Vampires, Werewolves, and Witches (Oh, My!)

Okay, seriously, how sad is it that I didn’t quite get that all of Kim Harrison’s titles in the Rachel Morgan series were Clint Eastwood movies? Bad, right? I mean, I recognized The Good, the Bad, and the Undead, and Dead Witch Walking, but the others? Not so much. I was really wondering about the title of this one, too, until someone pointed out the connection to me. Duh. The Outlaw Demon Wails. But the book was good. Except for the part where she stubbornly didn’t bring Kisten back from the dead. (Not that I thought she would, but I admit to nursing a faint hope.). I have enjoyed all the books in this series, and I can’t wait until the next one comes out. Rachel is a flawed character, but one I’ve very attached to.

Then I read Darkling, by Yasmine Galenorn. Interesting book. I haven’t read any of the others in the series, but I liked this one. To be honest, I bought it because of the cover art. That picture really caught my eye (it was the braids), and I picked it up and read the blurb. That convinced me completely. I like all the different creatures that are in the book, and I really like the idea of the baby gargoyle. That’s too cute.

Then I read Enchanted, Inc., by Shanna Swendson. I loved this book! I couldn’t put it down. It was great. The whole set-up blew my mind, and the MC was fabulous. I really liked Katie. And Owen. We can’t forget Owen. I’m buying the rest of these books this week.

I also read The Kitchen Witch, by Annette Blair. It was good, parts of it made me chuckle, but it was a little too…romance novel for me. I know that sounds bad, but I don’t mean it that way. I was just hoping for a little more from it. I’ll probably be reading more of the series, though.

Howling at the Moon, by Karen MacInerny was a great find. I enjoyed the breezy style and voice of the book. The characterization was great, and by the end I felt like I knew Sophie personally. I found myself snickering all throughout the book, too. I mean, an undercover werewolf who worries about her purse when she’s forced to change? And getting caught in her wolf shape with pantyhose on? That was pretty funny, even when she wasn’t griping about her gorgeous best friend.

I just finished The Accidental Vampire, by Lynsay Sands today. Couldn’t put it down. I laughed out loud several times while reading this. Poor Elvi. She thinks all the myths surrounding vampires are true (No eating, must wear black, sleeps in a coffin), and when her best friend places a personal add on her behalf, the vampires who respond let her in on the truth. The scene where she finds out she can eat was hilarious, with her first demands being cheesecake and chocolate. Now there’s a vampire after my own heart!

Still Mad In March

Okay, so I haven’t blogged in a while. I’m not actively writing much, so I guess I just don’t feel like I’m accomplishing anything. But I am. Really. I swear.

I just finished doing a novel critique for a partner. That was a learning experience for me, and one that I enjoyed. Much different from doing chapter critiques for my crit group.

I have nine writing-related goals left to complete this year. I’m still doing the submission package workshop for TSS. Another learning experience. To say the least. I have a rough draft of a long synopsis, a second draft of a shorter synopsis, and a second draft of a query letter. Can anyone please tell me why it’s harder to write the two-paragraph blurb for a query letter than it is to write the entire 100,000-word story?

I’m still working on the zombie story, although not a lot. I need to get back on track with that, and start meeting with my co-writer again. I’ve got the next chapter outlined, it just isn’t done. Must do that before next week…

I’m editing Witches. Right now, I’m still working on a brief pass of the chapters I already did a heavier edit on, so it’s going pretty fast. But pretty soon (like in about two weeks), I’ll be into the untouched stuff. And then it’ll really get fun.

I finished the first draft of the 2YN story, and I’m still working on the assignments for the class. I’m looking forward to what comes next.

The only new words I’ve written have been on the synopsis, but my total word count is up to 51,015 for the year, out of a goal of 250,000.

March Madness

I haven’t made much actual writing progress lately, since I finished the first draft of my 2YN story, but I’ve been working on other things. I’m getting more heavily involved with the edits for Witches, trying to cut a lot of the extraneous details and wanderings, at the same time as strengthening the conflict and some other weak spots. Editing is hard for me. Very hard. Without that initial rush of creative energy, the work seems to drag, no matter how much I still love the story and the characters. Of course, Witches is the first thing I ever really tried to write, so it’s my baby. And killing any part of my baby is hard, no matter how much I know it needs it. The reactions from my crit group to the changes has been pretty positive, so I’m hoping to keep the improvements at least on that level.

