Category Archives: daughters of lyra

My WIP romance novel is finished in first draft!

This morning, barely 15 minutes ago, in a Starbucks in London, I finished writing the first draft of my romance novel, code named Arcadian. I’m so excited!!! I had thought that it would be finished yesterday but the final chapter became two final chapters as it worked better that way. In total it’s currently 135,000 words which is a bit long but it’s the kind of story that you would have difficulty compressing into 100,000 words. There’s a lot of plot as well as romance, which is what I think makes a good romance novel.

I only started writing this on the 27th January 2009, and I had a week’s holiday around the middle of February in which I only wrote 6000 words, so I’m really happy that it’s finished so soon. I’m not one for meddling as I write. I’m of the “get it written, then get it right” school of thinking. Still, 135,000 words in only 5 weeks (less a good chunk for my off week) isn’t bad at all. It’s probably fairly close to a record for me and really helps me figure out my timings as I had allowed 8 weeks to write this story. I have a seven book series which I want to write and all the stories in that will likely be 100,000 words so seeing the timings on this one will help me figure out how long it’s going to take me to write those ones.

Now all I have to do is leave it for a few weeks and get on with other writing work. I can’t edit it straight away as the story is too firmly set in my mind and I won’t do a good job on the second draft. The plan is to leave it for 4 weeks while I write another novella (the fifth Daughters of Lyra story – a science fiction romance ebook series which I’m releasing this year) and do some editing on much-neglected stories such as Winter’s Kiss.

I think that I’ll have this story ready to send out to publishers in October, which is exciting. I’m determined to go through with it since I chickened out and didn’t send Seventh Circle out as I had planned to (I think the Harlequin Nocturne Bites rejections threw me a little, but look at how well those two short stories did for me as ebooks!). Both my husband and my friend have said that I’ll find an excuse not to send it and say I’ll send the next novel I write, so I’m going to prove them wrong. I truly believe that this romance novel is highly publishable and the kind of story that readers love, so I want to give it my best shot. I really do have faith in it and that this will be my first paperback published novel (since I’ve already been e-published).

Some of you lovely readers have been asking me about Winter’s Kiss and what stories I’ll be releasing this year. I’m going to write a big post, or a few smaller posts, about those this weekend and give you some tasters and dates so you can see what I have up my sleeve. I’m really excited about the Daughters of Lyra stories as I’m sure you’ll all love them. Don’t worry, Winter’s Kiss might have been delayed because of a need for a major second draft, but I’ll be working on it soon so you won’t have too long wait!

F

Posted in daughters of lyra, paranormal romance, science fiction romance, urban fantasy, vampire romance, vampires, Vampires Realm, werewolf romance | Comments Off on My WIP romance novel is finished in first draft!

It’s a new year!

Well, it’s a new year which means it’s time to sit down and have a good think about what I want to get out of the next 12 months. There’s many things on my list–life stuff like achievement at work, fitness, learning new things, improving my Japanese–and then there’s writing stuff, which is the stuff I’ll talk about here.

I was working hard in the last quarter of 2008 to write stories for this year so I can work on a new novel of my. At the moment, it’s just called Project Arcadian, or Arcadian for short. I will be making posts following my work on this novel but won’t be revealing too much about it. I’m sure the suspense will just make the wait more worthwhile!

I have plenty of success to be thankful for in 2008. A lot of my releases were best sellers in the romance list at Fictionwise.com, which was amazing to see story after story make it into the top ten. All 4 of the Sons of Lyra stories made the top ten in romance, along with Seventh Circle, and two other short paranormal stories of mine.

It’s those two that really have meant the world to me because I wrote A Promise of Passion and Embracing the Wolf for the Harlequin Nocturne Bites short romance ebook line, and both were rejected. The Nocturne Bites stories barely break into the top 25 in romance on Fictionwise, so having my two rejected stories sitting pretty in the top 10, was heartwarming to say the very least! A Promise of Passion reached number 9, and Embracing the Wolf has reached number 3 (and also number 8 in the overall best seller list on Fictionwise). It just goes to show that just because someone rejects a story, it doesn’t mean it won’t sell or people won’t want to read it. If someone rejects a story of yours, try someone else, or try self-publishing.

Thanks to all the wonderful readers who bought a story by me last year, and to my faithful who buy all my stories and help me walk on clouds by emailing me about them.

