Crowning the Newsletter King – And Taking a Deep Breath

I swear Jackson visibly grew while I was away this week.

So, thank you all who signed up for my newsletter! If you haven’t yet, you still can, in the right hand column of the home page. But, for those who did sign up and participated in the contest, the winner is……

The Kev!

He just happens to be my old high school boyfriend, which makes him a long time fan. Clearly the random number generator loves him, too.

Congrats to Kev!

I’m gearing up for a big week next week, since Rogue’s Pawn goes on sale Monday! I may or may not be running around, flapping my hands in the air like a crazy person. David says there’s an acupuncture point for people who want to climb to high places and take off their clothes. I begin to understand the syndrome now…

So, if I’ve been quiet-ish this week, never fear – by the end of next week, you’ll likely be saturated.

And, while I’m at it – thanks to all of you, my loyal friends, family and readers for the support.

Love you all.

Why You Just Don’t Start with Back Story. Really.

It makes it difficult to keyboard this way, but I cannot withstand the cuteness.

I took the day off yesterday – from both day job and writing. We went for a walk, had breakfast on the patio, watched the 4th of July parade and then hung out. I did a lot of reading under the grape arbor. There may have been wine-drinking involved.

I’m reading a Famous Series by a Famous Author. I’m coming in after the series is complete. Some time ago I picked up one of the books in hardback, because it looked intriguing and right up my reading alley. Also I had really enjoy this author’s historical/time-travel romances. I tried several times to get into it and never got past page 52. (I know this, because when I got it out this weekend, that’s where I’d left it marked.)

Recently, several readers mentioned that Rogue’s Pawn has similarities to this series. When I said I’d never read it, they insisted I just must. (And no, this is not Stacia Kane’s Downside Ghost series. A reviewer made that comparison and I’m just tremendously flattered. Stacy’s on her 5th book in that series and, if you haven’t read it, this review might convince you.)

At any rate, convinced that my mistake had been in not starting with Book 1 in the series, I figured out what the title was by going to the author’s website. I couldn’t tell by looking at Amazon, and read it on the Kindle. And okay – it was definitely better that way. I understood more of the story, was more invested in the characters and was willing to continue. I’m told that if I read the whole series, the payoff is big. That’s when I pulled out the hardback again and started over.

And I discovered why I’d gotten so bogged down before.

She starts the book off with recap of the story so far and lots of back story. Really boring “and this happened and that happened and then…”

The other day I posted about not slavishly following the rules, but boy howdy – that rule about not starting with back story and info-dump? Totally confirmed.

So then, I’m trudging through all this recap and she mentions stuff that I know didn’t happen in Book 1. But nowhere on this book does it tell me where it falls in the series. I went back to the author website and discover my hardback is actually Book 3. I buy Book 2 on my Kindle and start reading.

Guess what? It’s almost exactly the same damn boilerplate recap she started Book 3 with. Clearly she wrote it for Book 2, then just slapped it into Book 3, with a few additional details for things that happened in Book 2.

I just don’t get it. I mean, I know it’s not easy weaving in back story. My friend Allison Pang really bled over that when she wrote her Book 2. All I can think is that the author is Famous enough that her editor let her get away with this.

Thing is – it’s awful. And it absolutely stopped me from getting into her series when I blithely picked up Book 3 without knowing it.

Now I feel much better about how I’ve handled back story in RP2.

If I ever do this boilerplate thing? Somebody slap me!

Breaking through Plot Walls

Jackson demonstrates a little kitty yoga for you. Dare you to replicate this position.

I’ve been working away on the sequel to Rogue’s Pawn, simply titled RP2 for now. I had been going fast on it, then I slowed down. It happened right as I neared the Act I climax. Usually I don’t have this problem, but usually I’m not writing a sequel.

