Holidays and writing

Yes, it's been a while since I updated everyone. For that I'm sorry. The Seiple house is getting into the holidays here in the USA so that means even more time doing stuff and not typing at my computer. The few times I have had energy at my computer, I haven't been typing things but playing various Minecraft mod packs.

HOWEVER!!!

That doesn't mean I'm not writing at all. I've been working on a couple of sci-fi and fantasy stories that are being scribbled down in notebooks. The sci-fi story I've been working on for a few years now, having to tweak and rewrite some of it as I haven't liked what I was reading before I finally realized I had to show the start of this group's journey which meant a novel before the original colonists' novel getting them all together and off of Earth. So, that set me back a while on the writing and finishing part, but I'm able to work on both of them in fits and starts because they're linked and in the same three ring binder.

The fantasy story that's sorta taken over was one that hit me out of the blue a couple of weeks back and I've been writing like crazy on it in a notebook. Almost have the first short story finished, as I honestly can't see this one being more than a collection of shorts unless I get a REALLY good plot going on it. Maybe a novella for the first story as that's setting everything up for the rest of the stories. It's suppose to be a fun little romp but we'll see how things turn out there.

Dark Fairy Tales

To be honest, Crimson or Gold was going to be a one off story, a darker Cinderella to stretch myself a bit as a writer.

But then two other fairy tales entered my head with a "What If", and I found myself intrigued by the idea of a dark Sleeping Beauty and dark Snow White. So I gathered up my paper and preferred pens, and I started plotting and writing. My husband got to listen as I hashed out ideas in between blowing my nose and coughing when I was sick, and he was willing to toss a few ideas back to make me think about what I was plotting.

And tonight, I finished the first draft of the Dark Sleeping Beauty story. It is completely written out by hand and sitting next to me on the desk, waiting for me to start typing it up which will begin tomorrow since I'd like to give myself a night off *laughs*. This story has been quite the task master, insisting I work on it whenever I can and even keeping me up late a few times as words poured out of my pen. Of course on the plus side of things, this is going to be getting out within the next month.

The hardest part of this story was actually *ending* it since it wanted to keep going down the lane of Happily Ever After to explain what happened next. But I think it's ending in a good spot, and if I add any more to it, the story quality will go downhill.

Besides, those additional scenes don't really add to the story nor does it wrap up any 'loose ends'. Just more characters wanting to talk when they're not needed.

Writing Tables

Back in the late 90s and early 2000, there was something popular among fan fiction writers called "Prompt Tables". It was basically a table of 100 random words, and the goal was to write 100 drabbles using those words as a prompt for each one. It could be the theme of the story or a random word tossed in for whatever reason. So, way back when, I went out and found three of these prompt tables and put them together. After removing the duplicate words, I have a very large table with 253 random prompt words, which I have used a few times in fan fiction writings just to see if I could structure a story around this wild and Frankensteined table.

The answer is yes, by the way.

Since I was having trouble getting the sequel to Second Anniversary to work for me, I decided to print out one of these tables, tape it into a notebook, and then armed with a pen and a highlighter, I've started writing little stories that will fall between the main three novels and possibly before the first one. I've only gotten one hand written right now, but I'll probably be typing them up and selling them in an anthology form.

Of course, during the process of writing that first story, the characters have evolved a bit more on me, explaining a bit more about why they were acting a certain way in the first story. Eventually, I'll probably go back to the Second Anniversary and quite possibly rewrite parts of it to polish it even more as well as show the characters as something more than the slightly two dimensional beings they currently are.

In a way, The Second Anniversary was me pushing my limits on my writing as I had never written about an abusive relationship or drug abuse before. I only hoped I could do it justice with the research I was able to do on such topics. I hope further stories will let me push myself as a writer a bit more.

Bit organized?

Last night while laying in bed, I realized I have quite a few stories that I have either built a world for (one of my favorite things to do) or have started scribbling for them. Got m wondering just how many I might have.

This morning, I pulled up an excel spreadsheet in Google Docs, and I started listing them, giving each series a row of its own. Here it is. As you can see, it's a rather extensive list with reminders for me which ones are which. A few of the stories may only be available when I do an anthology or a trilogy together at first before I toss 'em up as separate stories. But it's still a lot of stories. This will be added to as I think of new stories and such.

I confess that all of my plot ideas are self indulgent with a few exceptions. As I finish writing a book, it will be highlighted, and when it is published, there will be a line through it. That way I can actually see some progression beyond the piles of notebooks in my office and bedroom.

