Vixenwriter

This is just a very small snippet from Battlefront… No adult content so no need to warn anyone, LOL!

Read the rest of this entry ?

I have now turned the corner in Standoff and I’m entering the “end of the book” stage. I do have that vague, “god is this all just words put together in no coherent fashion” feeling in the back of my head as I ususally do at this part, but I’m flipping it off and I totally will call it a diva and shove it if I have to.

Also, in news that makes me giggly - So last night I got an email from the totally fabulous Rhian who’s sent me a link. She’s made a mini-movie and I’m in it. I watched it and laughed and laughed and laughed some more.

It’s violent in that summer movie at the lake is so if you’re very sensitive, don’t click the link. However, it’s totally cartoonish and also features Anya Bast and Megan Hart as well as Lila Dubois and Jill the Acadian.

Check it out!

Last night the dude and I watched Rise - a vampire flick starring Lucy Liu. I love vampire movies and this one was unusual and in the end I enjoyed it. I did think the timeline issues - flashback sequences threaded with current time sequences - were jarring and IMO, took away from the fluidity of the story. It was confusing AND, as my husband pointed out, kept calling attention to how she apparently had time to stop in at Gene Juarez for a color and makeup session in between killing evil undead. She did look very stylish, by the way. I think the wardrobe people did a great job.

It got me thinking about how technical issues in how we choose to tell a story can either enhance or take away from the overall experience for the reader/viewer. On one hand, it’s a bold move to do the flashback sequences the way the director did. An info dump slows down the story but with a story like Rise, it’s necessary. It could have moved more traditionally from the moment she was changed to the end, but he went another way. Interesting choice, it opens with girl kissing which well, let’s face it, keeps the dudes happy and it’s not like Lucy Liu is hard to look at by any stretch of the imagination, but it sort of fed into a quick buck sort of feel and then you’re jerked backward in time and then forward again.

Anyway, I’m rambling, but it made me think of Outlander (a book I love, love, love) and essentially, you do have some folding back and forth in time but it’s judicious and in Gabaldon’s case, it totally works because it’s judicious.

What do you guys think? What are some unusual technical things that worked for you and didn’t work? Memento comes to mind as a really brilliant story told unconventionally and just works well. Pulp Fiction too because it’s circular and you don’t quite realize it until the end and you’re like, “Oh!” In books though, I think messing with timelines is far more tricky than in a movie because the thread is mental and not visual. It takes longer to track back to the main story.

Despite my world being filled with squee over my own books, I’ve got to say I’ve read a lot of really good books written by OTHER people in the last two weeks too!

Ebook wise - I read Lorelei James’ Rode Hard, Put Up Wet. Now I’m super picky about westerns. It’s not normally a genre I seek out but I do like Lorelai’s voice (as well as Beth Williamson’s and I love her stuff too- Happy Birthday Beth!) so I grabbed this one after seeing an excerpt.

James gives the readers two concurrent romances in the book and keeps them straight quite handily. I thought as I read it, “there’s no way I could do this so clearly” So you get four great characters with their own flaws and motivations and you also get to revisit characters from Long Hard Ride.

The sex? Muy marvelous and in plentiful and yet well written combinations. The story arc works, father and daughter with abandonment issues, boyfriend who feels left out, heroine who is in her late forties (yay!) who’s trying to start over after the loss of her husband two years before. Rode Hard is a really emotional and satisfying read.

Karen Marie Moning - Bloodfever

Wow. I closed this book totally disturbed and thoroughly satisfied. Moning takes a lot of chances with this second (and ultimately better and more engaging) in her Sidhe Seer series.

It’s hard when you’ve built up a readership doing one thing to veer off and do something totally different. And yet, Blood Fever picks up where Dark Fever leaves off and runs way dow the field.

This is one dark book. No kidding. Despite some funny dialog and light moments, the story is not for you if you’re wanting to be uplifted. It’s genuinely scary and truly horrifying in places.

It’s also compelling and one of the best dark fantasy novels I’ve read in a while. This is NOT a romance, I know she warns readers but I’ve read reviews where people have been angry about that. And still, romance or not, Blood Fever is a truly amazing book.

Susan Andersen - She’s Coming Undone

I love Susan Andersen and I recently had the opportunity to meet her briefly at a book signing and I have to tell you she’s a lovely woman.

