Author: Aya DeAniege

Contract Sealed

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

There’s no internet. Why is there no internet?

There was a mobile outage for my carrier yesterday and it seems I no longer have data. I will probably have to go into the store and fix it there.

This is only a problem because I’ve been streaming music on my phone. My mp3 player is dead and I don’t know if I have my portable battery with me. I must… I think.

I need music. I’m super frustrated. Partly from work which obviously has not gotten better.

In fact, it’s evolved into ignoring me. The only time what I say is acknowledged is when the one who is causing the problems does the exact opposite of what I say.

The boss witnessed one of these events and I’d discuss the second with him except it’s my understanding that his boss will be there when I get in

Oh, and her boss too.

House is on fire. His boss doesn’t care about the dirty dishes so much as she does the meal being done on time.

I’m also frustrated with a certain service. I’ve been trying to figure out how to pay a bill for several weeks and today realized it’s overdue. But it was a futile and frustrating exercise because their site is not user friendly.

This isn’t some small site either. This is a million or probably billion dollar company. I filed three complaints this morning for each step of the way where I hit a wall. I tried to be polite but oh my gosh.

I also know corporate reads things like that. Especially when one of the complaints asked for a rating and I gave them the worst I could.

I need some sort of relief.

Anyhow.

Yesterday I tried writing. Just a random thing. It was godawful and difficult to get the words out. That frustration is still riding my nerves. It was so bad on Wednesday that the person working opposite me asked if I believed in the use of marijuana.

I do, actually. But it’s still not legal and the THC keeps me from dreaming or writing for up to a week. It makes me feel really raw and vulnerable after, and not in the fun sort of way.

He’s a good guy, the one who suggested it. He was just trying to help out and was witness to a meltdown because of things being done the exact opposite of what I needed to happen. And he had been told to help me by the boss (who I didn’t give a choice to) only to be pulled from me by the one who is pretending I don’t exist. He came back to me, super confused but also helpful.

“Who do I listen to in that case?”

“Me. Anyone can do what she wanted, she can pull another body. You’re the only one who can help me, so you listen to me.”

See my problem? I want to talk about one thing but I’m entirely focused on something else despite trying to refocus.

It’s going to be a long project this month. Only six chapters long too.

Damn it.

All right, let’s try this again.

It’s December 1st. That means I can open my advent each day (no, it’s not wine or that mythical edible advent) but also that a new writing project starts today. The project for December is Contract Sealed.

And you might be asking, “Aya, how many m/m books do you plan on writing on this adventure of yours?”

And my answer is: shush.

Technically speaking there are only two more. Contract Sealed and Contract Delivered.

His Wings deals with it a bit.

I know with the second Contracted trilogy I’m going to get backlash. The straight guy going gay is a cliche and blah blah blah.

Except Nate doesn’t go gay. He labels himself as a straight man who sometimes has sex with his best friend. He only ever agrees to the sex because he wanted the everything else of a Master/slave relationship.

That’s kind of why I like Nathaniel. He’s not willing to discuss his sexuality and is clearly a creature of upbringing. When he was growing up you couldn’t be both rich elite and gay. You absolutely had to be heterosexual and sexuality was very black and white. So he insists on it.

He’s not homophobic, just afraid of what would happen if he was labelled as anything but heterosexual. Let’s recall that how others viewed him was literally life or death until just before his thirtieth birthday.

And it’s not really that he’s bisexual. He’s not interested in men. He’s only interested in Mr. Wrightworth.

Let’s face it, who wouldn’t be interested in the sadist turned daddy?

In Contract Sealed Nate comes to terms with service, and is collared by Mr. Wrightworth. Collaring is supposed to be long-term, almost like marriage. It’s a commitment. But they make it even though they know their relationship has to end at the end of the year.

Though, if we look at the whole series I can’t help but argue that Nate is still submitted to Mr. Wrightworth.

Month two:

Book: Contract Sealed

Status: 14 1/2 chapters written between January and October.

Claimed Week 4

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I’ve worked on a novella this past week. Just a little here and there. I wanted to be done by now but stuff has been going on at work.

Basically, the house is on fire but too many people are only focused on the dirty dishes in the sink. Those dishes are there every year at this time and it’s never been a problem in the past and is a symptom of it being our busiest time of the year.

I can do the dishes, or not make the next meal.

Meanwhile, I’m so frustrated that I’ve broken down into tears about ten times. At work. In front of clients no less.

The frustration turned to anger last night, thank goodness. Why is anger better?

Because when I’m angry I can think. When I’m frustrated everything shuts down and I just bawl my eyes out. I can’t control it in the least which only adds to my frustration.