Toiling Away

I'm still here and I'm still going strong.

I've started working on the second novel of my Seconds Trilogy, of which The Second Wife was the first one. The second book will start about nine months after the ending of the first one and continue with the lives of the Duke of Frostmoor and his family. It's a bit more slow going because this novel is going to be bigger than the first one due to the relationships developing in it as well as the various events to show how things have changed since the first book. New characters are introduced, old characters return, and everyone starts gaining more depth and complexity that wasn't shown in the first novel.

Also, I'm working on editing and expanding on a more action-ish romance novel that a friend and I wrote together for fun. Valerie Bruce, my co-author of the Death and the Priest series, and I started Killer Sushi when we needed to have a bit of fun together that was light hearted and different than Father Leia St. Croix, Kanada Osamu, and Saionji Kusonoki. It resulted in a ghost hunter and a merman assassin with the last name of DuPre. An innocent question on if said merman was of the vampiric DuPre Clan from Father Leia's world, and Killer Sushi was started. There are other novels planned, and perhaps some short stories, but it's a fun thing when we don't want to write murder mysteries or any other type of mysteries at the moment.

Besides, who wouldn't want to read about an assassin merman who's about as straight as a broke back snake and a ghost hunter who can actually interact and see spirits and ghosts?

This novel is a bit more on the back burner because I want to get the second Duke of Frostmoor novel out, but who knows, if everything goes right, I could be getting it out before the end of the year.

Perhaps even have both of them out before the end of the year....

First Round, Done!

That's right, the first draft of my novel is done!

Final supply count for it is:

1 ream of loose leaf notebook paper
8 gel ink cartridges for my pen
1 Write Out correction tape spool
and 3 discarded but previously written scenes.

I've discovered that the stories seem to come together more easily if I write them out by hand and then transcribe them to the computer, which is the next draft. That also lets me remove repetitive information while fleshing out more details. Such as the fact that this was originally going to be a sort of strange Victorian setting before it decided it wanted to be a fantasy setting with little bits of magic here and there. So yeah, gotta go back and change things around in the first chapters to reflect that new setting.

The ironic thing is, this is a sort of romance story in that it deals with the feelings and relationships between three spouse, but there isn't any physical relations between them which is why part of me is reluctant to classify this as a romance. Mainly because so many romance stories involve and revolve around the physical relationships between the characters. Yet I can't think of anywhere it fits better.

Well, we'll see what happens when I actually put it up on Amazon, which if everything goes right could be May at the latest and April at the earliest.

Where Did That Month Go?

Between PTO stuff for my daughter's preschool, the crazy weather that either coaxed us outside or ran us back indoors, and the general run of the mill day to day things, February up and vanished on me!

But good news is that I haven't stopped writing and I may even be a bit into the home stretch of this book. Or at least the last 1/4 of it. I'm coming up on Climatic Moment #2 which, now that I think about it, could be the actual climax of  the story. I mean, the other information that is found out could be told through a conversation between two people, and if that's the case, I don't really need to be writing out a huge chapter when a few paragraphs will do, right?

In other good news, I have a new computer. Of course, this means some of my writing time gets eaten up by World of Warcraft. *laughs* I'm having fun with the latest expansion and enjoying the chance to actually play in the new expansion instead of having a slide show because my video card can't keep up with it.

I'll try to be better at posting, but with the nicer months starting to creep up on us, I might be even worse at posting *laughs*

Don't worry, though, you'll be the first to know about new books that I put out.

Solving the Plot Hole Problem

One of the minor problems that every author usually comes across is the Plot Hole. Everyone has seen them even if the weren't quite aware of what they are. It's the 9 year old Pod Racing boy who JUST HAPPENS to be able to fly the space ship and take out the shield generator. It's the traps meant to keep an adult wizard out yet three first year students were able to bypass them. It's the One Thing that statistics, science, and probability saying shouldn't happen, but for the sake of the plot it happens.

While working on my latest story, I ran into not one but four of these little delights. To be rather vague, a crime happens and someone important is injured enough to require medical care. My plot holes became the following:

1. Why weren't the police notified?
2. Why wasn't a doctor summoned?
3. Why weren't the family notified?
4. Why didn't anyone show up for X amount of days?

I took those questions, wrote them down on a piece of paper, and then stared at them for a while this morning, pen in hand ready to answer those questions. Oh, I could keep writing the story as it was going, but those four questions would keep poking me. I could even wave them off as not necessary due to plot, but that just felt lazy and wouldn't give the story I want to give my readers.