That out of the way, She’s Coming Undone is a really wonderful romance! I wish authors would stop steering clear of characters in show business because, IMO, it’s such a fun subject and Andersen does a great job here.

She takes up the story of PJ - the thirteen year old runaway we met briefly in Hot and Bothered. Only now it’s fifteen years later and she’s a huge country singer who’s just fired her manager mother and Jared (the other teen who was also a runaway in Hot and Bothered) has come to babysit her on behalf of a record company worried she’ll bolt and leave their concert schedule in the lurch.

Excellently woven series of mistrust and misunderstandings, two extremely well defended characters who don’t quite understand themselves and a past that holds them together in a way nothing else can compare to or even break.

Of course Andersen gives you a glimpse of past characters you’ve loved (and I have loved her marines in this series) and gives great sexual tension and romance.

I totally recommend it and I’ve already read it again!

Rachel Gibson - Tangled Up in You

I think this is my favorite Gibson romance in some time. I love her voice and I keep up with her new releases but this one in particular wowed me.

Really well done flawed hero and heroine. Lots of pain from messed up childhoods. A fabulous and unique topic done from both perspectives - how often do you hear about the pain of the family of someone who murdered someone else?

Great small town setting. Wonderful sexual tension.

I thought the pacing of when and how the hero and heroine got together, were torn apart and got together again worked exceptionally well.

A really well done romance that’s lighthearted and yet deep and provocative all at once.

So, a little story if I may…

Earlier this week I said to Megan via IM - “you know, I’m just so sick of being on the verge of breaking. When do I reach the point where I accept it isn’t going to happen and just be happy with what I have?” (and she said, “NEVERRRR, We’re Spartans!” which is why I adore her so).

I hit this spot where I wasn’t necessarily sad, but I just felt sort of bleh and uninspired. I usually feel so passionate about writing but I think I was just in a big old rut.

Then as the days of this week began to pass, I hit my sweet spot in Standoff and I felt like I really began to get my characters and understand them and I truly fell in love with the book and then I got my fab cover and I thought this morning, “well, you know, I have things pretty damned good”

And then…

I got a phone call about forty minutes after I posted. It was my agent and she told me I’d just sold to Berkley Heat. I nearly fell over. After much squeeing on both ends and a lot of “OMIGOD!” on my end and “holy shit!” too, I’m still sort of shaky. I’ve wanted to write for Berkley forever and I can honestly say they’re a dream for me. I called my husband and sort of blurted out the news and had to get off the phone because the other line was ringing and my daughter was talking loudly and I couldn’t hear anything and I got about three steps to go downstairs and I had to stop and sit as the tears really hit.

I’m so fortunate. I have this dream. I have a beautiful, wonderful family and a husband who will hear my second voicemail in which I bawl and he probably can’t understand a thing I said but he’ll listen anyway. I have the most wonderful agent in the whole world who has been so supportive and has believed in me when I wasn’t sure I believed in myself and I have fabulous friends who did the happy dance along with me.

So now I can announce it in public and I’m still bowled over and thank god it’s sven and I’ve been working my ass off becuase I’m 60% done with Standoff and when I finish that I’ve got to get working on Battlefront because it’s due at the end of January! But I can do it. I can. OMG, I can!

Essentially, I suppose the moral of the story is - keep writing. It will happen. I know I’ve told myself this a thousand times and there were days I thought they were empty words. But I kept writing and wow, I’m just a goofy tool, but a lucky, goofy tool.

Over 5K yesterday on Standoff and I’m so thrilled! Last night as I was writing a scene that really only came to me a few days ago, I hit that sweet spot where the words just fell from my fingertips. I’m pleased with what came out and I feel like I *truly* know Grace now where I only got glimpses of her before. I love that! This book has been a lot like Chased was as I wrote it. I feel like I started off with an idea of who Liv was but she really revealed herself to me midpoint and it was a revelation to us both.

Books ebb and flow. Sometimes they’re fast and relatively painless to write. Other times you have periods when you’re sure the book sucks swampwater. I feel with this book I’ve had a clear overview but the writing has been a series of small discoveries as I put it all together.

Each time I write something I learn more about myself, my process and really, about writing in general. There are times when you feel like it’s just not coming together but you keep working and working and suddenly, things move and clear up and wow, it’s not the way you’d originally imagined it at that level of detail but it’s just exactly what it should be.