Also, when frustrated I can’t write. When angry I can. I hit the keys like I have a personal vendetta against them. Stuff gets done when I’m angry.

Like completing a side project. It only had two chapters missing, but it’s been on the backburner since I started working on publishing. Now it’s written and done. I’m proud of me.

Except… When upset I sink into very specific worlds. I don’t know why it amuses me that a sentient, super intelligent race might chase butterflies and talk in broken languages on purpose, but it does.

My week has been watching tv, playing video games, and trying to get something done but I just can’t. I’m so out of focus and by the time I get home I’m so emotionally exhausted that I want to break down into tears again.

My ego is thoroughly deflated. But with the anger comes that strapping on of my backbone and the insistence that I’ll just have to fix this again and save me and my area again.

Except it’s not because the people in my area are actually at fault and I think that’s a part of the problem. They’re good workers and they’re trying but I always have bad news for them.

Maybe you should do your job and not be an asshole.

With frustration also comes the swirled words, the ones that don’t leave me alone until I write them down. This past week has been:

Alternatively, maybe you should fuck off and die.

And it’s developed into this inner dialogue that basically says not to say that again, resulting in alterations to the ending. Taking a flying leap, eat shit and die.

Yes, I’m aware that I have a potty mouth. My parents raised me to be pretty creative with my cursing.

But I also don’t say that out loud. I’m just hoping to stop those words from swirling around inside my head.

Basically, the long and the short of this is that it’s a good thing I finished Contract Claimed three weeks ago or so. Otherwise I would be behind on my goals because despite what we were taught, what was basically beaten into us when we were children, words do hurt and there are consequences to being a bully.

No, these people will never make an appearance in my stories. In six more months they will no longer be a part of my life and they may think that’s a good enough reason to behave like this.

Because I should just shut up about what they’re doing and saying because it won’t matter in six months.

They obviously don’t know me that well.

Oh, it’ll all get done. The dishes will be washed, Christmas dinner served to perfection, but the rest of the house is going to burn and they will not be sitting at the table.

I need to make a plan, and find my heart and soul again. December 1st I start another project and I will not allow them to tear me down and destroy what I love.

Claimed wk 3

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Just a quick update.

I’ve been editing Fragments which is now off to the betas, and Seed which is about halfway through the first edit.

Today starts the explosion that is Christmas and the stress level that goes along with it. I’m feeling worn just looking forward and it’s all work based.

Rather than writing (which I’m not required to do until December) I’m playing a new game and trying to unwind.

Did some graphic design mucking about this morning and tried to find a cover for Fragments.

Claimed Week Two

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I finished Contract Claimed on November 11th at about noon. It wasn’t until I headed out for my passport photo that I realized the actual date, and that I missed a ceremony happening near me that I was supposed to go to. I can’t keep the days of the week straight, numbers are apparently beyond me. For some reason I thought Sunday was the 11th.

I’m disappointed in myself for forgetting.

After finishing, I took two full days off writing. If I finish early in the morning it’s technically two and a half because the days off start in the morning. But I think I need to shift the days off to my next weekend off. Monday, what with the day job, was a real struggle for me to get through.

I’ve made an amendment to the plan. It’s now write a book, read a book. The read a book isn’t strictly enforced because I may not always have time. These are indie books and likely always free.

I’m a broke author on the verge of starving artist, but all books will be downloaded legally so that the author gets that little nudge.

So, Sunday I read a book. And I hated it. That’s all I’ll say at this point. If I encounter a book I love I will, of course, go on about it and such. I’m all about spreading the good news.

Yesterday I went back to work. It’s all editing at the moment, as Fragments and Seed are both completed and are up next for publication.

Technically speaking, after that I can laze about for the next eleven months or so. I never promised publishing all the books I write in that twelve month period.

I doubt I’d make it more than a week before I started editing again, however.

I had planned on publishing Fragments in about two weeks, but life got in the way.

If this constant exhaustion could go away faster, that’d be fantastic. It’s my own fault for forgetting my iron supplement. About four more weeks before I see results. Ugh.

Besides editing, I’m going to be taking some time to help Beth out. She wants to rebrand, I think the word is. Come December I’ll be writing again.

Given the fact that it’s Christmas, and the busiest and most exhausting month of the year for the day job, I am planning at this point to write Contract Sealed, or more of finish it. I think there are four to six chapters left to write. It is not a full book by far and is within my rules for the year long run.

But four to six chapters in a month that last year reduced me to tears and a catatonic state once I left work isn’t asking too much of myself. I still have about sixteen days to change my mind but short of my workplace burning down, and my no longer having a job, that is my plan.

