Category Archives: Heart of Darkness

Vampire romance books galore and romance trading cards

Posted on 18th September 2011 by Felicity Heaton

I’ve had a blast these past two weeks finally writing Masquerade, the tenth book in my popular Vampires Realm series. It was hard going because so many characters from previous stories in the series make appearances or play a role in this one due to the fact that it’s set around a Creator Day masquerade, but it was also fun because I got to catch up with them all and write them again.

Sophis and Vivek are the heroine and hero, both Venia bloodline guards, but Tynan is back as he’s now the commander of the guard. We learn more about the Venia bloodline and the current affairs of the vampires, including contraversial happenings with the werewolves and some of the bloodlines. Marise and Jascha also make a return, along with three other Law Keepers. Among the main cast are Hyperion and Winter of the Validus bloodline, along with Valentine, Venturi and Prophecy, and also Lilith and Lincoln. There’s lots happening in this book. It was hard to write so many vampires from the series so I just went with getting it all down on paper and I’ll tackle things like adding in more description and stuff in the second draft.

I managed to get the book finished in first draft last Wednesday, and it’s currently 83000 words but I think it will end up around 90000 when I’m done with it. I do need to beef up some of the fight scenes and layer in the description to bring it to life. It’s all stuff that requires me to think hard about stuff and I didn’t want to slow down my writing during the first draft so I was happy to get in as much as possible and leave the fine details for the edits.

I hope Vampires Realm readers will be excited by the fact that we’re back at a Creator Day ball again and that so many old faces are going to be there. There will be some new faces too, and some monumental changes for some of characters. It’s also setting up the vampire hunters side of things in the series a little more and that’s something I’ll be exploring more in later stories.

I did spend most of the week writing, but I also managed to get sketches done for the Her Angel series trading cards that I want to produce. To give them a unique angle, I’ve decided to do my own original art for them and also a very special design style for the cards that I think everyone will like.

I’ve done the cover of Apollyon’s card so far and I’m working on Serenity’s. To put things into perspective for everyone, the original pencil sketch for each character takes around 1 hour, and then colouring them in Photoshop takes around 7 hours, so each card is a lot of work for me, but I really love drawing and this is a great excuse for me to do more of it.

I’m proofing Heart of Darkness this week, which is a stand alone vampire romance book. Heart of Darkness is out on October 22nd 2011, so there isn’t long to wait for this one now. I think you’ll all love it! Once I’ve proofed the book, I’ll be writing the first book in my new Vampire Erotic Theatre series which will come out next year.

It’s going to be another busy week!

Posted in Heart of Darkness, Her Angel Series, Masquerade, paranormal romance, Vampire Erotic Theatre, vampires, Vampires Realm | Comments Off

August paranormal romance book news

Posted on 2nd September 2011 by Felicity Heaton

Her Dark Angel - best selling angel romance book

My fantastic offer on my angel romance novella Her Dark Angel made August very special for me. It was the first time I had managed to break into the top 1000 on the US Kindle Store. At its peak, Her Dark Angel reached #735 out of over 750000 books and was #11 in Kindle Store > Romance > Fantasy and #12 in Books > Romance > Fantasy. It would have been wonderful to break into the top 10 in those categories but I’m sure I’ll manage it soon.

On the UK Kindle Store, Her Dark Angel reached #320 out of the hundreds of thousands of books listed there and ranked at #2 in Books > Fantasy > Paranormal, #7 in Books > Fantasy >Romance and #7 in Books > Romance > Paranormal.

Her Dark Angel is still only $0.99 and is a great introduction to my best selling angel romance series Her Angel. Since I’m offering this book at a $2.00 discount, you can get the entire series in e-book for less than $11 right now!

Her Guardian Angel - angel romance novel

Since the release of Her Guardian Angel, the fourth book in my Her Angel series, I’ve been scribbling down ideas for the next novel, Her Demonic Angel. It’s going to be as big, emotional and hard-hitting as Her Guardian Angel, so you had better all prepare yourself. This time, you’ll probably need to make sure you’ve read Her Guardian Angel so you know enough about the world to really enjoy the plot to the maximum degree.

