which is “The TV show I miss the most.”  I didn’t even have to contemplate for a microsecond.  Even my XY knew what I was going to write about.

Joss Whedon’s cowboy space opera Firefly played for one gorram season in 2002 before being brutally and summarily cancelled by the evil Fox network, may their bean counters burn in a special level of hell reserved for People Who Don’t Get It.  The world lived on through graphic novels to a 2005 wrap-up movie, Serenity, and occasionally, wistful rumors surface of another movie.  (A photo tweeted earlier this month of some of the main actors with the sly caption “Together. Again.” was enough to get geekdom panty-wadded for several long minutes.)

The storyworld (or ‘verse, short for universe) inspired a fanatic group of followers, the Browncoats (a reference to the rebellious frontiersmen who fought for their freedom against smothering Fox executives… I mean, against a smothering central government).  The Browncoats continue to stage charity viewings of Firefly, Serenity and other ’verse ephemera, including a fan-filmed movie, Browncoats: Redemption, that has been screened for select audiences but is not yet in wide release.

Why I loved Firefly

I love science fiction.  I love anti-heroes.  I love Joss Whedon.  It’s like Firefly was always aimed straight at me. 

Anything with spaceships gets my attention — even the old black and white movies where two pie tins squashed together served as the spaceship.  And the little Firefly-class ship, Serenity, was as adorable as two pie tins, with her lit-up butt and hard-loved interior.

But it wasn’t the hardware that made this show.  It was the crew.  From the first episode (aired out of order by idiots), the crew revealed themselves in all their dysfunctional and yet highly effective glory.  From the wounded soul of their fearless leader, Captain Malcolm Reynolds to the shattered mind of their mysterious and dangerous passenger, River Tam, their interactions were endlessly (and by endlessly, I mean ended after one season, thank you, Fox) fascinating, entertaining, emotional and true.

And damned funny.  Of course Whedon usually inspires clever, but never better than Firefly.  As a writer, I drooled over those lines.  Oh, I’m sure they were written and revised for best effect, but they were always delivered with such beautiful immediacy that I couldn’t help but despair of ever writing as well.  And while I despaired, I laughed, I cried, I bought DVDs. 

I could requote all the wonderful lines here, but fans have read them all before and non-watchers (it’s YOUR fault Firefly died and I will never forgive you!) would just scratch their heads, but I have to give just one back’n'forth between the captain and his second, Zoe, as they come — once again — to save the day (after having nearly lost the day, of course): 

Mal: “Well, look at this! Appears we got here just in the nick of time. Whaddya suppose that makes us?”

Zoe: “Big damn heroes, sir.”

Mal: “Ain’t we just!”

You were, Mal.  To me, you were.

Are you a Firefly fan?  Can you recommend another other good cowboy space operas (or anything remotely similar) in TV, movies or books?

To put this post in perspective, I should mention that I’ve done a few things in my life that could qualify as adventurous: I’ve gone scuba diving among barracuda in Mexico, snorkeled on the Great Barrier Reef, ridden a bus up a steep Spanish mountain to visit a town split in half by a gorge, eaten smoked eel and alligator, ridden a camel, and pet a tarantula.

But there are a number of things I’ll never do.

Bungee jumping, sky-diving, and free-form mountain climbing, to name a few. I’m not afraid of heights—in fact my husband used to get me to hang the Christmas lights on the highest peak of our roof—but I am afraid of falling. Or to be more precise, hitting the ground. Hard.

Yes, I know that the bungee cord is supposed to stop you from splatting and the parachute deploys properly 99% of the time. But my over-active imagination—so very useful when writing—will not allow me to forget the one percent chance of something horrible happening.

You’d think such a vivid imagination would prevent me from getting on a plane, or even into a car. But no. If I feel someone has a chance of controlling or avoiding the splat, I’m okay with it. It’s that out-of-control, no-chance-of-landing-safely part that worries me. And I just can’t see me putting myself in harm’s way for fun.

I watch plenty of people bungee jump, sky dive, and mountain climb on TV, and as I watch, I gasp with absolute amazement. I admire people who can throw caution to the wind and go for broke in the spirit of adventure. But you’ll never find me on an extreme vacation. Nope. Not going to happen.