I can officially say:

Goal: 12 books written in 12 months

Current: 1 book written in 1 month.

Word count: (I’ll add this in once I have access to a computer)

Woo!

… But I know I’ll be cursing myself when I start editing.

Idle Hands

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I’m going to go crazy, I just know it.

The update isn’t until Wednesday, but this is sort of the way to idle time away.

Yesterday and today are off days, as in I’m not supposed to be working, just relaxing and doing whatever the heck I want.

I played Sims while watching television and knitting a blanket. Then partway through the day I remembered an addendum I wanted to add to my year long marathon.

Write a book, read a book. This isn’t an enforceable rule because I may not always have time. And these books are not to be done by big publishers, or what is sitting on my shelf. Technically it is work, so I shouldn’t do the next one on my time off.

Anyhow, read a novella that was #2 or so in the same category as Contract Taken and I didn’t like it.

I’m not a pornography gal. I don’t want to jump to the part where penis enters vagina and I am not a fan of cock, pussy, fuck, or making childish noises during sex.

That’s how the author described them, not me.

But five hundred or so reviews, 4k on Goodreads, it must be popular. I’m still cursing about it, though. It’s not for me and I would not suggest it to friends.

Except Beth, I made her read it because misery loves company. She’s now cursing it and me.

Anyhow, I feel like I’m going to go mad and it’s only day two of my time off. The problem with today is that I work the day job today.

Day job puts me in work mode. Why? Well, this is our busiest time of year. Makes me want to throw my hands in the air and quit because people are narcissistic and self-absorbed.

I guess that just lights a fire under me. But I don’t think I could ever write a book that gets five hundred reviews on Amazon, let alone one that has so many good ones.

Lined his cock up with her entrance, what is he, an airplane?

Guh.

I went searching for another, but couldn’t bring myself to read another so soon. I want something to clean the feel of it off me.

Harlequin makes me choke on sappy and cliche, but that makes me choke on… well, on cock and not in a fun way. There has got to be a happy medium out there that’s not my own writing.

I mean, I know the books exist as I’ve read a couple but finding them is hard. And I know there’s readers for that but they’re the minority.

They’re the ones who remain seated during a strip show as the others stand and howl like banshees, grabbing and groping the dancers.

Do you know how awkward and disgusted you can feel when you’re one of those ones sitting? To be called a prude because you don’t want to grab a stranger by his ass or cock?

I guess the long and the short of it is: if I want erotica, I’ll have to write it for myself.

Or pray it falls into my lap.

Claimed Week One

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I swear, work knew I was going to update Wednesdays and changed my schedule to mess with me.

Also, because someone is doing it right now: who the hell puts their feet on a bus seat? What are you, an animal?

Of course not, because animals have more sense than that.

I even commented and the feet stayed. He just gave me this smug, lazy look. If the bus gets in an accident, I’m going to sue him for kicking me in the head.

Sleep deprivation makes me crazy… I know this, but I’m still upset with this guy. It’s happening more and more and they’re so rude about it, like I’m trying to encroach on their rights.

So, I haven’t really slept right since the beginning of October and it’s seriously messing with my head. Four noise complaints and nothing is happening so I’ve taken to blasting my music during the day. Partly to keep me awake and partly because I know the upstairs neighbour can hear it because it wakes him up and he starts whining about it.

Don’t mess with my sleep and I won’t mess with yours.

Or, you know, get a job.

Ugh, now I’m focused around that. Which is probably why my word count has dropped over the last two days. I’m so frustrated that I circle around one little event and can’t get the other words out.

So. Contract Claimed. Where am I at? Well, I don’t know the exact number but it’s about 47,000 words. About the halfway point too, possibly past that.

I’ve had some early morning shifts and empty buses. On those trips, I pulled out my tablet and wrote 3-4k words on the way to work.

For comparison sake, when writing a Coffee and Blood book, I can write between 3 and 5 thousand words in a day. The 5 is really pushing it now, so I tend to get between 1000 and 1500 per trip.

The issue with doing it this way is that my early shifts end next Monday, and I can’t use the tablet if I have my bag in my lap. Meaning that I can’t use the tablet if someone is sitting beside me.

Or has their dirty feet on the seat.

I’ve been making some pretty good headway with Contract Claimed given the fact that I have had one day off the day job in the last seven. That day I wrote about 19k words.

I watch something on the television and have taken to putting Sims on my computer with a vagrant who just drifts about. That way I can’t wander the internet because the tablet is slow in doing that and having Word loaded. Keeps me a little more focused.