Her Guardian Angel has started receiving reviews at various book blogs and it’s doing great so far. I think reviewers are really surprised by the depth of the plot and just how emotional the book is, and also the course the series is taking. I had promised that it was going to be one heck of a thrill ride and I think I delivered. It’s great to see it doing so well, getting four and five star reviews, and it makes me happy as I put so much effort into making it original and I had wanted to write something with emotional punch. Yes, I know most of my stories play on the readers emotions, but this one is really intense and the action and pace is super-fast. Here are snippets from some of the reviews:

“I feel like this book has changed the entire dynamic of the universe Felicity Heaton has created.Â Something big is introduced and if the series continues I can see it having huge impact on the overall battle between heaven and hell. The battles are big, the love isÂ even biggerÂ and the betrayals our heroes face is game-changing. Just the way I like my romances.”

— Kelly, Reading the Paranormal — click here for the full review

“This book had me glued to the pages. It was an unputdownable read with an array of characters that you feel an instant connection with, a swoon worthy hero who risks it all for the woman he loves, and a strong heroine who will fight right along side him, this book truly has it all.”

— Paromantasy — 5 STARS — click here for the full review

“I LOVED this book!! It has to be the best in the series so far. I couldn’t put it down. I read the whole thing in one sitting, and used a box of Kleenex in the process. I swear I cried my way through it, and was a total emotional train wreck by the end of it all. But it made for an amazing read!… You have to grab a copy, it will awe you.”

— Madame D, Madame D’s Boudoir — 5 STARS — click here for the full review

Awesome, huh?

August also saw me complete the second draft of my upcoming vampire romance book, Heart of Darkness. Heart of Darkness is a stand alone vampire romance novel, and features one of my favourite heroes, Aleksandr. He’s a bit of a rake and a little behind the times on modern women because he’s spent the past four hundred years focusing on hunting the vampire hunters that plague his species, but Elise, the heroine, whips him into shape as he pursues her like a predator chasing prey. Heart of Darkness will be out on October 22nd, so make sure you pencil it into your diaries!

I also had a great chat with fellow author Candy Nicks / Alexandra Marell and hit upon a great idea for a trio of very hot vampire erotic romance novellas. I quickly typed out around 6000 words of outline for the three novellas and now that I have the stories set out on paper and in my head, I’ll be writing them soon.

Masquerade, the tenth book in my vampire romance series, Vampires Realm, has taken another bump because of the novellas ideas I have, so I’ll be pushing that down the queue. Since the trouble it gave me that forced me to stop writing it at 30000 words in and made me re-evaluate the plot of this vampire romance novel, I’ve spent time writing down new ideas for the improved plot and figuring out how to overcome the problems I thought it had in terms of characters. I’ve got everything together for it now and I just need to rewrite the outline to include all the new plot ideas and changes I want to make and then I’ll be ready to start writing it. Thankfully most of the 30000 words I had already written is still usable.

I think that was all my writing news for August. It was a really eventful and busy month for me, and now I have a new trio of vampire erotic romance novellas to write, September and the rest of the year will be just as busy!

Posted in 2011 releases, angel romance, Heart of Darkness, Her Angel Series, Her Dark Angel, Her Guardian Angel, Masquerade, paranormal romance, reviews, vampire romance, Vampires Realm, writing | Comments Off

We interrupt this broadcast…

Posted on 24th June 2011 by Felicity Heaton

This week has not been a good week. First it took me a while to get back into the swing of things after my trip to Istanbul, Turkey. The muse went AWOL, which isn’t like him, and when I eventually dragged him back, he just wasn’t interested in writing Masquerade.

Or maybe that was me not interested in writing it.

It’s not so much that I’m not interested, just that I feel there are problems with the story and some things just weren’t clicking for me. I felt it wasn’t going to be a success as it was. I did get up to around 30,000 words of the story written this week, and with them came a few revelations that have led me to re-think the plot and the story, and the characters involved. Not a bad thing. Better I put it on the back burner now so I have time to think about it and get it perfect rather than having to rewrite huge tracts of it at a later date when a deadline is tight.

The trouble is, I had planned to get this story written and released on September 10th this year. See the problem there. Very short deadline in which to write something to fill the gap. Not sure yet what I’ll do but I do have another story in mind for release this year as my second Vampires Realm story. I’ll think of something to release in September, but it might be a short story or novella rather than a novel. I’m going to crunch the figures in my schedule and see what comes out. It might be that I shift the release of Heart of Darkness to September 10th from October 22nd, and then write something new in time for the October 22nd release date.

You’d think being an indie author it would matter what date I release stuff, but I have a whole year’s worth of guest blog dates in place and I refuse to disappoint the people who have kindly offered me a slot on their blog. I also have advertising in place too.