The only new words I’ve written in the last week have been on the synopsis for Through Shadowed Stone. I’ve never written a synopsis before, and I know the drafts I have now are…not very good. Not horrible, I don’t think, but nowhere near good. I’m so grateful to have found the workshop on Forward Motion on putting together a submission package! It’s going to be a lifesaver, without a doubt. The original draft for my long synopsis was 1k over where it needed to be, so I had to cut that. The shorter synopsis involved cutting another 750 words. I know I tend to be a bit wordy, but cutting things out of the synopsis was difficult for me. The current result is definitely still a work in progress. It needs a lot of smoothing before I even get to the polishing stage. It’s more of a step-by-step description right now than a narrative. I know I need to make it flow, and show a lot more of my writing voice. But it’s a start.

I’m also working on a novel crit for a novel exchange. Well, “working on” may be the wrong word. I’m working on starting to read the story so I can critique it. I’m a fast reader, so I’m not worried about that part. I’ll read through the story the first time fairly rapidly, then go back through at a slower pace and pick it apart. I’m really looking forward to reading it, though. I just did another novel crit on a work with really strong, vibrant writing, so I’m looking forward to reading this one as well. I just have to conquer my procrastination tendencies and get started.

Other than that, well, there is no other than that. Besides working crazy hours this week, that’s all I’ve been doing. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep up the rather chaotic pace for the rest of the month.

Mucho Reading

I’ve been reading a lot the last month. I’m up to a total of 26 books out of my goal of 150 for the year. I know I’ll have no problem meeting that goal, not with the frequency I’ve been ordering books lately!

I re-read Skinny Bitch. Yeah, I just read it six months ago, but reading it again reconfirmed my choice not to eat meat. Not that I’m saying it’s like the Bible or anything, but it just strengthened my resolve. Now if I could just get people to stop asking me “Don’t you miss meat?”

I finished the Star Wars Dark Nest trilogy with The Unseen Queen and The Swarm War, by Troy Denning. Both decent books. The Star Wars world always entertains me, so that was enjoyable.

Next up was Kitty and the Silver Bullet, by Carrie Vaughn. I enjoy this series. Kitty is a good character, and she’s grown a lot through the series, getting stronger with every book. I was glad to see her develop even further in this one.

I’d heard a lot about The Other Boleyn Girl, by Philippa Gregory. Now, I was more or less familiar with the story of Anne Boleyn, but this book was a whole other take on that story. I’ve always felt sorry for Anne in the past. In this case…not so much. I didn’t like her at all. Her sister Mary was a great character, and I read this really fast to find out what happened to her (Not to Anne. I knew what was going on with that.)

Then I read The Darkest Evening of the Year, by Dean Koontz. I’ve been wanting to read this one for a while, and finally got around to it. It was good. Not as good as his Odd Thomas books or the ones about Chris Snow (Seize the Night, Fear Nothing), but good. You can always count on Koontz to tell stories that could happen, but with a twist of something just a little bit harder to believe thrown in.

I also read three books by Sunny, Mona Lisa Blossoming, Mona Lisa Craving, and Lucinda, Darkly. I like her writing, although it inevitably brings to mind the Anita Blake books. Sunny’s premise is quite a bit different, with the Monere. I like the fact that they’re from the moon originally, and there’s a lot of original ideas in her stories. I actually liked the Lucinda, Darkly book even more than the Mona Lisa books. It’s about Lucinda, sister to Halcyon of the other books, and she’s quite an interesting character, with a lot of conflict in her life.

I’ve read the first two books in Lilith Saintcrow’s Dante Valentine series, so I was looking forward to reading The Devil’s Right Hand. I think I need to go back and re-read the first two, though, because I don’t remember them being quite so…futuristic/sci-fi. Actually, I don’t remember that at all. This kept distracting me from the story, which I liked a lot. Dante’s such a strong character, but she’s so insecure sometimes that I want to scream. And who wouldn’t want to be all kick-butt like her? She’s great. That’s why I don’t understand the insecurity, even though it makes her a very realistic character.