I’ve also been playing music in the mornings as I have coffee, rather than sit in silence. I have to, though, otherwise I have to listen to the apartment above me having sex for thirty seconds and then fighting for an hour.

The music does help me focus, though, so there’s that.

However.

I’m having trouble distinguishing words. I keep mixing up the theres, my vocabulary has dropped and there’s a lot of wincing when reading Contract Claimed over word choice and repetition. The scary part is that I know it’s wrong, but I can’t remember enough words to know how to change it.

Sleep is really important.

Which is why I filed three noise complaints in the last week and started beating on my ceiling. Got called a fucking cunt. Because I want to sleep.

It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this godawful, because I removed all those people from my life. Now it’s turning me into a ragefilled, petty person.

Six more months and I can move. My next ‘roommates,’ however temporary they may be, are just about the quietest people I have ever met. I will sleep for a week straight.

In the meantime, all I can (apparently) do is hope my upstairs neighbour overdoses or forgets to pay his rent again, so he gets evicted.

Or breaks up with his girlfriend.

Something, anything. I just want to be able to sleep and then think again.

I am projected to finish Contract Claimed in the next seven days, of which I have three days off. But due to the neighbours it is definitely a rough draft and will need a major overhaul before being published.

Which is fine, because it’s not being re-published until after the second trilogy is completed.

That leads me to December’s (likely) book.

December is the busiest month of the year for my day job. I’m worried about setting myself up for failure by working on His Wings as I will be mentally and emotionally exhausted (not to mention the trouble sleeping). I’ve been bouncing around the idea of completing Contract Sealed instead. It’s almost done. I might be able to finish it in a week, allowing me to do a good job at the day job while maintaining my goal.

Basically the jist of this all is: I’m ahead on my word count and well on the way to finishing book 1/12.

Contract Claimed

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Is my November, NaNoWriMo novel. The cat was kind of out of the bag at the beginning of November for this one. It is (currently) on Smashwords for reader sets price.

Will has already gone off script. Now I’m eager to get to a part where Mr. Wrightworth beats him because I don’t like when characters do that from the get go.

Until April at least, I work every Wednesday afternoon/night. I’m hoping I can use this to my advantage for my weekly updates. Now I just have to get in that habit.

So, what’s going on with Contract Claimed?

Well, when I was sick back at the beginning of October, I had a fever dream that started about chapter two. Will dangling from the ceiling. That was my introduction to him and I’m trying to…

Oh, I think I might know how to work that into the first line. Hopefully. It’s a better hook that “it was a normal night being a pickpocket prostitute high on drugs.”

Excellent.

I have my tablet with me and my usb. I will likely work on it on breaks at work. It’s not pornographic in the beginning, just disturbing. Could be a horror. Suspense, maybe?

Anyhow. Besides that I haven’t got much of an update. It just started and I was late moving because I may have a throat infection thanks to this weekend.

Super tired, but 1400 words in an hour is still pretty good for being tired.

I need something like 2500 words a day to make my goal for the next year. Which is significantly lower than my typical goal of 3000. I am definitely still on track for making that.

One Year Plan… and Rules

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Okay, so my plan over the next twelve months is to complete twelve books. That way, come next November, I will have finished twelve novels and have between three and nine that I can then begin to edit and publish, hopefully just as quickly as I wrote them.

This, I realized needs rules:

-The books just need to be completed. If one is almost written (like Contract Sealed) or partially done (like Prototype and Bound in Blood) they are not excluded from the count. In fact, completing books should be encouraged!

-Which leads to the second rule. One book a month. That’s it. If I finish Contract Sealed two days into December, I don’t get to write again until January. I can plan the books, scribble a bit, but I’m not allowed to actually start. This has proven in the past to be quite helpful in my production.

-For sanity purpose over the next five months, there is one exception to the one book a month rule: Harvester trilogy. That’s done on my phone during commutes and is sometimes the only way I stay sane. If the trilogy is complete, I’m back to one a month.

-Books still need to be published. Not one a month, but at least a couple next year. The one book a month is supposed to help balance this off.

-By the last day of the month, I will make a post announcing which book I will be working on. Then (in a perfect world) will update every Wednesday on where I currently am in the book.

-Should I run behind, the one book a month bit goes out the window. Because then I have to get two, three, four, done. I may cry mercy, just whip me a couple times to get me back on track.

-These are completed rough drafts. A rough draft doesn’t have to have the completed word count. Fragments went from something like 70k up to 85k words during the first edit. Seed is about 77k and has jumped almost 2k words in the first couple of chapters. But the rough draft does have to be complete. Adding a chapter is one thing, not finishing the last four is not allowed.

