Tag: Contract Taken

*Enter Witty Title Here*

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Ah, the WordPress app. Beth suggested it while the tablet is having issues. You don’t even have to publish it, just put notes in a draft. I’ve tried all sorts of note programs and Office type programs but none of them really work. Or, if they do work, they don’t really make a file I can take to my laptop/tablet. 

Yesterday morning I edited a chapter. Then I did two blog posts first on the way to, then on the way from work. As soon as I got home I was on the phone with UPS because my package did turn up. 

Then I went back to editing and did another chapter, and another this morning.

UPS’S driver obviously entered the wrong city, which happens, I get that (and it turned up, so how could I complain?) And I was able to get answers and timely responses from them. 

I had, however, entered a ticket for my My Choice thing, because when I did the authorization apparently nothing took. I opened it under the tracking number for this package and was told to confirm I had entered it. I said yes and asked how I go about doing that again since obviously it didn’t work. And how would that work with Canada Post being weird? 

This morning the person responsible for the ticket responded with “I see your package was delivered to *wrong city* I hope you found our customer service helpful.” 

That wasn’t what this ticket was about.

With Canada Post being weird, I need to go through UPS to get hard copies of my books. The other service that runs starts with a ‘d’ and I can’t recall the name, but they suck. The drivers will not attempt delivery to apartment buildings. They drive up and idle for a bit, then leave claiming they were unable to make contact. As they did to me on four occasions for two different packages.

So my frustration at this dismal service does link into my writing. 

My local postman may mark something as delivered and then not deliver the notice for three days, but at least my package is safe at the local post office. It’s also about a third of the cost. 

I hope they resolve their issues soon. 

On the editing front, I’m now on chapter sixteen. I checked the word count today. I shouldn’t have.

Contract  Taken is about 87k words, Contract Broken is about 89k word. Currently Contract Renewed is sitting at 76k words. 

Going in, I knew it was shorter. When I started it was 66k words. I wrote its bare bones and knew that as I finished. The point was to get the skeleton out and to add the details later. Chapter fifteen was three pages of nothing but dialogue. It’s now five pages, but could probably be expanded on for physical reaction to emotion and stimulus. 

I definitely will need to do another go-through for editing and checking on that sort of thing. 

With four chapters left, I’m not even certain how I managed this because I swear there were two more chapters of sex and three more of other stuff. 

There’s definitely not enough sex. Of course I’m trying not to repeat too much, wouldn’t want to bore anyone. I think I’ve done well so far, but while I could easily add more, it’d probably be summed up by Izzy as, “a regular play session,” which kind of makes it sound boring. However, I’m concerned that if I go into details of a regular play session, the reader will find themselves bored because they’ve already had that.

I could add some suspension play, I know both of them are interested in that, but I have absolutely no experience with suspension. It’s something that Dorian isn’t interested in, let alone has the setup for, and I can’t play in public at all. 

I’d just start crying, like last time. 

It’s kind of funny how I’m very private about play (using an anonymous pen name to say I do play doesn’t count) yet I’m parading Izzy’s exploration of play before my readers. 

Once I go through the edit, I might ask Dorian for help. And I’ll be specific that I don’t mean seduce me for ‘inspiration’ purposes. He’s supposed to help me with Nathaniel’s trilogy as well. 

I know the male perspective of books can be well-received but Nathaniel isn’t like that. One book is about Izzy, I think. The other two are about before her. Everything that led up to his meeting her. 

I sound a little ramble-ly, I know. But doing a blog post helped me stay focused through the day yesterday, do I’m hoping it’ll help today as well.

When it Rains, it Pours.

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Remember how I said Canada Post was going on strike and I wasn’t going to get anything from anyone else for my birthday? Well, I had bought something for myself and was quite happy that it would be waiting for me when I got home today, as I had to pay for UPS. A pay service of that cost wouldn’t make a mistake,  would they?

… except they delivered it to the wrong city. 

I double checked all the addresses on all the statements. Yes, it was mine. The only one not showing my address was the actual delivery notification. 

The sound of the customer service representative’s voice when I told him where it had been delivered had that quality of genuine surprise. Even as he asked me to confirm my address and I stopped at the postal code and he read it out to me. 

“I’m just going to connect you to the investigation division…” two minutes pass and I can hear the frustration in his voice, “I can’t seem to get ahold of them, they’re probably very busy.” 

I’m already thrumming with frustration myself. Not by his actions, not even by the ‘theft’ of my only present this year (Dorian and I have a strict no gifts rule, we spend time together instead) but from a need to beat out a world a little more. 

The need to write always brings an ache to my chest and my hands tingle. Just need to get a few words down, then I’ll be able to focus again. 

…Maybe. 

It’s not even necessarily vampires who are aggrivating me. I haven’t written in weeks, I’ve been stopped up and now the itch is coming back. 

Yesterday I forced myself to write a new chapter for Contract Renewed, maybe that was what opened the flood gates. I’m on chapter fourteen of twenty, still need to add ten thousand more words. I can do that, I know I can. 

I just want to move on. I love the trilogy, I do, but this is more time than I’ve spent on any one thing. 

Maybe writing the whole trilogy and then editing the whole is a bad idea, like Beth said. Sure, I get the consistency errors fixed, but at a cost to my productivity. If I had done them one at a time…

Well, with Contracted I wouldn’t have been satisfied with the outcome. Or I may have been for a few months, but then I’d want to rip it to shreds for missing just that one little thing.