Besides, answering those stories would make it challenging and force me to actually think about what's going on in this world instead of just shrugging and answering those questions with "Because reasons".

It took about a quarter of an hour of weighing pros and cons before I came up with answers that were acceptable to continuing the plot instead of disrupting it. Are the answers perfect? No, there's still a bit of a plot hole in them but not nearly as large as they had been. It's quite likely that in the editing phase I'll be able to close them even more, but for now, that small bit of a gap is going to have to do.

I will probably use this technique for all of my plot holes in the future as it seemed to work out rather well this time. Having the problems right in front of me like this allows me to realize just where the issue is and now it needs to be fixed, perhaps it will take creating a whole new plot point or something in the story to seal up that plot hole, or perhaps I won't be able to successfully seal up a plot hole. It will be interesting to see what happens in the future.

Best Laid Plans

So, this past weekend, I was writing, determined to get my Beauty and the Beast short story done and published before the month was out, and on Sunday, I thought it was completely done at 25 pages and around 15k words. Then I sent it to my beta reader.

"Are you trying to do a novel in a short story?" was the kindest thing she said (which I actually appreciate instead of someone squealing and stating it's the best thing ever!!) She went on to explain that I pretty much had done next to nothing in the story and there was quite a bit that needed to be done in it. Also, the ending didn't make any sense.

I admit I was a bit aghast at that, but I realized she was right. I had been trying to write a novel in a short story, and there were so many holes, the story was practically the crib notes version of what it could be. There was so much more that needed to be done in this story to get a good tale out of this. So, I'll be taking that "crib notes" and expanding on everything that is there, and turning it into a novel.

Of course, this means that my plan for publishing a fairy tale short this month, then next month, and finally the anthology in March has been completely derailed. See, Beauty and the Beast is one of those that is included in the anthology, and also, if this story needs something of a novel rewrite, then I'm gonna have to rethink the other story I have planned plus the anthology only special story.

What does that mean for my writing? Well one of my goals for 2017 is tho have a novel written, edited, have a cover on it, and published on Amazon by no later than November. I will be shelving Beauty and the Beast for the immediate future to focus on one of the novels that I actually have a great deal of it written out by hand. When I get stuck on that story, finish that story, or need something to do when I don't feel like writing pages upon pages, I'll pull Beauty and the Beast out and poke at it to see where it wants to go and how it wants to get there.

I'm not throwing the story or the idea away, but it definitely needs a lot more meat on those bones before it can be ready for anyone aside from my beta readers to read. Mainly because I hate promising my readers a steak and lobster dinner only to hand them a McDonald's Happy Meal.

New Project?

For a long time, I have enjoyed playing a tabletop RPG called Shadowrun created by Catalyst Game Lab. It a cyberpunk meets Dungeons & Dragons, meaning if you want you can play an elf that has so much cybernetics they're practically a robot or a human that can fling fireballs and call up spirits to do their bidding. It's fun, exciting, and I have had a character die twice (Had to permanently spend an edge point both times to keep that from happening but totally worth it!) I confess that I've only played the game when my husband was running it, but I've always had fun strapping on my Colt Manhunters, cybering up my elf, and taking to the mean shadows of the Sixth World on Mr. Johnson's NuYen.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that there were novels based in this world of science and sorcery, some stand alone and some in trilogies. My husband has quite a few of them to go along with his two shelves of Shadowrun gaming books. Here, I could return to the cold streets of Seattle whenever I wanted or follow someone into any other dangerous pit of scum and villainy.

Back when I started playing, it seemed like a lot of the campaign books seemed to focus on the West Coast, the West, or the South but not too many in the North. And me being the imaginative person in love with the setting had two little words whispered in my ear.

What If.

Dangerous words, yes, but the basis of so many delightful story beginnings.

What if I wrote a novel in this corporate controlled landscape, creating my own team of Runners, and perhaps fleshing out a little used area to enjoy on my own terms?

So, this past week, I started seeing about making this a reality. I sat down with paper and pen and started fleshing out what had been a small story. Another author, R. L. King, was polite enough to give me the basics of what Catalyst Game Labs wanted in one of their novels when I asked, and I was even offered the professional e-mail address to the gentleman in charge of novels for the company. Yesterday, while doing my best to ignore the increasing cloud cover, I sat down at my computer with all of my notes, and I wrote this gentleman an inquiry to see if he would be interested in my novel idea. When putting my story together, I raided my husband's source books on Shadowrun because I found out that a couple of them had information on the area I was looking at. One book only had half a page while the other had an entire chapter dedicated to Boston in the Shadowrun world. I hoped that the plot I outlined in my inquiry would be just as attractive to him as it was when I started writing it.