Has anyone done an extreme sport? Care to share your experience?

My next official writing project is still in the air, so I’ll leave those details alone for the moment. Let’s talk about ideas and how to flesh them out instead.

I get new ideas for stories all the time. Some of them are way out in left field, some are in a genre I don’t currently write, and some fall apart as soon as I start exploring them. The ideas that survive long enough to develop legs and crawl out of the primordial ooze of creativity are the ones I write down. But even those ideas are bare bones.

So, how do I determine if an idea is worth 400 pages of prose? Everyone has their own method for answering that question, but for me, it comes down to conflict. If the conflict isn’t big enough, the idea dies.

I hammer at the conflict by using a template I call Rolling the Ball. I got the idea for the template from an author who did a workshop for my local RWA chapter, but I can’t credit her, because I don’t remember who it was. My sincere apologies to that author. Anyway, she basically said that a story was built on a series of actions and reactions which could be described as one character rolling the ball to another, then that second character catching the ball and rolling it back. Or, to put it an other way, our characters make judgments, decisions and actions which in turn forces other characters to make judgments, decisions and actions.

Example:
Joe gets a call from his mother saying his sister has been murdered. Joe believes the murderer is most likely his sister’s creepy, drug-dealing boyfriend, and he hops a plane to Witchita to confront the boyfriend. (He rolls the ball.)

The boyfriend swears he loved the sister, even though she’d taken a restraining order out on him, and points the finger at Joe’s stepfather who recently lost his job for having pornography on his computer. (The boyfriend rolls the ball back.)

Once I have a skeleton of an idea, I roll the ball back and forth between my characters, starting with the inciting incident, or the event that tosses my main character’s life into disarray. If I can’t come up with more than a page of escalating conflict between my two main characters, I know the idea is weak. From there, I can explore ways to strengthen the conflict or drop the idea and move onto something fresh.

How do other writers decide whether to pursue an idea? Anyone?

Currently working on: Book 3 edits
Mood: Persnickety (Am I even spelling that right? I thought I was in editing mode?!)

When I’m writing, I’m a speed angel.  Which, sadly, is the opposite of a speed demon.  Yes, I write demons, but I write them slooooow.

Over the years, I have gotten somewhat faster.  Well, actually, lots faster.  It took me about, oh, five years to finish my first manuscript.  In my defense, the story was really long and traversed several major landmasses and various time periods. (No, it wasn’t a time travel; it was just very, very confused.)  Plus, I spent a lot of time describing the hero’s lovely eyes.

Here are a few tricks I learned that helped me write faster during the seven manuscripts that followed:

• No one cares how polished your first draft is, so feel free to write crap.  You do have to polish later, but that’s later.
• If you keep writing past it, crap is often less crappy after it ferments awhile.
• Know what you are writing; you’ll get there quicker.  Disclaimer: Pantsers (writers who say they like to be surprised by their writing as it happens) say they get bored if they know where they are going.  I say, I challenge you pantsers to a duel.  But I don’t have to worry about you ever showing up at the duel site because if I tell you where it is beforehand, you’ll go somewhere else.

The single most important trick I learned to writing faster was — and I realize this sounds stupidly obvious — holding myself accountable.  Deadlines — whether externally or internally imposed — are like the salt in a recipe: Too much can make your blood pressure spike, but a pinch/dash/sprinkle gives the flavors a zing they’d otherwise be missing.

Knowing when I have to get something done, I can track my progress.  I track in an Excel spreadsheet of daily word counts.  “Over/Under” is the number of words I’ve written above or below my daily goal.  As you can see by the red, I spend a lot of days behind because — as I mentioned — I’m a speed angel.  But I aspire to speed demon-hood.

Sure, I’m not there yet.  But I’ve shaved five years per books down to about five months.  A definite improvement.  Although you might have noticed the last comment in my spreadsheet: Sometimes I still don’t know where I’m going.

In Aesop’s fable of the tortoise and the hare, which character did you relate to?  And do you think the tortoise would’ve been faster if he’d been wearing shorts instead of a shell?