If I can’t get anything written in time, then I will probably use those dates to promote my first two releases this year, because I didn’t have the tour in place then and they could do with some promotion.

It wasn’t just Masquerade not quite feeling right that has put me behind. It’s my main computer too. It upped and died on me recently during a Windows Vista Service Pack 1 upgrade and I’ve had to reinstall everything. Thankfully, I had backed up all my files to my external hard drive before upgrading to the piece of poop that is the Service Pack 1. Why Windows allow this SP to still be used when they know it has faults is beyond my comprehension, but I think it just goes to show how crap Microsoft is.

Needless to say, I’m mightily miffed at Windows and it’s eaten up my whole day fixing the cursed computer in question. There goes my writing time. Got to reinstall lots of drivers, programs, devices, and put all my files back on my computer now. Bleh.

I had really hoped to get Masquerade written but perhaps it’s a good thing that my release order has changed. Heart of Darkness features a guard as the heroine, and hunters as the enemy. Masquerade has the hero and heroine as guards, and vampires / vampire hunters as the enemy too. Might be too similar, even though the stories are quite different.

I think that I will probably keep Heart of Darkness as my October 22nd release, and then have When Darkness Falls, which is a Vampires Realm novel, as my December release. Masquerade will have to wait until next year before it’s released.

My other option is to write Descent, the second story in my Shadow & Light Trilogy for release in December.

Choices, choices. It’s difficult really. I guess it will all come down to if I have enough time. I picture When Darkness Falls as a novel of around 65,000 words, while Descent will likely reach 90,000-100,000 words. Obviously it takes me longer to write, edit, polish and proof a novel that length.

Maybe this is all just fate telling me that I’m a crazy lady to want to release 8 full novels in the space of just a year. It’s saying “slow down, chillax, follow the flow” which I could happily listen to!

Back to work for me. For a change it isn’t writing that’s beckoning me rather it’s the techy stuff of reinstalling and rebuilding a computer. It’s been a while. I’ve had this one for two years or so without it giving me hell. My previous one required a fresh Windows install everything few months!

I’ll keep you guys posted on what I decide to write for when.

🙂

Posted in 2011 releases, Heart of Darkness, Masquerade, Shadow and Light Trilogy, When Darkness Falls, writing | Comments Off

Plans for 2011 writing and Forbidden Blood

Posted on 21st January 2011 by Felicity Heaton

I’m listing to Pete Murray… he makes me think of beautiful Australia… and sunny Cairns… and steals me away from the frosty chill of London.

Well, having finished the read through of Forbidden Blood, it’s fairly clear that it’s going to be the next book I’ll release after Hunter’s Moon. Forbidden Blood is in good shape, with only minor things to address, so I’ll be able to get the polish edit done on it by the date of my ear operation (February 10th). It’s a novel length vampire romance book, currently around 110,000 words. I’m quite excited about releasing it and I keep thinking about writing another book set in the world I’ve created for it. I think readers will enjoy the story though and I can’t wait to release it.

My never ending schedule change is still in progress too. Now that Forbidden Blood is set as the March 26th release, I have to think about the next one. I have a slot on May 7th that I want to use for a pay-for book rather than a freebie. At the moment, I’m set to release Ascension then, which is a witch / demon paranormal romance book, sort of urban fantasy romance.

I’m still planning to release 11 stories in 2011. 8 of those will be pay-for stories and 3 of them will be free ebooks. I’m going to write two stories for my A Day in the Life series, and another story in my Eternity series (Hyperion’s history – sub-series of the Vampires Realm series). I’m also going to polish up the Eternity covers to have them match the other Vampires Realm ones.

At the moment, we’re looking at this sort of ordering for the pay-for stories, with the release dates flexible:

February 26th 2011 – Hunter’s Moon
The next story in the Vampires Realm series, Hunter’s Moon takes us away from Europe to the wilderness of Canada, where Tatyana, a vampire of the Nocens bloodline of Budapest, finds herself at the mercy of an ex-alpha and ex-compound werewolf, Nicolae. And the guy has a serious chip on his shoulder. Sparks will fly!