-After the completion of a book, if it is done early, I will take two days off in a row. Preferably from both jobs… these are to do with as I please but will likely be playing video games, drinking, and sleeping. You know, normal celebratory stuff. After that it’s back to editing written books.

The rules may end up changing a little bit. This is, after all, the first time I’m doing this kind of a marathon. All told I’m hoping for a word count that’s about 924k words, so about one book shy of a million.

The past year I’ve written… okay, I’ve tried to count it four times and I keep coming up with a different number. A trilogy, a D.o.t.A, Seed, His Grace, Contract Signed… Seven books, I think? Yeah… I feel like I’m forgetting one.

Going from seven books when I had no specific goal in mind, to a planned twelve is not going to be as crazy as it sounds. For me, it’s about finding the right rhythm and keeping that goal in mind, to keep focused. When I’m not focused I get all over the place, and then four things end up getting half-done.

Twelve Books in Twelve Months

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

It’s been a year since my first book was published. That’s right, Contract Taken has been available for an entire year! And I’ve only wanted to gank it down and burn it four times.

As the anniversary was coming up, I found myself looking back over the previous year at what I’ve gotten done.

Seven and a half books published (a half because the eighth is up, but not live yet) and written seven books.

Earlier today, I had somehow counted eight books. The first Contracted trilogy was written before Contract Taken had published. I have two books written and not yet published, another almost written, a fourth half-written, another three chapters into it and then NaNoWriMo is coming up.

I have all these books and no plan to actually get it done. I write a book, then immediately launch into the editing and publishing of the book.

Today at my day job, it dawned on me.

Goals are very important, without a goal you won’t achieve much. Or, you’ll have a goal, but no way to make that goal because you need little goals to get to the big goal.

I think I’m trying to quote my grade three teacher.

I’m tired and quite drained.

So, the basic gist of it is that I’ve been looking over the past year and then looking at the next year and wondering what to do with myself. I plan to keep writing and publishing, but how I could I build on what I’ve got now?

About an hour after it occurred to me that I should have a goal, like honestly sit down and decide something about the next year before I just decide to do whatever and only get a book or two written.

I am going to try to write twelve books in the next twelve months, starting with Contract Claimed during NaNoWriMo.

Seed, which is almost done, is not going to be completed in this number. I’m actually hoping to have the remaining chapters written before November 1st. Hopefully…

This doesn’t mean that I’ll be publishing a book every month. It only means that I’ll be writing a book a month. I may stick to the two month publishing routine that I’ve been doing, but then at least the books are written and ready to go. I’ve been able to relax with Fragments and I’m not quite so stressed about everything that’s going on with the book already written.

So… twelve books in twelve months. What are the books? Well, they’re up in the air basically, but my tentative plan is as follows:

Contract Claimed – November

His Wings – December

Crop – December/January

His Halo – January

Harvest – January/February

And that’s where things get weird. Crop and Harvest are being written on my phone, and could very well be the last books written on my phone, as next April I’m moving. The move will change a great deal, and I will no longer have a commute, which means I might no longer employ the use of my phone in writing.

I also come to a stand still on my plans. Those books have kind of been planned out. The plot for Crop and Harvest is complete and simply awaiting my completion of books that come before them. So is His Wings. They all go along together and are part of series and such that are already up and active.

After those are written, the rest are planned in no particular order:

Contract Sealed

Contract Delivered

Prototype

Sugar and Spice

The Visitors

Of course, this is a tentative schedule and there are months still to go. I could get to January and just drop everything for some kind of other hybrid. I’m really great at creating worlds, but not always completing them. Which is kind of the point of this exercise.

Besides, you know, writing a bunch of books that will get edited and published eventually…

Updates

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I really need to schedule time to update this.

There’s some stuff happening. First off being that I am planning a move. I could move in a month, or five moths. Not knowing is certainly putting a damper on a lot of things, but the move will be happening.

His Grace is going live in less than a week. I’m editing Fragments and may be able to get it up late November. Still writing Seed and His Wings.

Oh, and I’ll be participating in NaNoWriMo.

I’m still debating the book I’ll be writing. One about Mr. Wrightworth, which I had originally titled Contract Rewritten but I think I’d like to change that. Or another from a new world that is called The Visitors. I am going to be making covers for both.

The plus side of this is that whichever I don’t write, I still have the cover for. But at the same time, if I decide to use another cover, it’ll all work out in the end. Or, more of, I could sell the second cover a s a premade cover.