It’s been a busy week all round for me. Work, writing and play have all been manic. Let’s start with writing first, as always…
I finished the second draft of Forbidden Blood this week. At this point, I’m quite happy with it but I’m too close to judge whether I need to improve certain scenes as I had noted previously so I’ve decided to put it to rest for a while and then read it again before the final polish and see if it needs improvements. I cut it down quite dramatically but I’m not sure whether it will be enough to entice agents into taking me on in such a strict market for word counts. It’s now 108,000 words but that’s probably still just long enough to put a lot of agents and publishers off. The economy of word count is all very good but I think publishers need to think more about what impact it has on the story and on readers. I for one feel cheated when I pay a lot of money for a 90,000 word story and it’s just not as good as a longer version might have been. There’s only so much fat you can trim from a story before you’re cutting away the good meat of it. I feel I’ve trimmed as much as possible with Forbidden Blood and people will just have to like it or lump it. There’s no point in my ruining the story just to bring it down by a few more thousand words. If it ends up around 110,000 words, I’ll be happy. I’ve always preferred to have plenty of plot in a story, which means it’s always going to be quite long. Nothing I can do about that without compromising my style and the story.
I’ve made a paperback version of the book now via Lulu and have shipped myself a copy. It’ll get put aside until I’m done with some other writing projects and it comes time to do the polish on it. I prefer to read it as a properly printed paperback at this stage as I notice a lot more mistakes then and I can carry it around with me far more easily. I did the same thing with Love Immortal and that worked fantastically. I took the polish copy of that (post third draft for that story) to Japan with me last November and read it on the trains and plane.
Not sure when I’ll do the polish for Forbidden Blood yet as it’s all up in the air somewhat. I need to figure out my schedule. I spent a lunch time this week going through my calendar and what needs to be done, but then I’ve changed it all again in my head and need to update my calendar now. Typical.
After finishing Forbidden Blood‘s second draft, I printed out Her Dark Angel, my witch/angel romance novella, and started the second draft on that. It’s written in my other style. I seem to a more fun upbeat style, a bit naughty and racy, and then my more serious side. Mostly I write in my serious side, but stories like In Heat and In Heat: Mating Call are my funner side shining through. This is like that, and so is Ascension.
I had a gig to go to on Friday in London, so having to do a read through / edits on paper was a good bit of timing as I didn’t want to have my netbook with me that day. I managed to do the read through, finishing it while waiting for my husband to meet me in the Starbucks near my office in London, and today I wrote all the corrections and notes up into the word document. I should have the second draft on Her Dark Angel done by Friday this week, which means I really need to figure out what I’m doing next!
I’m tempted to write another story, but I have a collection of them that need editing now and I have to do a little clearing of the backlog before I can write a new story. Reading the angel romance has the muse fired up (since he’s an angel) to write another story in the same genre, so maybe I’ll swerve away from writing the werewolf romance and vampire romance novellas I intended to get done and write another angel romance instead. I could even tie it in to Her Dark Angel… oh, the muse loves the sound of that. Cue frantic note writing! An idea has just burst into my head in a flurry of feathers!
In other news, I’ve been battling with work recently and having a massive project to suddenly do because the people who were supposed to be doing it weren’t good enough in the end. Life has been busy too. I’ve had another infection in my dodgy left ear and now have a side-effect of the Amoxicillin I was given (little red dotty rash) so I’ve given that up. I’ve been busy in the garden too. It’s that time of year now, isn’t it? It’s getting warmer and the garden needs attention. I’ve cleaned borders and sown lots of seeds this year. I love wild flowers so it’s all poppies, cornflowers, and night scented stock going out there, plus daisies and things.
Koyo, my cat, has brought the same baby mouse in alive twice last week but not once this week. All of the seed I put on the lawn has been eaten *sigh* by the little sod and the birds, but I still keep a watchful eye on Koyo in case she’s trying to catch the poor little thing again. I’m such a pansy when it comes to animals. I can’t kill them or let them be hurt or anything like that. I have to help them, even when it’s something like a spider or snail. Everything deserves a shot at life and I feel so sorry when snails get squished by people.
It’ll be time to tackle the front garden soon. Not looking forward to that. I want to get it cleaned up before my birthday party in three weeks’ time. My seedlings in the back garden will be the perfect height for small niece/nephew feet to trample at that point! lol.
In 10 weeks I’m off on a much needed holiday to Shanghai, Australia and Tokyo (yes, Japan again!). I cannot wait… and cannot stress that word enough. I CANNOT wait! I’m bound to be reading some of my books and editing them during the flights (there are a lot of them!) but will do my best to relax too.
Right… off to plan that new story. I have a title too now… sometimes I love my hyperactive muse!