March 26th 2011 – Forbidden Blood
A dark vampire romance novel, Forbidden Blood is set in London and follows the vampire hero, Kearn, as he fights to catch a man he’s been after for three years. His elusive opponent appears before him in a London back street but a young beautiful woman named Amber hinders Kearn and the man escapes. But all is not lost. The enemy has given Amber a taste of his blood in order to control her and if Kearn’s suspicions are correct, he’ll come after her again. A decision to use her as bait turns into a struggle against a dangerous attraction as they fight to defeat the enemy and protect her life.

May 7th 2011 – Ascension
Ascension is an urban fantasy romance novel, mixing one stubborn half-demon hero, Taig, with his ex-lover and just as stubborn witch heroine, Lealandra. When her life is threatened and her Counter-Balance is killed, Lealandra turns to Taig for protection, but 6 years has done nothing to heal the hurt she caused by leaving him for another man and the coven, and he’s not about to help her without her paying a high price! Lealandra understands why Taig is acting up, but she hasn’t touched another man in all the years they’ve been apart. Her heart has remained constant, and only Taig has been in it. Seeing the pain she caused, Lealandra works to soothe it and hopes to finally help Taig face the issues he has about his demonic heritage and open his heart to her.

July 30th 2011 – Her Guardian Angel
The only novel in the Her Angel series, Her Guardian Angel promises to be a thrill ride from page one. Bringing back all of the angels from the first three novellas, this story is packed full of danger and intrigue, and a hero who will steal your heart. Marcus isn’t interested in his new role of protecting Amelia and posing as her neighbour, but when the two start to grow closer and Marcus discovers that Amelia is about to die, it becomes a race against time to save her life. But will he be successful? Can he stop something that has been foretold?

September 10th 2011 – Heart of Darkness
Set in the beautiful city of Prague in the dead of winter, Heart of Darkness is a novel of passion and possession. Aleksandr, once a prince of his vampire kind, has spent four centuries relentlessly pursuing the relatives of the man who murdered his sister and the constant bloodshed is taking its toll on him, turning him towards the darkness and into the beast all vampires once were. Battling the darkness after killing another hunter, Aleksandr meets Elise, a guard of the Cerny bloodline, and she instantly drives the black from his heart and his mind, restoring his balance. Curiosity about the effect she has on him, and her beauty, drive him to pursue her, but the charm that had once helped him have any woman he wanted fails to have an effect on Elise. If he wants to win her, he will have to change his ways and learn how modern men pursue the women they are falling in love with, but it’s a race against time as the darkness threatens to take control. Only Elise’s love can save him, but even then will it be enough when he faces the last hunter and the end of his vendetta?

October 22nd 2011 – Masquerade
The second story being released in the Vampires Realm series in 2011, Masquerade follows two elite guards as they battle both the threat of vampire hunters and their apparent hatred for each other to protect the lords and ladies of all the pure bloodlines of Europe at the Creator Day masquerade ball! But hate is so close to love, and a dance whilst hidden behind a mask can lead from one thing to another…

December 3rd 2011 – Hellcat
A hunter by trade, he can’t resist the lure of a rare species, but is it wise to fall for a Hellcat? This shape-shifting kitty isn’t about to be caught, certainly not by a hunter, and definitely not by the alpha cat pursuing her across the globe, but the two men might just cancel each other out. It takes little more than a flicker of charm and a sultry smile to win the hunter over, but will he be able to keep her rightful mate off her tail long enough for her to escape? And why the heck is she feeling guilty about using the guy for protection?

There’ll be the three free ebooks in there somewhere too.

I’ll also be squeezing in time this year to write a new Vampires Realm novel for release in early 2012 and the first couple of stories in my Hades’ Boys series… which isn’t the real title. lol. It’s a series of 7 books about some seriously sexy alpha gods (all brothers – their mamma is very proud of her strapping lads) intent on stopping our world and theirs from colliding! I’ll be releasing all 7 novels over 2012, 2013 and 2014. Expect to be blown away.

Posted in 2011 releases, 2012 releases, Ascension, forbidden blood, Hades' Boys, Heart of Darkness, Hellcat, Her Guardian Angel, Hunter's Moon, Masquerade, paranormal romance, Vampires Realm | Comments Off

romance e-book releases in 2011

Posted on 8th December 2010 by Felicity Heaton

I didn’t get a chance to update my blog at the weekend other than posting my new covers, which have received some seriously positive feedback from readers. Thanks to everyone who replied about them. It’s wonderful to hear your views.