Now, I sit and wait for a response back. I hope that Catalyst Game Labs will find my story intriguing and will take a chance on a relative nobody to let me write my little novel, indulging in my self delight in doing two firsts for me: Writing a novel based on a game, and writing a novel from a first person point of view. Both will let me stretch my wings a bit more as a writer, and I'll be able to share this incredibly fascinating world with people who might decide to take a chance because they enjoyed the other stories I wrote. I'll keep everyone updated as I get any information, but until then...

See ya in the Shadows, Chummer....

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!

I hope you had a fun and safe transition from 2016 into 2017, and this is a year fresh with possibilities. One of the first things I started doing this morning was playing around with designing a business card after having a long talk with a random person about the stories both of us were writing. It started because she needed a pen at a restaurant, I gave her one of the cheap and disposable pens I carry for just such an incident, and we started talking. When I mentioned my stories, she instantly scrambled for a piece of paper to write them down.

After I left, I had to wonder what would have happened if I hadn't had a bit of paper or a pen to give her. Would she have remembered the stories later? Or would she have completely forgotten about them? That was when I decided I needed business cards pointing people towards my stories where I could just give it to them without having to search for paper or a pen to write info down on.

So, I went out to one of those business card sites that a friend recommended, and I've been playing with designs and ideas. I think I have one, but I need to get a second opinion from my husband because sometimes the only taste I have is in my mouth *laughs*. I also confess that I'm thinking of starting up a mailing list to announce when new stories are coming out, but as I only have two stories solo published, it seems rather silly to have such a thing just yet. I'll probably wait until I have a few more out there before I start that since all of the announcements of a new book end up on my Facebook page.

So, once more, I hope everyone has a happy new year and a wonderful 2017! Seize the year and make it your own, full of achievements and excitement of the good kind!

Selkie Wife and Swan Maiden and future plans.

My apologies for being so quiet, but there was a family birthday party and much holiday madness. However, I did managed to get out a free story for everyone to enjoy as they wanted.

It started with this Tumblr post talking about the animal wife fairy tale. Everyone knows the one, mostly because of the selkie wife. Man sees beautiful animal suddenly become beautiful woman by shedding her animal skin. He grabs the skin and demands that she's his wife now, and she is until she manages to get her skin back and escape.

Which is perfectly fine in a fairy tale. In real life, though, swans aren't the shy, graceful beings that are timid and more likely to run than set out for a direct confrontation. Which is what that Tumblr post brought up, pointing out what would truly happen just based off of a real swan's attitude.

So, since I love playing and twisting fairy tales anyway, I had to take the idea and run with it, resulting in this little story. It's a freebie posted out at Archive of Our Own so everyone can enjoy it, and I also linked my Amazon page there for any who might be curious about more stories like it.

Now onto future plans!

I have started two more fairy tales, one longer one (Beauty and the Beast) and a shorter one (Bluebeard's Wife), and I'll see what I can do about keeping everyone informed on how they're going. I have finished a short story (Wild Swans), but it needs a longer story to be partnered with before I publish it. It also needs editing, but it's about the size of "Diplomatic Incident", and I can't justify a 99 cent price tag on that.

So keep an eye out and who knows. Might be another book out before the end of January.

Been rather busy

Been a few weeks since my last post, but in my defense, I've been a bit busy. The Little Princess was out of school for a week so I was pretty exhausted in the evenings, wanting nothing more than to just kick back and play World of Warcraft. However, I have managed to complete another short story, one that I started long before "A Night Off". It's another Cinderella sort of story but slightly darker and with an unusual twist.

If everything goes right with editing, it should go up on Amazon by this weekend.

The cover came about with the help of a friend who snapped the picture as I was holding the props. *laughs* Then the details actually came about in a sort of serendipitous event because I was just playing with sliders on my photoshop program until BAM!! There was the perfect cover with a darker background and the props just exploding out of the darkness. I just love it when a cover comes together so perfectly when I wasn't expecting it.

So next on the list is probably back to my Sassy Princesses as I have one more story almost finished and two more on the docket to actually write up. Of course, I have some Urban Werewolves short stories that are begging to be written which I figure I'll just release as a collection of stories since I din't have that many at this time. I also have several novellas and novels I'm working on, and I just found a story that I had forgotten about, so I'm going to be very busy.

Who knows, I may have something soon after the new year if I can get everything working right.