Blog Archives
What I’m planning to read…
I plan. A lot. Last month I barely read at all which was a not good thing. It was partly because I didn’t have time to do everything so reading slipped and I didn’t really feel like it. I know, it was scary for me too. Now I’m back to reading and I feel like I’m dehydrated for words. I have a lot of books on my shelves but it’s easy to get overwhelmed, so I thought I’d share with you what I plan on reading!
Toby Daye series by Seanan McGuirre – I’ve already read books 1-3, and need to go buy the 4th book in the series so I’m up to date on what’s going on.- Burning Down the Spouse by Dakota Cassidy – Um, it’s Dakota therefore it will rock. Hard and with much laughter.
- Black Dust Mambo by Adrian Phoenix – This book has been sitting on my shelf for a few months, and it’s been on my Want To Read list for longer. Since Black Heart Loa was just released, the second book, it seems like an opportune time to read them, huh?
- Archangel series by Nalini Singh – I was ‘saving’ this for a special occasion, but ya know what? I want to read them. Badly. So I will!
- Skeleton Crew by Cameron Haley – It’s urban fantasy and gangs and the first book was pretty cool. This fits under both want to read and researching material.
So that’s eight books I want to read in the near future. Most of which I already own. Hurray!
What are you reading?
Weekly Check-In
Despite this being the last few days of the Savvy Boot Camp, it was a lazy week. I read Kiss of Snow instead of sleeping, and slept instead of writing, and as soon as the clock rolled over to June 1st all responsibility to write like the wind was gone. We still don’t know the results for who won the boot camp, but it was a close race to the end. June is the month that I want to do revisions rather than writing, but I’m still writing. I got off to a good start, but I’ll talk about that below.
I haven’t been talking about A Round of Words at all, and for that I fail. I haven’t forgotten that I’m working on that challenge, but I haven’t been as mindful of updating my progress on it. I solved that yesterday.
Blogging.
Judging by the twitter conversations and the comments left on Suzan’s blog and here I would say that the Let’s Talk About Sex series is off to a good start. We discussed underwear and what that says about your characters. Suzan took the girly side and I discussed all things buff and hunky. This week we’re talking about heat levels and language particular to the romance genre. While a lot of people already know this stuff, not everyone does and it’s good to talk about it. We’re also having a blast while we’re at it, so that’s all that really matters.
Revising.
I started revisions on Rescue Me – again. These were pretty light, going over what one of my critique partners suggested. A lot of it was grammar, and of that commas. I have comma issues. I conquer the apostrophe and now the comma and I are at odds!
I’m really happy with Rescue Me. I have it up over at Book Country for review if anyone is a member there and feels like giving me some feedback. I plan to submit it next month after I take my submission package class and hammer out the submission details. I’m less confident about those, but that’s the reson behind taking the classes!
This weekend I broke open Decoy. I’m almost halfway through it and hoping to be done with this first pass in a few days. It’s kind of ugly at this point and there’s a lot of red, but I’m hoping that in the end it will pay off and it will rock. I’m crossing my fingers that I finish this draft Tuesday or Wednesday and then the super picky stuff starts.
Plotting.
Um, I’m kind of stalled out on plotting. I’m worried that letting an idea stew this much is a bad idea. I get bored of the shiny and move on to something else. I still like the idea and I want to write it but it’s not a driving desire of want any more. I’m afraid that this is bad. Very bad.
I replotted my superhero story I was supposed to write during Boot Camp. It’s a whole new idea and more naughty than the original, but again I waited too long to write it. So I’m going to write the naughty one and just go for it. If it flops in the draft process it flops and I’ll move on.
I plan on doing more reading this month to get myself in a place to write certain things. We’ll see how this goes!!!
Writing.
Yeah, so since it’s June I’ve slacked on writing….
Project: Booty-Call Bust
Genre: romance
Type: novella
Progress: I had an idea for this while watching Deadliest Warrior, of all things. The story is actually at a very interesting part, so it shouldn’t be hard to jump back in and hopefully hammer it out soon. My problem is that I’ve been distracted by being lazy. And revising. I’m going to attempt to write 1-2K a day on this a day this week in tandem to doing revisions. It’s not a lot, I know, but I want to keep the ball rolling and finish this sucker.
What I read.
- Kiss of Snow by Nalini Singh
Books I bought this week…
This was a huge release week. There are three books in established series that I’ve been anxiously waiting.