I had wanted to talk more about my upcoming releases. 2011 has 11 planned releases, although at the moment there are only 10 definites. They’re all paranormal romance e-books, but there’s a chance that a sci-fi romance novel might sneak its way into the mix. I have so many ideas for stories at the moment that it’s difficult to tell which will be story number 11.

Here’s a breakdown of my planned releases as it stands. This list is subject to change but mostly that means some might get their dates shifted or switched around.

January 15th 2011 – Love ImmortalÂ
Love Immortal is a long paranormal romance novel that mixes vampires,Greek mythology, werewolves, and humans with phenomenal powers into one potent and action-packed book! I think everyone is going to really enjoy this one and I’m very excited about its release. From next week, I’ll be posting a chapter per week at a special blog I’ve set up for the story. Keep your eyes peeled for it!

February 12th 2011 – Hunter’s Moon
Hunter’s Moon will be my Valentine’s Day release of 2011. The next story in the Vampires Realm series, it takes us away from Europe to the wilderness of Canada, where Tatyana, a vampire of the Nocens bloodline of Budapest, finds herself at the mercy of an ex-alpha and ex-compound werewolf, Nicolae. And the guy has a serious chip on his shoulder. Sparks will fly!

March 26th 2011 – Ascension
Ascension is an urban fantasy romance novel, mixing one stubborn half-demon hero, Taig, with his ex-lover and just as stubborn witch heroine, Lealandra. When her life is threatened and her Counter-Balance is killed, Lealandra turns to Taig for protection, but 6 years has done nothing to heal the hurt she caused by leaving him for another man and the coven, and he’s not about to help her without her paying a high price! Lealandra understands why Taig is acting up, but she hasn’t touched another man in all the years they’ve been apart. Her heart has remained constant, and only Taig has been in it. Seeing the pain she caused, Lealandra works to soothe it and hopes to finally help Taig face the issues he has about his demonic heritage and open his heart to her.

May 7th 2011 – Her Guardian Angel
The only novel in the Her Angel series, Her Guardian Angel promises to be a thrill ride from page one. Bringing back all of the angels from the first three novellas, this story is packed full of danger and intrigue, and a hero who will steal your heart. Marcus isn’t interested in his new role of protecting Amelia and posing as her neighbour, but when the two start to grow closer and Marcus discovers that Amelia is about to die, it becomes a race against time to save her life. But will he be successful? Can he stop something that has been foretold?

June 18th 2011 – Masquerade
The second story being released in the Vampires Realm series in 2011, Masquerade follows two elite guards as they battle both the threat of vampire hunters and their apparent hatred for each other to protect the lords and ladies of all the pure bloodlines of Europe at the Creator Day masquerade ball! But hate is so close to love, and a dance whilst hidden behind a mask can lead from one thing to another…

July 30th 2011 – Forbidden Blood
A dark vampire romance novel, Forbidden Blood is set in London and follows the vampire hero, Kearn, as he fights to catch a man he’s been after for three years. His elusive opponent appears before him in a London back street but a young beautiful woman named Amber hinders Kearn and the man escapes. But all is not lost. The enemy has given Amber a taste of his blood in order to control her and if Kearn’s suspicions are correct, he’ll come after her again. A decision to use her as bait turns into a struggle against a dangerous attraction as they fight to defeat the enemy and protect her life.

September 10th 2011 – Darkness & Light
A longer and improved adaptation of my previous and first release in the Tri-Kingdom series, Darkness & Light.

September 10th 2011 – The Night
An improved adaptation of my previous and second release in the Tri-Kingdom series, The Night.

October 22nd 2011 – Heart of Darkness
Set in the beautiful city of Prague in the dead of winter, Heart of Darkness is a novel of passion and possession. Aleksandr, once a prince of his vampire kind, has spent four centuries relentlessly pursuing the relatives of the man who murdered his sister and the constant bloodshed is taking its toll on him, turning him towards the darkness and into the beast all vampires once were. Battling the darkness after killing another hunter, Aleksandr meets Elise, a guard of the Cerny bloodline, and she instantly drives the black from his heart and his mind, restoring his balance. Curiosity about the effect she has on him, and her beauty, drive him to pursue her, but the charm that had once helped him have any woman he wanted fails to have an effect on Elise. If he wants to win her, he will have to change his ways and learn how modern men pursue the women they are falling in love with, but it’s a race against time as the darkness threatens to take control. Only Elise’s love can save him, but even then will it be enough when he faces the last hunter and the end of his vendetta?