Now, for those of you not hugely up on story structure, most stories fall roughly into three acts. This is traditional, embedded-in-the-subconscious hum storytelling. Jokes traditionally come in three parts. Magic tricks have three stages: the pledge, the turn and the prestige. (Brilliantly demonstrated in the movie The Prestige.) Shakespeare’s plays generally are in three acts (if there’s  an Act IV, it usually serves as an epilogue). You can think of it in the classic terms of “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back” or “get your hero up a tree, throw rocks at him, get him back down.”

So, Act I for a sequel is all about getting my characters back up a tree. I say specifically “back up the tree” because I just finished getting them out of a damn tree in the first book. It’s not that easy to get them back up the tree without making them seem stubborn or stupid or just plain self-destructive.

Plus, in the sequel, you need to ground readers in the world and ongoing threads established in the first book so that they know enough to skip reading the first book, but not so much that readers of the first book throw the second one against the wall in frustration. (A reader recently told me she did this with the most recent book in an ongoing, very long series. She felt like every other paragraph was devoted to summarizing “the story so far,” to the point that would have thrown it against the wall, except she values her ereader.)

It’s a lot of stuff to fold into the first act. Especially if you want the story to be interesting, too.

I felt like I was up against a wall, in that final scene of the first act. I’d built and built up to that point, I had an idea what needed to happen, where everyone needed to be mentally, to catapult us into the rest of the adventure (hurtling rocks – coming right up!), but I just couldn’t seem to get it into place.

Now, some writers will switch off at this point. They’ll switch to another project or write a scene from later in the story. I can see why this works – it relieves the pressure of having your creative face mashed up against that plot wall.

But, for me, all the juice is in sticking it out.

I went back and reread what I had so far – about 100 pages – and tightened and polished as I went. I worked my way back up to that wall, my steps slowing with every page as I neared that final scene. Yes, it was painful and unfulfilling. The last 20 pages took me two days of sticking it out.

Finally, the wall crumbled.

The resistance gave way and the world on the other side opened up.

Juicy, indeed.

Fifty Shades of Fae

A bit of a kitty stand-off here. Not that New Kitten Jackson is at all afraid of Isabel, despite that impressive claw display.

I dipped into Goodreads yesterday and looked at some of the reviews and ratings for Rogue’s Pawn. I don’t do this all that often. Mostly I try not to read all my reviews and ratings. I look at the ones people tag me with, especially when a reviewer went to a lot of effort to write a long and thoughtful review. But, for the most part, I think the Goodreads ratings are for other readers and aren’t really my business to helicopter over.

Besides – that kind of thing can make you crazy.

But, on impulse yesterday, I took a quick gander (I think this link will work, even if you’re not a member) and I’m so delighted that readers seems to be loving it for all the reasons I hoped they would. Near the top I saw a two-star rating – alas – and saw that she started off saying she wanted to like it and the writing is “clean and direct and intelligent” (thank you!), but that she was going to say what no one else would: that she didn’t like it being so “Fifty Shades of Fae.”

I just busted out laughing.

I mean – how clever is that?

She is, of course, referring to the erotic phenomFifty Shades of Grey and sinceRogue’s Pawn is absolutely about Faerie and the fae, the play on the title is apt. I also see why she got that vibe, though the book is not a BDSM story like Fifty Shades. But, thereare elements of power, control and submission. Because that’s just what seems to come out in my writing. My hero and heroine, Rogue and Gwynn, struggle with each other for mastery. It’s not a kinky game, though. It’s about life and death, magic and freedom.

Still – I confess I just love the tagline “Fifty Shades of Fae.”

I find it clever, funny, oddly apt and flattering in a way she might not have intended. After all, being connected to something everyone recognizes is a wonderful gift.

So is the laugh.

A Pat on the Back for All Writers

One of my favorite restaurants anywhere  – the courtyard at 82 Queen.