Kiss of Snow by Nalini Singh – This is the tenth installment of the Psy/Changeling series, and Oh My God it’s so amazing! I couldn’t have asked for a more exciting book. The romance was sizzling, there was tons of tension and action. Things have been building in the previous books and a lot of things really come to a head in this book. You get the romance of the wolf changeling alpha with a rogue psy-x. It’s incredible, I can’t gush about this enough.- Deadline by Mira Grant – Feed, the first book in this series, was my favorite book of 2010. The book blew me out of the water. It’s a political thriller, plus post-zombie apocalypse. I went in expecting a chilling zombie book and got way more than I bargained for. Things happened in that book that many authors would shy away from doing –
and it worked. I can’t wait to curl up with this book over the weekend, granted I’ll probably be sleeping with the lights on. Hello, zombies! - Magic Slays by Ilona Andrews – The fifth book in the Kate Daniel’s book, this is going into uncharted water. It is an urban fantasy series with a lot of magic and a dystopian element. In the previous book there was a romance arc climax that’s been building through the previous four books and I’m excited to see how that plays out and how the series arc progresses. You know from the previous book that Kate is going to get herself into loads of trouble. Then there’s the novella that’s set right before this book that comes out on Tuesday of this coming week, and the big subplot bomb that happened in the previous book. There’s a lot of questions rolling around in my head that boil down to: What happens next?!?
So what are you reading this weekend?
Books I Bought This Week
So here we are again with my weekly list of books I bought!
- Ecstasy Unveiled by Larissa Ione – I read this right after I got it, so it fell between the window of books I bought last week and the check-in. Strange, I know. Anyways, this is book 4 in the Demonica series. Uber good book.
- Angel’s Blood by Nalini Singh – This is the first Archangel book. I’ve been sitting on books 2 & 3 for a while kind of stretching out when I would read these because I know I’ll mainline them just like I did with the Psy/Changeling series.
- I Want to Kill You by Dan Wells – The 3rd John Cleaver book and the wrap up of this YA/horror/paranormal/fiction trilogy.
- Red Ribbon by Lila Dubois – One of my friends came back from RT and included in all the swag was a promo piece for this book. The blurb was interesting, something along the lines of: self-confident woman wants to explore the world of dom/sub and ends up subbing for her old time college friend and they fall in love. Okay, so it’s not incredibly unique premise wise, but coupled with the promo stuff I figured it had to be interesting and I did say I was reading outside my comfort zone so I read it. Good story, emotionally fulfilling, and their dom/sub play was interesting.
- Wrapped Around Your Finger by Fallon Blake – I honestly got this because I happened to glimpse the description saying plus sized model and the cover sported a chick with tattoos. It’s another dom/sub, but this one is more exploratory of that culture, participating in a house party thing. Loved this one, very good story!
- Rigger by Kelly Jamieson – I misunderstood the title when I snagged this one looking or more reads outside my comfort zone. I thought this was about a set rigger, but the story is actually about a photographer who likes to tie his partners up. It was surprisingly artistic and the story was well rounded, touching on the characters lives and how their experience together changes them.
- Cloudy with a Chance of Marriage by Kieran Kramar – This is the 3rd installment of the Impossible Bachelor series, a historical romance with a flare for the comedic and sexy. I devoured the first to books in a day, so I’m excited about the 3rd installment.
- Tiger Eye and Shadow Touch by Marjorie M. Liu – I got the first book for the simple fact that there are changelings, and I’m now invested in the series.
DA BWAHA – and 2nd chances!
Quick update for anyone who is getting as much of a kick out of DA BWAHA as I am, there’s a lull in the voting right now because the 2nd chance part of the tournament is getting set up. If your brackets are bleeding red as much as mine are, it’s a chance to hopefully staunch some of that mess.
Is it sad I only just realized there are prizes involved for those who make the right picks? I was voting just because it was fun and there were books up for voting that I’m kinda in love with. Really, it’s been soooo much fun listening to the trash talk and the pimping out of books and authors. But there always has to be a spoil sport, ya know?
Aparently some people took offense at some people pushing for one author or book over another. No names, because that’s just not classy, but I’m sad that such a fun event draws people like that out and people who were having fun got targeted. I did my own pimping out for books, but not near as much as other people did, and really, who cares what I say? If you’re going to play the game, realize it’s a game and just playing it is exciting and don’t take stuff so personally!
I feel another manners blog coming on.
That’s not the point of this blog. The point is to tell you to go make your 2nd Chance picks on the DA BWAHA site and vote (for the Iron Duke)!
Really, this next round is going to be a painful choice for me because I have to pick between a book I love, Iron Duke, and an author I idolize, Nalini Singh since all my other picks got bumped off in the last round of voting.
Weekly Update!
The last few weeks my updates have been very brief. I think that it’s been a product of how dissatisfied I’ve been with where I was in my WIP. I’ve been sloshing through the murky middle and questioning myself so much that I wasn’t really feeling like writing much at all, but now that I’m to a place where I’m excited about what I’m writing – I’m excited about writing anything and everything! So, here goes…
Blogging.