Phew, that was a lot of writing! Now I just have to decide which story to write for the eleventh one!

🙂

Posted in 2011 releases, Ascension, forbidden blood, Heart of Darkness, Hellcat, Her Guardian Angel, Hunter's Moon, Love Immortal, Masquerade | Comments Off

Upcoming romance releases

Posted on 11th August 2010 by Felicity Heaton

It has been a while since Iâ€™ve had a release that hasnâ€™t been a short freebie. Sorry about that. I focused so much on trying to get an agent that I didnâ€™t have any releases. Iâ€™ve been working hard to rectify that and Iâ€™m happy to say that I now have one complete novella, Her Dark Angel, to release at the end of the month.

It has been sooooo long since Iâ€™ve had a new release that needed promoting that Iâ€™ve completely forgotten the process. Lol. Itâ€™s going to be a steep learning curve again. I need to get ads in place, and blog appearances, and reviews requested.

My release after that, at least releases that arenâ€™t part of my free A Day in the Life, series, is going to be Her Fallen Angel around Halloween, and then following that it will be Her Warrior Angel, in December. Yes, the Her Angel series are all sort of linked. Much like my Sons of Lyra and Daughters of Lyra series, you donâ€™t have to read them in order. Characters do make appearances in the other novellas though, so you might want to read them in order to know who is who.

I have the second draft of Her Fallen Angel finished, but now Iâ€™m thinking that I want to change the ending to make it more of an ending and more dramatic. At the moment, itâ€™s more of a set up for the third novella, but I donâ€™t want readers to feel theyâ€™ve read an incomplete story. So Iâ€™m changing the ending. I have one in mind. Iâ€™ll read the novella once Iâ€™ve finished typing up my Hadesâ€™ Boys notes and change the ending when I get there to make it better and just how I want it.

Iâ€™m really hoping everyone enjoys my angels. Theyâ€™re rather yummy. Need I say more?

Next year Iâ€™ll release a bunch of novels that I have which are either complete or almost complete at the moment. Yes, those four novels youâ€™ve all been reading about will be coming out. Thatâ€™s Love Immortal (demi-gods, vampires, paranormal people, and werewolves), Ascension (a witch & her half-demon hero), Forbidden Blood (vampire romance) and Heart of Darkness (vampire romance).

I still need to make the covers for them, but Iâ€™ll work on those when my website is live. Iâ€™ll get the covers for Her Fallen Angel, Her Warrior Angel and Love Immortal done soon and then post them all so you can shout out what you think of them.

The releases of the four novels will be spread out over 2011, and Iâ€™ll be writing more novels and novellas.

At the moment, I have ideas in storage for three novellas (all paranormal romances), and six/seven novels (paranormal romance, dark fantasy romance, and science-fiction romance). I wonâ€™t get all of them written by the end of next year, but I can try. Some of the ideas have more notes for them than others. With novellas, I donâ€™t generally write masses of notes. Itâ€™s quicker just to write them, and they have fewer twists than novels, so need less planning.

I also want to do second-editions of a few of my earlier 2006/2007 stories if possible. I have at least 4 that I want to edit again and improve. Iâ€™ll see how that goes and consider doing the rest. Itâ€™s all go again!

Posted in 2010 releases, 2011 releases, Ascension, forbidden blood, Hades' Boys, Heart of Darkness, Her Dark Angel, Her Fallen Angel, Her Warrior Angel, Love Immortal | Comments Off

Writing progress and taking a hiatus

Posted on 2nd July 2010 by Felicity Heaton

My writing is going to be taking a bit of a back seat over summer as I need to study some new skills for my career and this means dedicating time to it, and taking that time from my writing. I’ll continue to blog and post competitions and things. I’m sure that I’ll be doing something writing related and I do have a few releases to put out over summer.

There’s just a lot to do at work and I feel as though I need to split my time more effectively in order to keep progressing in my career. Unfortunately, writing does suck up a lot of my spare time, so it’s that which has to give on this occasion. I have been so focused on learning new things since coming back from holiday that I couldn’t really keep my attention fixed on completing the second draft of Heart of Darkness. I wasn’t giving it the attention it deserved and my editing was turning more into a lazy reading session. That’s not good! So I’ve decided to put it on hold for now, complete a massive list of learning tasks for my job, and then approach the edit with fresh eyes (after a good read of some of my editing books) and I’m sure everything will be much better for it.

