Well, I finished writing the first draft of my latest vampire romance novel, Heart of Darkness, this week. I finished it on Wednesday and it’s complete at 124,546 words, written in 3.5 weeks! That’s pretty good going I think. I’ve had a good time writing it and although I had a moment in the third week where I was stuttering a bit, and I had to push myself in the final week to get it finished, I’m rather happy with the outcome.
I don’t think I’ll be killing myself to get my next novel written so quickly, although I have freed up some time in which I decided to write a couple of the short stories for my A Day In The Life series of free ebooks, and I’ve even decided to write a rather steamy paranormal romance novella too which I’m burning through right now. I can hopefully find some time to write another few paranormal romance stories which I have ideas for, all shorts or novellas, in between editing my three bigger stories.
I wrote the A Day In The Life story for Lilith, from Seventh Circle, and Balt, from Sons of Lyra: Slave Princess, which are both due out over summer. Both of them turned out at 3000 words. The whole series is made up of free ebooks that are around that length or up to 4000 or so. I’m going to be proofing the stories for Kim, from In Heat, and Valentine, from the Prophecy Trilogy and Spellbound, tomorrow.
I’m going to start on the second draft of Forbidden Blood on Wednesday this week when I have some holiday time for a few days. The usual trick to start with, giving it a good read through on paper pretending to be just a reader and making notes on the obvious things to fix. I’ve allocated four weeks to do the second draft, which should be enough time based on how long it’s taken me to do second drafts on previous novels of similar length. Besides, this one is in pretty good shape already and there’s only a few things that I know I might want to fix or improve, besides the usual of fight scenes, death scenes and love scenes.
As for the new erotica paranormal romance novella I’m writing, that’s quite fun right now and I’m flying through it with almost 9000 words written for it only yesterday. I haven’t really planned this one, which is unusual for me. I only have a few scraps of notes for it which I’m working from and giving my muse free leave with the rest. I should have it done by Tuesday night though so I don’t impact on my second draft of Forbidden Blood. This story is a new sub-genre of paranormal romance for me. Her Dark Angel features a witch for a heroine and an angel for the hero. It’s going to be the same sort of heat level as my In Heat stories, with plenty of love scenes and passion, and a deep attraction between the hero and heroine. I can’t really say much about it without giving it all away! I’ve written angels before in Seventh Circle, both the good sort and the sort that have been corrupted, and I enjoy spinning a new take on them, and I’ll be doing the same with this one, only this time he’s the hero!
I’m over my parents right now gearing up for a birthday party and my father, with the announcement “This will get you going” handed me a section of The Guardian with its Ten Rules For Writers… Gee thanks. At least this time it’s only best selling authors giving their top ten tips for writing, and I definitely live by all of Neil Gaiman’s ones already. Last time it was a how to write type thing.
Update next week with progress on Her Dark Angel.