Currently working on: Argh, look behind you!.. What? Oh sorry, never mind.  My mistake… What was the question again?
Mood: Focused as a laser beam

No, I’m kidding, I have been working.  Hard.  I’ve been composing guest blog posts in preparation for my blog tour to support the release of FORGED OF SHADOWS next month.  (Which will be here before I know it.  That’s what’s behind us–the relentlessly creeping Time Monster!)  One of the interview questions I had to answer was: What do you do when you’re not writing?

I thought about it for awhile.  And couldn’t come up with anything. 

If I’m not writing, I SHOULD be writing.  After all, I have the life many writers long for–a published book and another on the way.  To not write seems disrespectful.  Guilt makes not writing not fun.

So to circumvent the Guilt Monster (second cousin to the Time Monster) I often try to find a way to make my non-writing activities support my writing activites.  Dog walks are brainstorming sessions.  Reading is research.  Twitter (http://twitter.com/jessaslade) is networking.  Buckets o’ cookie dough are much-needed energy.  Naps are…well, cookie dough only takes you so far, doesn’t it?

Even my other creative pursuits have taken a back seat to writing.  The little sketching I’ve done in the last few years has been of the horde-tenebrae monsters in my books or settings when I can’t quite picture the staging.  I haven’t picked up a paintbrush at all.  Only my beading has resisted the all-encompassing suck of The Book, mostly because I’ve been making Possession in Pearl earrings–from demented, weirdly shaped pearl sticks–to use as blog tour giveaways.

I’m always glad when I blow off my guilt and sneak in an utterly non-writing project because it was a personal beading breakthrough that I think really opened some doors in my mind when it came to my writing.

See, I’m a perfectionist.  Nasty habit, that.  Striving for excellence is a worthy goal, but perfectionism will drive you mad.  For a long time, I would string beads to make a necklace…and then unstring them because they weren’t quite right.  I was constantly on the lookout for the “perfect” bead to complete a given project.  I amassed more and more beads, but it was impossible to be sure I had the “perfect” bead because–as many beads as I had–I didn’t have them all.  What if the “perfect” bead was still out there?  Time to come unstrung again.

Then one day…  I’d like to say I stopped being stupid.  But really what happened was a poverty-induced Christmas panic.  I had decided to use up some of the ridiculous amount of beads making jewelry for my female relatives.  And now I had a deadline.

Suddenly, “perfect” was less pressing than “wrapped, packed and shipped.”  I learned to come to peace with the pieces I had.  And they were perfectly lovely.  At least according to my mother, grandmother, sister, and aunt, who I’m sure were utterly objective.

Now when I’m writing, when I feel the urge to look for the perfect word, to wait until I have perfectly visualized every element of the story, to rail at myself for being less than perfect, I think of my beads.  To be lovely, to come to life, they have to be strung and hung around someone’s neck or dangling from someone’s ears.  And I’m the only one who can make that happen. 

I think most people have beads rolling around the drawers of their life that should be out for the world to admire.  Maybe not perfect, but shiny or sparkly or intriguing or whatever is good enough.  How do you support the creativity in your life?

Leave a comment and you’ll be entered for a chance to win a pair of Possession in Pearl earrings similar to the ones pictured above.  I’m making another pair as soon as I finish this post.  Hey, I can’t write ALL the time.

Currently working on: Still unpacking from the RT Booklovers’ Convention
Mood: Awash

Last Monday, when I was supposed to be blogging here, I was flying back from Columbus Ohio after the RT Booklovers’  Convention, where more than a thousand women — and a few men — gathered together for a solid week of book lovin,’ Mr. Romance-ogling (I did mention there were a few men), drinking, and more book lovin.’

Highlights of my trip:

• Whiskey shots with Joe Konrath, author of WHISKEY SOUR (see, those shots were networking)
• Scoring Jeri Smith-Ready’s newest, SHADE, a paranormal YA, before she sold out at the book fair — mine, all mine!
• Four nights of dancing in person with online friends

Lowlights of my trip:

• The DJ who, when I asked if he had any Bollywood dance music, responded that, well, he had Molly Hatchet — er, not quite
• Forgetting my tiara for the prom-themed dance party
• The flight home from Ohio to Oregon via New York — don’t ask

Back to the highlights though.  I got to mingle with all sorts of people, from voracious readers to aspiring writers to famous authors.  (Is that Charlaine Harris?!  OMG OMG!  I adore name dropping!)  What an amazing, fun, savvy, dedicated group it was.  For a newer author like myself, it was a wonderful opportunity to talk with a wide swath of book people and contemplate, “Geez, who let me in here?”