I sometimes take breaks like this and it always refreshes me and gives me the energy to start writing again. Of course, I’m stuck in edit-Hell at the moment as I have so many stories to edit (and so many waiting to be written) that it just seems as though that’s all I’ll be doing forever!

I think reading a bit of Love Immortal the other day really hit it home that I was doing lazy editing on Heart of Darkness. With Love Immortal, I went all out, pulled out those stops and really got stuck in on the editing. Approached and defeated a lot of passives, he/she sentences, and weak constructions. I haven’t really been doing that with Heart of Darkness and some of my other stories as I was a bit disheartened by the number of rejections that Love Immortal received from agents (but I do think that was a result of the 155,000 word count!). I need to recapture that dedication to editing and really polish up my stories to give them the best chance they have, and I can’t do that when I have a head full of programming languages and other things. Lol.

Heavens… this is beginning to sound like a quit post. Don’t worry! I’m not hanging up my pad and pen just yet. I’ll be back on that editing wagon soon enough (hopefully the writing one too).

I have the release of Her Dark Angel coming at the end of August. That should be exciting. With my focus firmly fixed on gunning for print and an agent, I haven’t released a paid-for story in a long time. I’ve completely forgotten the whole review submission nightmare and promotion insanity! That should be a lovely way of getting back on the writing saddle… if a little manic.

Once that’s out there in the big wide world, it’ll be time to decide whether I’m going to do the final polish on Ascension first and send it out to agents, or whether I’m going to do the second draft of Heart of Darkness.

Decisions… decisions…

Posted in Ascension, Heart of Darkness, Her Angel Series, Her Dark Angel, Love Immortal, paranormal romance, vampire romance | Comments Off

Heart of Darkness – Second draft phase

Posted on 16th May 2010 by Felicity Heaton

It’s been a while since I had a chance to update my blog. Things have been very busy recently both at work and at home / writing. I didn’t have the time last weekend to update my blog, but I did manage to post a chapter of my free vampire romance novel, Of Blood and Snow. This week the opposite is true. I have time to update my blog, but I don’t have time to post a chapter of OBAS. Sorry to everyone who’s waiting on a chapter. I’ll try to get a couple up next weekend to make up for it!

I’ve been working my backside off recently. I have finished the second draft on Ascension and I’ve printed out a copy of it via Lulu to take with my on my impending holiday (ash clouds and BA strikes willing), along with my copy of Forbidden Blood. I have a lot of flights coming up on this holiday so there’ll be plenty of time for me to get bored of the in-flight entertainment and read instead.

I’m currently going through the second draft of Heart of Darkness. I’ve done my on-paper read through of it last weekend and have just finished adding in all the notes and changes into the word document. I was editing it during the week though, as I managed to get the first 80 pages of notes and things into the word document fairly early in the week, so I could start on the major edit in the word doc. I finished getting the notes and things in today whilst watching the BBC adaptation of North & South (Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel, which I adore). It’s left me smiling ear-to-ear. I don’t mind too much that they changed the ending. It irked me at first but now I can accept it. It’s the sort of thing that has to happen when a book makes the transition to screen. There’s always cuts and changes.

I think I can probably get the second draft of Heart of Darkness finished in the next two weeks. It’ll be a push when I’m so busy at work too, but I’ll give it my best.

I’m off out soon so I’d better dash. Will do a better update next weekend and post a chapter of Of Blood & Snow.

Posted in Ascension, forbidden blood, Heart of Darkness, Of Blood and Snow, paranormal romance, urban fantasy, vampire romance, vampires | Comments Off

Ascension, ears and busy schedules

Posted on 2nd May 2010 by Felicity Heaton

Well, I’ve cajoled the muse into editing Ascension because I felt the writing wasn’t top quality, and then when I went back to it, it was actually far better than I’d remembered. I suppose that’s a good thing. I’m reading over it again now though, although Friday was a complete wash out because I ended up reading parts of Heart of Darkness instead. Not sure what I’m doing after I’ve finished this light edit/read of Ascension. I should probably do the polish on Her Dark Angel before I go away on holiday at the end of the month. I could also do with getting the second draft of Her Fallen Angel done too.

Of course, first I need to get this read through of Ascension done. It’s a miserable day here today and that’s not exactly making me want to do anything. I just want to sit around nursing my poor ear, eating chocolate, and watching anime, or perhaps playing a game.