I’m working on three different monthly series. Fiction writing as therapy, goals and antagonists. I’m not sure when I will post them or in what order. I’m working on getting some other people involved who have some more experience in these areas than I do. I’ll need to get cracking on these sooner rather than later, but I’m still working on all my craft projects for March. Yikes! So much going on and so much to do!
Revising.
Nada. Next month will be ALL about the revisions and self-editing. I even signed up for a self editing class (mostly because my clone-mother Suzan did, lol). I’m excited about this because I hope to be focusing on Blood Bound by then.
Plotting.
Because there’s so many people working on their stuff for Warrior Writer Boot Camp, I offered to table my submission last week, which is my 2nd Antagonist for my horror story. His name is Jonah and he’s pretty cool.
In other news, I’ve been watching shows about psychics and other kinds of paranormal investigations. The style of the investigations is interesting. Some focus on dealing with them from a religious stand-point, where others just want to catalogue th experience and move on. I think I should write up some short articles about it and save them for later posts perhapse.
One of the psychics/mediums/sensitives that appears on both Paranormal State and Psychic Kids, Chris Coffey, is going to be in Dallas. He’s hosting some kind of two hour thing that costs $50. If you pay $100 you can go on a ghost hunt after the event. I’m really tempted just because he conducts himself as a professional and my hokey meeter doesn’t mind him. I did google local paranormal investigators and I’m curiously cautious about contacting them for some interviews and discussing how they conduct their investigations. I’ll save that for closer to my plotting phase.
Writing.
After last weekend, I’ve had a lot of success writing. There were a few days when I only wrote a few hundred words because of time restraint and everything else going on, but overall I’ve been powering through my draft. It’s been really exciting since I hit the high point in the middle. I think it’s really important to get into the habit of daily writing. Right now my goal is just to write some each and every day. Even if it’s only a few hundred words, it’s still moving forward.
Project: Formerly Fat Club: Casual Love
Genre: contemporary romance
Type: novel
Progress: I’m super excited about the story right now! I was dwindling a bit before I hit last weekend, but achieving that high point in the story really made me feel more excited about the story. I’m on to writing all about the complicated first steps in a relationship and I’m genuinely excited every day about the time I’m going to sit down and write. The weekend was really productive, but judging from how far I am into the plot and the word count, I’m just going to have to accept that I started the story way too far in advance. I’ll be blogging about tough judgments in your manuscript later today, but I’m not letting this get me down! Just means I need to write more, and be very serious about my writing time.
What I read.
I’m really, really, really excited about a lot of books coming out late spring/early summer. The ones I’m currently jonesing for the most are Dark Enchantment by Anya Bast, the third in her Dark Magic series, and Kiss of Snow, number like nintybillion in Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series. I’m supposed to be reading for April Book Addicts stuff, but all I’ve wanted to do this week is re-read stuff. This is dangerous, as all the dabwaha voting is going on makes me want to reread all these awesome books like The Iron Duke, Byou Moon, There Be Monsters, Lead Me On, the Kate Daniels books, and I’ve been holding out on even starting Nalini Singh’s Archangel series! I could spend about two weeks rereading all of these books because they rock that much.
And don’t ask me what dabwaha stands for. It’s like Fantasy Football, but for books. so it’s like Fantasy Book Stuff… Um, ignore me. You pick which books you think will win over other books and starting March 16th we start voting on rounds. It’s been so much fun to watch people trash talk on twitter.
- Wicked Enchantment – Anya Bast
- Sweet Enchantment – Anya Bast
- Stroke of Enticement – Nalini Singh
- Lead Me On – Victoria Dahl
- Wanderlust – Ann Aguirre
- A Whole New Light – Julia Devlin
- Riding the Rail – Julia Devlin
DA BWAHA – are you playing?
Don’t ask me what DA BWAHA means, but think fantasy football, but for books. Yeah, it’s a book lovers fun time! If you haven’t signed up yet, I believe today is the deadline because voting starts tomorrow to determine who moves on through the rounds. Everyone should go vote! And even if you don’t, you should check into some of the author trash talk that’s going on via twitter. Some of those ladies aren’t pulling the punches! (Okay, it’s all in good fun, no one that I’ve seen has really been nasty.) There’s even some bribery going on, if you’re the kind who accepts bribes…. Not that I am or anything!
Here are some of my favorites that are up for votes this year:
- Can’t Stand the Heat by Louisa Edwards
- Here There Be Monsters by Meljean Brooks
- Iron Duke by Meljean Brooks
- Bayou Moon by Ilona Andrews
- Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews
- Archangel’s Kiss by Nalini Singh
- Lead Me On by Victoria Dahl
I hope I didn’t miss any of my favorites. This blog is incredibly unplanned and it’s late and I really should be sleeping, but I wanted to take a moment and tell everyone to GO VOTE NOW!