On my best friend’s recommendation I read Nighthawk, by Kristen Kyle. She said it was “Pretty good, for a romance.” Um, there’s a reason I don’t read straight romance any more. Not that this was a bad book. But I wasn’t expecting it be a space romance, and similarities to the original Star Wars movies kept rearing their heads at me. A little distracting, that.

Last, but definitely not least: Chosen, by P.C. and Kristen Cast. I love these books. Love, love, love. The premise is great. I mean, a vampire finishing school? Excellent idea (Why can’t I think of these things? Why?). The tattoos that appear on the fledglings and vampires are cool. Then you’ve got the conflict between Zoey, the MC, and the High Priestess (who’s really evil), her dead best friend, and her numerous boyfriends (one human, one a fledgling, one a grown vamp). Throw in her horrible family, her conflict with the ex-Priestess-in-Training (and hag) Aphrodite, and the fact that someone’s murdering adult vamps, and you’ve got a great, fast-moving read. I read this in like two hours. I started to do some other things, knew I wouldn’t accomplish anything as long as the book was waiting for me, and sat down and read the entire thing. Now I have to wait until fall for the next one!

Finished First Draft!

I’ve made some progress since the last time I blogged. I finished the first draft of my 2YN story, Samantha’s story. Yay! I had planned to have it finished in February, but I didn’t quite make it. Instead, I finished it on March 3rd. Close enough, I guess. I’m not entirely happy with the ending, but I know I can fix it in the revisions.

I also got a chapter written in the zombie story. I’ve been sadly neglecting that one for a month or so, and it was a little difficult to get back into the character and world like I needed to. We’re making good progress on the story. Probably about halfway done.

One of my goals for the month of March was to get a query letter and synopsis written for Through Shadowed Stone. Strangely enough, I was procrastinating on Forward Motion last night, and happened to stumble across a post that said the workshop for this month was putting together a submission package. How’s that for coincidence? So, of course I checked out the board. The first assignment was to write a long synopsis, 1250-1750 words. My first draft came in at 2729 words. Oops. Had to cut that down a little bit. I’m not happy with the result, but I realize it’s the beginning stages, so I’m trying not to stress about it too much. I’m thrilled to have found the workshop though, especially at such an opportune time.

My word count for the year is up to 50,020 words. I’m a fifth of the way to my goal.

Lazy Times

This will be a short update, since I’ve not accomplished much lately. Of my nine remaining writing goals, I’ve worked on…two. One of them was finishing the 2YN class. I finished the chapter I had in progress, and wrote another one, for a total of 2,836 words. Which brings me to 25,106 for the year. Not too bad, but only 10 percent of my goal for the year. I need to hurry!

Much Progress

Oops! It’s been a few weeks since I blogged about my progress on my goals. Work has kept me pretty busy during the week, but weekends (a.k.a. Friday and Saturday for me) have been productive. So, let’s see, what have I accomplished in the last two weeks?

Of my ten writing-related goals, I’ve worked on eight of them. Wow. I didn’t realize I’d accomplished quite so much. Yay! That makes me feel a lot better about the days I felt like I was slacking.

First and foremost, I finished the first draft of my NaNo 2007 story. I’m not entirely thrilled with it, and I think I dropped a few threads, but I uncovered the bones of the story at least. It topped out at 76, 243 words, which is by far the shortest thing I’ve completed.

I’ve done some work on the 2YN. It amazes me how well that story flies off my fingers. And Samantha is so effortless! It’s like she writes herself. I really love this story.

I’m semi-working on submitting Through Shadowed Stone. I found a novel exchange partner, so I’m hoping the new eyes will give me some fresh insight into what needs work.

I’ve also been editing Witches. Thanks to some hints from my wonderful crit group, I’ve done some polishing on the first two chapters. I’ve also done some work on Chapter Three, getting ready to throw it to the wolves (or post it, whichever phrasing you prefer).

I’ve done a bit for research for NaNo 2008. Basically, I’ve been looking for a mythical, human-like species to make my MC. No success yet. But I think I’ve come up with another story idea (which I’m hoarding right now until it’s through stewing).

I have the next chapter in the zombie story outlined (a detailed outline). More mayhem! I also briefly know what my next chapter is about, as well as my partner-in-crime’s next two chapters (lots more chaos and some funny stuff).