In 2009 I hope to bring you more wonderful stories that you’ll enjoy reading. I have another Vampires Realm novel coming out (when it behaves itself and I finally finish edits!) called Winter’s Kiss, and I have the Daughters of Lyra series. Originally there were four novellas in this series, to match the Sons of Lyra series, but now there’ll be five.

I wish you all a happy new year, and good luck with all your resolutions. If you want to, share them with me on this blog and we can work towards completing them together!

Felicity

Posted in daughters of lyra, paranormal romance, science fiction romance, sons of lyra, vampire romance, vampires, Vampires Realm, werewolf romance | Comments Off on It’s a new year!

New stories, and finished stories, and submissions

I’ve been quite busy recently, working through a mixture of writing, editing, and preparing submissions. It’s all a mixture of projects too, most of which will be available next year. Actually, all of it will probably be next year’s releases.

On the writing front, I have finished writing the next Vampires Realm release after Seventh Circle, which will be Winter’s Kiss. Winter’s Kiss follows a Watchman of Validus and a young woman whom he desired to turn. The young woman is attacked by a werewolf and the vampire rescues her but not before she’s been bitten by the werewolf, and essentially turned. It all turns a little frantic after that and there’s lots of my trademark UST 🙂

Speaking of Vampires Realm, I again toyed with the idea of submitting Seventh Circle to agents and publishers, and have (after a lot of preparation including writing a synopsis!) decided against it. It’s so difficult when it’s a story that is part of an ongoing series. I could have changed the story so it was a stand alone, but I didn’t want to do that. When it comes to stories to submit to publishers, I’ll focus on my series I’ll be writing next year instead.

Following the popularity and success of my Sons of Lyra series, I have planned and started writing a Daughters of Lyra series. At the moment, they’re running at a little longer than the Sons of Lyra stories. I think they’ll be an average of 18,000 words. The series follows one daughter from each of the four sons from the first series. I’ve already written two of the stories during my week off dog-sitting last week. I managed to clock in around 34,000 words written which is brilliant. A normal week for me is around 25,000.

The weekend I released Sons of Lyra: Stranded I submitted a second story to Harlequin’s Nocturne Bites series. This time it’s a werewolf story and I’m far more pleased with this submission than the first one I sent. I think this time I sounded more professional and sold the story better, and I do think this story is probably more suited to the line.

I think that’s about all in terms of writing from me. I’ve just discovered that there’s a new episode of Macross Frontier out online and I neeeed to watch it. I’m so addicted!

Here’s some tallys on the stories I finished this week…

Winter’s Kiss
67,726 / 65,000
[104.2%]
Daughters of Lyra 1
18,652 / 18,000
[103.6%]
Daughters of Lyra 2
23,043 / 18,000
[128%]
Posted in daughters of lyra, paranormal romance, science fiction romance, sons of lyra, vampire romance, vampires, Vampires Realm, werewolf romance | Comments Off on New stories, and finished stories, and submissions

Of Blood and Snow – vampire romance story

This week, I finished writing Of Blood and Snow which is currently being posted as a free serial on one of my websites. It was 31 chapters in the end and 98000 words. I’ve only reached chapter 22 in my posting of this story. It’s great to have it finished. I need to edit these final chapters now to get them ready for posting and then I need to decide what to do with the story. I’ve never promised that it would always remain a free story, and I think it’s a story that is very sellable and people would buy it. It’s always a tough decision to make, especially because I’ve enjoyed posting it and getting feedback from readers about it.

This week, I also finished editing the second story in my Sons of Lyra mini-series. Oddly, it ended up being precisely the same length as the first story, Sons of Lyra: Slave Princess, which is available from Fictionwise at a discount of 15% right now – http://www.fictionwise.com/eBooks/eBook67530.htm

I still need to finish writing the 3rd and 4th stories in the series. I’m also toying with writing a Daughters of Lyra series for this generation of sons children. I’ll see how popular these ones get before I make a decision. It will basically be set 20-25 years on from this series. I’m seriously considering it though.

Off to update my website. I’ve got some programming bits and bobs that I want to do to it… fancy stuff.

Posted in daughters of lyra, free stories, Of Blood and Snow, paranormal romance, science fiction romance, sons of lyra, vampire romance, vampires | Comments Off on Of Blood and Snow – vampire romance story