So, I wound up my travels last week with a visit Friday morning to my day job corporate headquarters in Boston. I only make it back to the mothership every couple of years, but it’s always fun when I do. I forget sometimes, working from home in New Mexico and interacting with my colleagues virtually, how great the people I work with are. They were excited to see me. They hug me, my big bosses kiss me on the cheek. They complained that I should have let them know I stayed at a nearby hotel the night before, so they could have taken me out to dinner.

I work with wonderful people.

Along with socializing, I had a few agenda items – just some people I wanted to touch base with on projects we’re working on. It’s fun to get to talk in person for a change. One gal is someone I’ve never worked with directly before. She’s a title-level above me, but she’s handling a task on one of my projects. I stopped by her office, but she was on the phone and waved that she’d catch up with me. I ended up in the office of another gal I’ve worked with for many years and we ended up gossiping – about her stepdaughter and my writing. I showed her the cover for Rogue’s Pawn on my phone and she was appropriately oohing and ahhing when the other gal found me. She wanted to see what we were looking at, so I showed her.

She looked at it, asked some questions and gave me an astounded look. She said, “Wait – you write NOVELS? Don’t you work full time like I do?”

It was a funny moment for me and a good reminder. What we do as writers is not an easy thing. Immersed in the community, we forget how many people out there are *not* writing books. Whether we’re sandwiching writing time around our day jobs or structuring our days around family obligations and other distractions, this is not a common thing to do. It’s not easy.

In truth, it can be pretty damn hard sometimes. As we all know.

That’s something to be proud of.

Rogue’s Pawn Available for Review!

Charleston is famous for its pineapples, symbol of hospitality.

Now, I’m in Providence and, while it’s a pretty city, too, right now it’s cold (50 degrees F!) and rainy. No sunny pineapples for me right now.

The big news is that Rogue’s Pawn is available on Net Galley now! So, if you’d like a review copy, hie yourself on over there and make with the clicky clicky. I’d be ever so pleased if you did.

Now I need to start composing my ranty post on how many stars reviewers have to give… 😉

Is It Really Harder Writing a Sequel?

These are scarlet gilia blossoms – big favorite with the hummingbirds. Such a vivid color.

It’s interesting how each new book I write is a different experience. Over the years, I’ve heard writers make note of this, but I suspect it’s one of tose things that, when you experience it for yourself and it hits home, you have that big “ohhh” moment.

In some ways it’s a satisfying feeling. “I’m a big girl writer now and I get what all these other long-established writers have been talking about.” But it’s also kind of daunting. Because you suddenly realize that you do not have this gig down. That you will never have this gig down. That each new book brings a new set of challenges.

Which is a good thing, right? All that learning and growing and development of craft and art.

This is on my mind because it came up in comments on yesterday’s post and also because I’ve started the sequel to Rogues Pawn, which will be Book 2 in the Covenant of Thorns series. Kev suggested I call it Rogue’s Spawn, which I am just SO tempted to do, if I didn’t think the Carina marketing team would kill me for it. It wouldn’t be inaccurate since Rogue does want her firstborn child – and that’s not a spoiler because it’s right there in the blurb. So, for now, I’m just calling it RP2.

Thing is, this is the first sequel I’ve written. The other follow-ups are same world, same general idea, but new characters, new story. This is the same characters and a continuing story.

And it’s HARD.

*sniffle*

Usually I love drafting a new story, but this has just been a slog so far. The first chapter has taken forever. I have to keep going back to the first book and my notes to make sure the continuity is right. It’s kind of pissing me off.

So, I did what every good writer does: I whined to my CP Laura Bickle about it. She cheerfully came back with “Oh yeah – writing a sequel sucks.”

Which took me aback. She’d never mentioned.

“The first half is always a slog. I never feel good about it until I get halfway,” she continued, all perky. “You’ll be fine. Just keep slogging.”

So, now I know.

So, how about you all who’ve written sequels? Can you verify Laura’s assessment? Any tips or tricks?

Or chocolate?

That works, too.