And finally, I wrote 8,506 new words, which puts me at 22,270 for the year. I’m woefully behind!

Wonderful Books

I’ve been reading some good books in the last week. Some I’ve read before, some I haven’t. All by authors I’m already familiar with. But still, enjoyable.

First off, I read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, by Douglas Adams. I love these books. I think they’re hilarious. I end up laughing out loud every time I read them. I’ve loaned them to family members and friends, and only one person I know has every actually managed to read them. Everyone else says they just couldn’t make sense of them. I wonder what it says about me that I like them so much?

Then I read Iron Kissed, by Patricia Briggs. This is the new one in the Mercy Thompson series. I like the world Briggs has created. It’s different than other takes I’ve seen on the werewolves/vampires/fey (Oh my!) theme, and it’s a refreshing change. Her characters are strong and well-developed, and she always throws such great problems at them. I’ve been wondering for the last two books about some of the choices I knew Mercy would have to make, and this book answered some of those questions. It also went into more detail about the fey, which I really liked. A really good read.

Last but not least, I read Duma Key by Stephen King. I wanted to start it Friday night, but I was home alone, and I’m too chicken to read King by myself at night. So I started it Saturday afternoon. And ended up staying up ’til one a.m. reading it. I really liked this one. I haven’t been quite so impressed with some of his last books, but this one I thoroughly enjoyed. He’s so mean to his characters! I loved the setting a lot. I have always loved the ocean, and King’s description made me feel like I was there (Heck, I wanted to be there. Except for the whole spooky-doll-lady-thing. Eh.) He inches the tension level up a teensy bit at a time, but by the end I was just as creeped out as the MC. This is a book I would highly recommend.

Week Four Progress

I’m a little late with my update post this week, but that’s due to working 13-hour days, and then being sick. That’s about par for the course for me, though.

Well, let’s see. I’ve added the scenes into the zombie chapter. There was a lot of action going on there, and according to my co-writer, I successfully kept up the tension level, so that’s good.

I finished a chapter on my NaNo 2007 story. Actually, I’ve realized that I need to go back in and add some things to this chapter, so I guess technically it’s not quite finished. Also, I’m planning on doing a lot of work on this story in the remainder of the week, and finishing up the first draft on Saturday at the latest. I was getting a little too distracted with trying to write this, the zombie story, and my 2YN, so I want to go ahead and finish this one, since it’s the closest to being done. I think there are only about four chapters left, so I should be able to get those done easily.

The only other goal I’ve worked on this week is my word count goal. I wrote 3,784 words this week, which puts me at 12,695 for the year (towards a goal of 250k).

Slow Reading Month

I have not actually done much reading this year, only ten books so far. But there has been a lot going on in real life, so I’m not overly worried about it. Besides, there are so many books coming out soon that I’m really looking forward to.

In addition to reading Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, I also read Through the Looking Glass. Is it wrong of me to prefer the cartoon version of Alice? And I kept getting flashes of what I think was a TV movie version of Looking Glass. Both were still enjoyable reads, though.

I read the anthology Over the Moon, with stories by Angela Knight, Mary Janice Davidson, Virginia Kantar, and Sunny. Enjoyable stories all. I have to say I preferred the Sunny story, but then I read Mona Lisa Awakening (although not the second book in the series yet), and really liked it. I was also impressed with the Davidson story, although this was the first of her vampire stories I’ve read. I do think I’ll be buying the books, though.

I read the Star Wars book The Joiner King by Troy Denning. I can’t help it, I’m a huge Star Wars fan, and I’ve enjoyed pretty much all of the books (Except for the ones where certain main characters died. Didn’t like those at all.) This one was no exception, and I intend to buy the remaining two books in the trilogy soon.

Lastly, I just finished House of Sand and Fog, by Andre Dubus III. I never saw the movie, so I have nothing to compare it to. I got attached to all the characters, even though I wanted to shake some of them and say “Hello! Wake up. You’re headed for disaster.” I was afraid there would be no way this book would end well. Sadly, I was right. I did think it was well-written, and the characters had very distinct voices, but the book just depressed me. I am a firm believer in happy endings (even if my own stories don’t always work out that way).