Because this book is the last in a four book story arc, I’ve had to be careful and weave all the loose threads into the whole. This is an interesting challenge. First because I hadn’t imagined it would *be* a four book story arc when I wrote Enforcer. It just worked out that way when I wrote Tri Mates and suddenly I thought, hmm, this is a big story, wouldn’t it be fun if I actually, oh say, planned out the series in advance?

Anyway, I outlined Wolf Unbound and Standoff at the same time, closing the loop and ending the story and the series. We’ll see if I want to do this again when I finish Standoff, LOL, but right now I’m thinking I would in a heartbeat.

Speaking of Wolf Unbound - I got my cover a la Dawn Seewer yesterday

WHEE! I love it. I’ve not worked with Dawn before but once I opened that jpg I was a fan for life.

I’ve hit 50K in Sven and nearly the halfway point in Standoff so I’m a happy camper today!

A few months back, gorged myself on Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ Natural Born Charmer. I finished it all in one sitting and I really enjoyed it. I’m a big fan of SEP’s ability to write characters that are messed up, wounded people who don’t wallow or feel sorry for themselves. And then I also read Innocent in Death and as I prepare to devour Creation in Death which is winging its way to me now, I’ve been thinking about redemption.

In romance, especially from powerhouses like SEP, Roberts/Robb, Elizabeth Lowell, Anne Stuart (to some extent, although she likes to keep her heroes bad) sometimes the hero messes up. So, then, if the hero fucks up, and he usually does - that’s a romance thing, he has to make up for it properly. You have to forgive him or you won’t understand it when the heroine does and he’d better be worthy of that forgiveness too.

Dean, the hero in NBC was a total dumbass at the end of the book. He acts a certain way in the presence of his friends and then delivers an ultimatum which was very one sided and then when Blue came to him, even after he knew her hurts and vulnerability, he didn’t meet her halfway at all. And there’s another thing he does that made me mad too - essentially, he had a lot of scraping to do and he didn’t do the work.

What saved the end of the book for me was Blue, the heroine. Because I’d connected with her so strongly for the rest of the book I felt like she knew something I didn’t and so that one small thing took half a star off my total rating but it was still an amazing book.

Now, Roarke, who I adore and frankly think is *the* ultimate romance hero, seriously screwed up in Innocent in Death. No, he didn’t cheat on Eve, nor did he want to. But he didn’t take her side. He didn’t take her concerns seriously even though he *knew* what Eve was telling him was true (which he didn’t tell Eve, making things even worse) At the end, he realizes this and sort of redeems himself but IMO, not enough.

It’s not like I think the unforgivable can be forgiven - like in some romances where the “hero” gets the heroine pregnant and then he calls her a whore and runs off becuase he was told when he was 25 he couldn’t bear kids or some stupid shit like that. He comes back after the kid is born and sees the birthmark his mother had and all is well and he wants to play daddy. Once the hero calls the heroine a whore in anger, I’m putting the book down. Doesn’t matter how much scraping he does, he’s an asshole and I can’t find him hero material anymore.

Still, romance, at its heart, is about two people finding their way through their natural human inclination to be selfish and be there for the person they love. Forgiveness is at the heart of that and surviving hurts and growing is something a talented romance author can use to make you really love the characters - SEP does this in a truly amazing fashion as does Jenny Crusie.

What about you all? Do you mind if the hero scrapes enough? Is it something you think about? Are there unforgiveables?

Ah time flies. My oldest child turns ten today. Holy cow, how did that happen? He happily scarfed down four pancakes before scampering off to school with popsicles for his birthday treat thingy. Tonight it’ll be cake and ice cream and the meal of his choosing? Chicken nuggets, fries and mac and cheese. Sigh. Whatever, as long as I don’t have to eat it, everything is fine.

What else? Hmm, oh I finished edits and a revision and got back to Standoff last night and got 2500 words written.

I’m addicted to lolcats. I giggle to myself all day. I have issues. Clearly.

moarfunny pictures

Why is it penis enlargement spam is so gross? I mean, it’s all, overstatement with yucky verbage - lots of jamming and choking and all sorts of stuff women don’t really like. Seriously. Also, flooding the neighborhood with your, um, byproduct? Not sexy. Just sayin. I will say I’m endlessly amused with the spam emailer names. I may use some in a book someday.

OH! Feral Fixation - the anthology which has Reluctant (a prequel quickie featuring Layla Warden from the Cascadia Woves books) is now available in print from the Ellora’s Cave Print store. There are some great stories in this antho!