Not sure if you've heard, but someone *coughJamaicaLaynecough* started a rumor that Jane from Dear Author is really an aspiring author who lost her contract with Quartet Press when it folded.
Random House is giving away free ebooks. Check them out at suvudu.com/freelibrary. The page contains links to multiple ebook vendors so you can download books for Kindle, Sony Reader, etc.
I'm not sure if you've noticed, but Fictionwise is having a huge anniversary sale right now. If you've been planning to get some stuff there, do so soon.
In case you're wondering, yes, I bought some books — fourteen to be exact. They include Claudia Gray's Stargazer and Jim Butcher's Turn Coat. The latest Dresden Files is out in HC only, and Fictionwise was selling it for only $10 plus whatever discounts / rebates / promo it's having, so I couldn't resist. :) Besides I adore Harry.
Last night, I stayed up late brainstorming with May. I have the characters and basic dynamics among them, but I don't have all the plot threads or GMC to make everything work. May was helpful and totally hilarious. I think she's overly obsessed with hell, the apocalypse and the utter destruction of mankind these days. I'm going to spend several more days on plotting and see how everything comes together before starting a detailed scene-by-scene outline.
For your listening pleasure, here's the music that inspired the opening scene of the new project, which I'm calling “Eve Clare Project” until I have a suitable title. (It used to be called Nine but I don't think that works anymore.)
On my own writing front — I figured out what's been bugging me about the second quarter of the book. There are two sex scenes, and they're so…dry.
What I mean is that the characters are doing this and that, but very little emotions are coming through. My characters have a lot of history together, so the scenes rang false when I reread them for the sheer lack of feelings from both of them. A lot of missed opportunities.
I also decided to add a couple of short scenes to advance the main subplot (the court intrigue part). They're all new and feature secondary characters. I think they'll add a bit more to the subplot because currently the book's about 85% romance.
After dinner I spent about ten minutes jotting down notes on my next project — a futuristic paranormal romance. I can't decide if I want to write it in 1st person or not. The heroine is snarky and slightly eccentric, but I think the snarky 1st person narrator is a bit of a cliché now. I wonder if her voice can come through just as clearly in 3rd person.
I've been feeling very blah about my own writing. Of course it's expected since I haven't read anything in over four weeks. So I went on a reading binge. Since Thursday, I read:
I also watched 32 episodes of Hamtaro in original Japanese (no English subtitle). I can now sing the entire opening song in Japanese and picked up several new words.
So what did I get at the end of reading & Hamtaro marathon?
I'm more or less happy with the first five chapters (about 100 pages) from my WIP. They went to my 1st beta reader. (No, May, you didn't lose them in your spam folder.) Am working on the next five chapters, and I'm very happy with where things are going. I also subscribed to AutoCrit. Will post more on what I think about that online editing software later. :)
mood: very very happy! today's weather: freezing, but sunny and beautiful
Writing went super well today. I can't believe I wrote over 6,000 brand new words, no pre-writing draft included at all! W00t! :) I'm very very happy with what I've done, and I'm uber-excited about what I'm planning to work on tomorrow! The first draft is coming along very nicely! Yay!
So…today's progress:
word count
page count
previously written
33,431
164
newly written
6,460
31
total
39,891
195
On to other stuff —
I'm a fiction writer, so you'd think that I read tons of fiction. But for some reason, all the novels I have in my apartment don't grab me. I have zero interest in all of them. This doesn't mean that they're bad. There's really nothing inherently wrong with them, but they just aren't making me go “I gotta read this now!” Right now, I'm much more interested in non-fiction. Currently, I'm reading Does Anything Eat Wasps?: And 101 Other Unsettling, Witty Answers to Questions You Never Thought You Wanted to Ask, which is absolutely fascinating. Still, I feel like I should try to read more fiction. Any recommendations?
Not sure if you've heard, but someone *coughJamaicaLaynecough* started a rumor that Jane from Dear Author is really an aspiring author who lost her contract with Quartet Press when it folded.