I went to see my ENT consultant last week and I have yet another ear infection. We talked about what’s involved in an operation to fix the problems with my ear and while I’m more comfortable with the thought now, it still frightens me. I don’t really want to be knocked out but I guess it can’t be helped and it’s better to get the problem fixed now while I’m still (fairly) young and (fairly) healthy. The other downside to it is that I have to take 2 weeks off work. I doubt I’ll be up to much in those two weeks either, not even writing stuff, and that’ll hit my schedule pretty hard.

My schedule is all over the place. I’d love to get some things done and marked off the list but I can’t see it happening yet. It’s a shame really. I want some stuff out of the way with before I go away at the end of the month. I don’t want this bleak future full of editing. It doesn’t do the muse any good. He’s throwing a fit about it right now because he wants to write, and so do I, but we’ve written so much that now there’s a lot of editing between us and starting a new story!

When I get back from my holiday, I’ll be writing Her Warrior Angel. I need to plan it but that shouldn’t take too long as I have the rough idea for it already down, and the characters are already in my head. I just need the frame of the story, the skeleton as it were, and some character notes, and away we go!

At the moment, I’m focused on reading through Ascension and applying any necessary fixes before getting it sent off to a printer so I can get a paperback version of the complete second draft to take with me on holiday. I’m taking Forbidden Blood too. I’ll read them both on the plane or times when there’s nothing else to do and I’m a captive audience.

I’m also programming a Kindle HTML file maker for myself and my fellow authors at Alinar Publishing to use. It’s going well and I’ve done about 60% of it. I just need to finish another part of it and then test and tweak. I’ll get that done now hopefully and then get on with editing Ascension, and perhaps I’ll address my writing schedule issues.

Posted in Amazon Kindle, Ascension, forbidden blood, Heart of Darkness, Her Angel Series, Her Dark Angel, Her Fallen Angel, Her Warrior Angel, paranormal romance, urban fantasy, vampire romance, vampires | Comments Off

Her Fallen Angel progress and Love Immortal

Posted on 2nd April 2010 by Felicity Heaton

Writing this week has been like pulling teeth, wisdom teeth in fact. It’s been slow, painful, and downright tiring. It took me a while on and off to write the final 8500 words for Her Fallen Angel. I had wanted to have it done by Tuesday but that rolled into Wednesday, and I finally finished it Wednesday lunchtime. I was severely relieved!

It’s not the story that was the problem. I was just so tired this week and didn’t have the energy to write. I blame the clock change to British Summer Time. I lost that hour and then it was like waking up at 5am for work even though it was 6… it was all dark and grim… and wet and cold… I kept sneaking time in to read snippets of Forbidden Blood and Heart of Darkness instead. In other words, I procrastinated. Rather badly.

But still, the first draft of Her Fallen Angel is now complete at 28,500 words and I’m pleased with it. I had to fiddle with the final chapter to get it satisfactory, but I got there in the end.

I need to plot out Her Warrior Angel now, which I’ll start writing in a couple of months because my schedule is rather hectic at the moment.

Why?

Because I’m desperately trying to clear my backlog of books for editing and proofing. At the moment, Forbidden Blood is resting. A friend of mine (male) is reading it as he likes to find all my mistakes for me, and generally give me feedback. I think he just likes seeing it before others and while it’s still evolving into a final draft. Perhaps it makes him feel involved and like an insider. Who knows. It’s helpful anyway so I’m not complaining.

I’ve also decided to edit down Love Immortal. A test run yesterday showed that I could chop around 18,000 words off it, bringing it down to a more reasonable 140,000 words. It’ll take me around 3 weeks but I think it will be worth it in the long run as it should improve the books chances of being published, and ultimately I think this story deserves it and I’ve put a lot of time and effort into it, so I want to see it out there on shelves.

I would also like to get the second draft of Ascension done before I go away on holiday at the end of May. That way, I can take it with me, along with Forbidden Blood, as paperbacks to read on the plane when I tire of movies. There’s no rest for the wicked. I edited Love Immortal in paperback when I was on holiday in Japan last year. Ah, the writer’s life. You squeeze it in wherever you can!

Of course, when I get back, I’ll have polishes to do and the second draft of Heart of Darkness and Her Fallen Angel… and it never ends.

I’m off to watch some telly, drink some tea, and eat some chocolate before shoehorning in some editing time on Love Immortal.

All this effort… one day an agent better request more of my book!