Turns out, there wasn’t a sekrit handshake required at the door.

Oh, I knew there wasn’t really a sekrit handshake, but when I was racking up rejections in the early years of my writing (uh, and in the later years too) I desperately hoped there was a large, Raybanned, cross-armed bouncer guarding a NYC office building with “Publishing” somewhere on the letterhead who could be bought off with the right open sesame.  In many ways, it seemed easier to imagine a trick than to think of all the hard work.

After all, ”work hard” just isn’t an inspiring call to adventure. 

But one theme I heard repeated at RT time and again was the value of perseverance, the stubborn dedication that goes with hard work.  I talked to a multi-published author whose number of rejections quadrupled mine.  I met writers in all stages, from “I have this idea” to just receiving a request for a complete manuscript from an editor attending the convention.  I had dinner with a reader who drove ten hours after work through the night to make the convention, blowing a tire in the process.  “I need chocolate,” was her only complaint.  They all wanted the same thing: books.  Lots of books.

Can you be clear eyed and starry eyed at the same time?  I think so.  I saw that at RT, and it reminded me, the door was always open.  I just had to get there.

The RT Booklovers’ Convention is in Los Angeles next year.  Maybe I’ll see some of you!

Although I try not to analyze my writing too intensely as I write my first draft, there are a couple of things that I remain conscious of throughout the first draft. I don’t expect to get it all right on the first pass, but staying aware of these items helps me pull the story together:

1. Is there conflict on every page?
It can be small conflict or large, but without tension, I worry that the scene will be a yawner. Besides I’m fond of torturing my characters.

2. Is the protagonist active in pursuit of his or her goal?
One of the first critiques I ever got was from the fabulous Jo Beverley. I won the critique in a contest. I’ll never forget one of the comments she made about my manuscript: “Neither [the hero] nor [the heroine] do anything to bring about the triumph. They are pawns.” Naturally, I’m now eager to ensure my characters are not feathers on the wind–that they take an active role in determining their destiny.

3. Does this scene drive the plot forward?
Those detours I sometimes take on my journey to the end of the story? Scenic? You bet. But not always productive. In one book, my editor said to me, “Could you make this scene shorter?” Being the professional that I am, I whipped out my magic slicer-dicer and removed1000 words from the scene. The alarms bells didn’t ring until I got her follow-up comment, “Could you make it a bit shorter?” Uh-oh. I loved that scene, but when I took a good hard look at it, I realized it didn’t drive the plot anywhere. It was a scenery snapshot. So, I took the whole scene out.

4. Did I end the scene/chapter with dramatic intent?
In my first draft of my first romance manuscript, I ended the first chapter with the hero going to sleep. Then I joined the RWA and went to a chapter meeting where one of our seasoned authors, Laura Byrne, said (paraphrasing), Never end a scene with a character going to sleep unless your intent is to put the reader to sleep. Ever since then, I strive to end each scene with a sense of anticipation.

5. Where’s the romance?
I love writing action scenes—battling evil, blowing things up, dealing justice to the bad guys. But I write romance because I love the romantic play between my two lead characters. To blend my interests effectively, I know I can’t lose sight of the romance. This doesn’t mean injecting romantic interludes in inappropriate spots; it means always being aware of what impact events will have on the romance. And circling back to point 1, it means making the relationship as conflict ridden as possible.

My first drafts are first drafts. I don’t remember to do all the above as I write—and sometimes I’m simply too close to the story to see the issues. But keeping these points in mind helped me final twice in the Golden Heart and sell a series to a publisher.

Speaking of selling, today is the official release day of Bound by Darkness, the second book in the Soul Gatherer series. To celebrate, a signed copy of Bound will go to one of this week’s commenters. I’ll draw the name using random.org at the end of the week. Good luck!