Category Archives: Ascension

Back from my travels (and it’s so cold!)

Posted on 6th June 2009 by Felicity Heaton

I’m back from my travels to Italy. Verona was wonderful, Venice was as lovely and as crowded as ever, and Lake Garda was absolutely stunning! I’m missing the balmy 35c temperatures now though as I’m back in a slightly drizzling and very cold England, which can only boast a measely 16c temperature today. It’s been raining non-stop. Such a stark contrast to the eternal sunshine and heat of Italy.

I am refreshed now and ready for getting on with my writing work. Of course, any sense of calm and relaxation I have right now will be shattered on Monday morning when I have to get up at 6am to go to work. Bleh! I’m sure all you commuters out there can sympathise. It’s horrible having to slog into London every day of the week to work. One day I will be a stay at home writer. Joke! My husband says that I’ll go crazy if that happened. I get cabin fever if I’m left alone in the house for a whole day, let alone the whole week!!!

I’m not sure what the writing plan is right now. I have to sit down and figure out what needs to be done and then go from there. I definitely want to get Winter’s Kiss polished up and ready for release sooner rather than later. I would like to be able to expand Ascension as planned but I’m not sure when that will happen. 3 out of 5 of my Arcadian readers have come back with their comments and I have those to think about once I have the other 2 readers responses in. I don’t plan to start work on the Arcadian polish until July though, which leaves me a few weeks of June to play around with. I think that I’ll be finishing the proof of Winter’s Kiss and then writing Ascension, and then doing the polish on Arcadian.

I also have to keep up with my Japanese as I’m starting to flag on that front and need to really concentrate more on it now that it’s getting more difficult and I’m learning higher level things.

On a brighter note, the first Daughters of Lyra story came out this week on Fictionwise.com. Heart of an Emperor isn’t out on Alinar Publishing until tomorrow but Fictionwise have strange deadlines and release dates so it ended up coming out a week earlier there. I’m hoping that it does well but I’ve never had a story released there a week before it’s actually due for release. I don’t think it’s doing it any favours right now, and I suppose it doesn’t help that I was away when it came out so I couldn’t promote it. Doh!

If you want to get it at a 15% discount this week, then head on over to http://www.fictionwise.com/eBooks/eBook88327.htm

Well, off to work for me… well… proofing Winter’s Kiss anyway… not office work! (yet)

Posted in Ascension, daughters of lyra, paranormal romance, science fiction romance, urban fantasy, vampire romance, vampires, Vampires Realm, werewolf romance | Comments Off

Romance works in progress

Posted on 29th May 2009 by Felicity Heaton

It’s been a while so I thought I would have a catch up with you all. I’ve been busy this week reading a paperback version of the second draft of Arcadian to get a feel for it before I start the third draft / polish in July. It reads well and the feedback I’ve received about it so far from my five readers is positive, and the only things pointed out were things that I felt needed addressing anyway, so all good on that front.

I finished reading it on Wednesday, so yesterday I was going to do some Japanese but I bought my massive notebook for the seven book paranormal romance series which I’ll be writing next year and it was game over. All I did was read through the notes for the various brothers and start writing more. It’s mostly scene stuff right now but sometimes it’s notes about them, or about the heroines, or the world/enemy and that kind of things. I’m doing it again today, even though Friday is my official Japanese day. I tell you, once I start reading stuff for this series, I can’t stop my mind from working on it and thinking up more stuff. It’s wonderful to be so into the series considering that it’s going to take me a long time to write and that it’s a long series. Each book will be novel length, probably 80,000 to 100,000 words, and there’s 7 of them, so that’s a lot of work. It’s good that I can leave it for months at a time, come back to it and read the notes, and be so enthusiastic and excited again. Of course, my hubby doesn’t appreciate talk of my Hades’ Boys. I think he gets jealous when I start talking about how I’ve spent a lot of time with three of them but need to spend time with the rest. Lol. I swear I could spend a year just writing notes for these stories.

I’m on holiday next week but I don’t think my mind will give it a rest. It never does, even when I’m somewhere beautiful and distracting, like Prague. When I saw the Charles Bridge in Prague, inspiration hit me for a scene in the Prophecy Trilogy and I feverishly wrote it down. I always carry a small notebook with me so I can write things down as they strike me.

When I get back from Italy (I’m going to Verona) I’ll be working on the proof of Winter’s Kiss and on Ascension. I have notes for that story and a rough idea of the improved storyline. I just need to get it written now. It’s difficult taking a complete short story and expanding it. There’s a chance I won’t write the same for the other bits. Still, the hero will have me writing in his voice in no time. He’s that kind of man/demon!

It’s a hot day in the UK today. It was too warm even at 6:45am! Now it’s humid and horrible and it’s only 8:30am. I have a busy work day ahead of me so I better get prepared. I can’t wait for my holiday!

Look out for my new website this weekend!!! I’ve slaved over it and I can’t wait to get it launched.

Posted in Ascension, Hades' Boys, Prophecy Trilogy, Vampires Realm | Comments Off

Editing and submitting

Posted on 23rd May 2009 by Felicity Heaton

I’ve been thinking this week about the whole submission process and the paths that authors take. I’m currently self-published and sell well for ebooks, with best selling books at Fictionwise and a loyal readership, but I don’t want to spend my whole life writing ebooks. I want to take the risk and the harder path to being published. I want to submit my stories to publishers and agents this year, and even if they’re rejected, I won’t mind, because I’ll be able to say that I tried. If you don’t try, you’ll never know if you might have succeeded, and who knows, I might succeed. So this year, I’m resolved to try to luck and take the leap. It’s a frightening one, because rejection will always hurt no matter how many times it happens. It’s something no one can ever become used to and emotionless about, not unless they’re a robot or not a human at all. But I want to do this, I want to see if I have a shot at being print published by a non e-publishing company, and want to see if I’m good enough.

I have been busy these past few weeks. I’ve finished the second draft of Arcadian and sent paperbacks out to a selected audience to get their feedback on the story before I start the polish/third draft. I’ve done the second draft of Heart of an Assassin, the fifth Daughters of Lyra story. I’ve proofed the first four Daughters of Lyra stories and got the first one ready for release as an ebook. And I’ve started the proof of Winter’s Kiss, which will be done by the end of next week.

On top of all that, I’ve been redesigning my website and rebuilding it. It’s much nicer now, although hasn’t been launched yet, and I can’t wait to show everyone. I think you’re all going to like it a lot more than my older website. It’s easier to find specific genres and the covers are bigger so you get a better view of them. I think it’s just easier to use all round and I love the little bits of functionality I’ve built into it, like scrollers and a countdown to the release of my next book!

And, I’ve also been thinking heavily about Ascension as I want to finish that this year and get it out to publishers and agents next year. It’s definitely going to become a novel, but a shorter one than Arcadian. Probably a 70,000 to 80,000 word one, which is the length most publishers are searching for.

I’m also about to start going through my small stack of notes for around 50 billion stories to find some novellas and shorts to write for next year. I have a mix of paranormal romance, science fiction, historical romance and romantic suspense to choose from. Should be interesting digging through the huge stacks and finding some gems to write.

Phew!

Posted in Ascension, daughters of lyra | Comments Off

romance ebooks lined up

Posted on 10th May 2009 by Felicity Heaton

Hi all! I’m so excited about releasing the Daughters of Lyra series after all the great comments on the covers. It was wonderful to hear which covers you guys preferred and which stories you were most looking forward too. My favourite is Heart of an Assassin. Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have a favourite but I do. It was the story that came to me after I had written the four stories that were originally going to make up the series. I just had to write it. I love the notion of a top assassin being in love with one of the princesses. I always love writing stories where the hero’s only weakness is the heroine. (In Heat, anyone?).

Speaking of stories where the heroine is the hero’s only weakness, I’ve finished my second draft of Arcadian and have made myself a print version via Lulu.com to test read the story again. It will be interesting to read it like a proper book. I’ll choose the six readers soon from the seventy (!!!) that submitted themselves to be readers. I’m flattered that so many people submitted their names. Unfortunately I can’t afford to send out 70 paperbacks of the novel. I’ll have to be subjective and choose people I have worked with before on my Ascension story.

Speaking of Ascension (there’s a lot of ‘speaking of’ today, isn’t there?), I’m finally getting close to being able to extend the story. I’m not sure how long the story will become or whether I will ebook publish it or send it out to agencies, but I am making headway on plotting out the extended version of the story. There is a lot that I think I need to cover. Things like the coven, the ascension itself, and counterbalances. Also, the hero needs to have his path realised–accepting that he is part-demon because it’s only the strength of his demonic side that gives him the power to protect and save the heroine.

I’m also getting back to thinking over a seven book series of novels that I want to write. I can’t really say much about it at this point but it’s urban fantasy / paranormal romance and you guys are sure to love it. I’ll only say that it’s seven books for seven very powerful and sexy brothers. Like Sons of Lyra on paranormal steroids. I can’t wait to begin writing it, but I’ve calculated that it’s going to take me around 2.5 to 3 years to get them all written and edited. That’s a long time without writing anything but the series!!! I’ll just refer to them as the Hades’ Boys for now.

I do need to go through my stacks of various notes for stories and see what shorter ones I can write for release as ebooks while I go off writing longer stories for print publishing. I’m sure I have plenty of paranormal novellas that I can write to keep you all happy 🙂

Better shoot. I have a lot to do today. Writing related and non-writing related. Things like summaries, mowing the lawn, and Japanese!

F x

Posted in Ascension, daughters of lyra, Hades' Boys, paranormal romance, science fiction romance, vampire romance, vampires | Comments Off

Ascension and Arcadian

Posted on 31st October 2008 by Felicity Heaton

Many thanks to everyone who kindly read my story codenamed Ascension and gave me feedback on it. Most of you seemed to feel the same about the story as I did – there’s more to it and it deserves to be a novel. Well, because of this feedback, I have decided to turn the short story into a full novel and I’ll be working on writing that next year, along with another story.

The other story is currently codenamed Arcadian. This will be a long paranormal romance that in my mind will be pushing the 100k words mark. Normally my built in length predictor is pretty on the nose. There’s a lot of story in this one, so it may even go over, but it will end up being edited down to 100k if that is the case.

I don’t really want to say much about either story at this point, only that I’ll be working on them in 2009, and that they’re both paranormal romances with a lot of plot. I’ll be writing Arcadian first, and then following that up with Ascension. I have another story or two that I’ll consider writing at the same time as these, but my focus will be on them first and foremost.

As for the future of both these stories, if they turn out as planned then I will submit them to agents and publishers.

Back to work for me. Seventh Circle, the next Vampires Realm novel, is out on November 16th, and I still have a lot of promotion work and stuff to get ready for it.

Happy Halloween everyone!