With Daughters of the Alphas I may edit as I go. Write one book and mull on it. Place it up on preorder and dive into another world. And then another… and another. I can circle back around to whatever keeps my fancy, just so long as I get the worlds written and available before they get mired in the fog that is my brain. 

We’ll see. Who knows, I might write the first book and immediately want to start the second. 

How many books can I write in a year? Oh, now there’s a challenge I’d like to take up.

The Tech Problem

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

My tablet is working on and off. What it really is, is the plug in. I’ve got a Surface 2 and Microsoft decided that a little magnetic latch on thing with four dibbles that push into the charger head itself. There’s a shelf type of thing that these dibbles push back behind and one of my dibbles is caught behind that shelf.

Why must you complicate things? The more moving parts, the more likely it is to be damaged.

I’ve never messed with this charger, I’ve been very gentle with it. Mainly because I saw those dibbles and knew it could be a problem.

So I can’t charge my tablet.

The next one is going to be simpler to charge. Preferably with a little plug like what my phone, kindle, and mp3 player all use. It has a name, but I can’t recall it off the top of my head.

Then there’s the laptop problem.

I can write upwards of million words a year. I kept track of it one year. Not including emails, blogs, chats, social media updates and all the rest.

I’m very prolific.

So my laptop is four years old. In January the backspace button popped off. Yeah. I have to hit the little knob that once was the backspace button. The ctrl buttons work on and off, and somehow the spacebar still works. For now.

The problem with tech, therefore, is that without it, we can’t really write in the modern age. I couldn’t write as quickly as I do because my hand can’t write as fast as it can type. Let’s face it, I’ve never seen someone who can write sixty words a minute legibly. My head also works faster than my typing or my writing so by the time I’m finished typing, I typically have the next thing lined up and ready to go.

This all leads into what I use these items for. The tablet is for writing on the go and at work. While at work is when I really want to write (on my breaks, of course) but without the table there, I don’t get anything done.

By the time I come home I’m stuck in the mud because I couldn’t write all day, so I don’t get editing done.

At any time both of these machines could fail and I’d be unable to access my stories until I bought new ones. Which aren’t exactly cheap, especially for someone who just started working full-time.

Cue Beth saying, “If you start the pre-order you’d have more money. Sure, not for six months but that could be the bit that chooses between a netbook second-hand, or a full laptop brand new.”

I have a birthday coming up, I’d ask for money and then pool whatever I got to put that towards a second-hand laptop, but Canada Post is on lock down or strike or something. No cards or gifts or anything for me this year. Unless they miraculously come to an agreement but given the length of the whole thing that’s probably not going to happen.

Beth thinks I’m making excuses. She thinks I’ve got cold feet about sending my baby out into the world because the bad reviews will kill my ego.

Not because Beth assumes my book is bad. It’s a borderline erotica and it kept her attention. She’s actually a pickier reader than I am.

Every book gets bad reviews, that’s the nature of the beast. If a book has nothing but five-star reviews, it’s… it’s suspicious.

Would I want nothing but good reviews?

Yes.

But Beth’s received a few ‘meh’ reviews, nothing really disastrously rage filled and nasty, and her ego took a blow.

I suppose at the end of it all, this sums up to: Need new tech to keep writing, afraid to start the pre-launch of Contract Taken.

An Author’s Bookclub

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

“Not what I want to read, not what I want to read, that’s another fucking shifter book. You know how uncomfortable shifter fiction makes me? It’s a step away from having sex with an animal.”

“I’m pretty certain they stay in man-form during sex.”

“It still makes me squeamish.”

“Okay, fine, don’t read it. What about that one?”

“The male MC mates the female MC by touching her? Wh… is that standard in their world? What the fuck?”

“My Gods, and I thought I was a picky reader. Look, if you’re going to be a jerk about your books—”

“I prefer the term specific reading requirements.”

“—and a whiney little bitch, then don’t read an indie book until you find the storyline you’re looking for. In the meantime, pick up some of the classics.”

“But they want fifteen to thirty dollars for those.”

“Not on Amazon, Gutenberg, and numerous other places. As long as it’s in the public domain you can get classic books for free in ebook or pdf form by knowing how to look for it.”

Beth has shown me how to find books to read. I grabbed about twenty of them while she helped, it was that easy, then I started doing the equivalent of running circles trying to figure out which to start with. So she suggested what she was reading, H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds.

It’s not that indie books aren’t good enough, but that I’m searching for something very specific in my romance area. Sci-fi on the other hand… Well, once I started looking at the classics I forgot all about sci-fi.

I feel a little better after finishing The War of the Worlds, but apparently not a hundred percent better. I’ve been picking away at the chapter all morning. Starting and stopping on and off. It’s a little frustrating, but at least it’s moving instead of just staying there, mocking me.

Beth refers to it as refueling, although she refuels by playing a simulation game while reading a book and watching television. I think she’s crazy, but at least she has something that works for her.

Then again, she’s also the one who babbles about book family trees, where every book can sort of be traced back to a ‘parent’ book that it’s very similar, if not outright based on (like 50 Shades and Twilight).

So I’ll keep reading as many books as I can while picking away at the chapter.

I haven’t had a chance to speak with my cover artist yet. She’s very busy, but when I see her, I’ll ask to proceed on the covers. Once the covers are done, I’ll begin the final stages of the pre-order for Contract Taken and move on from there.

I’m still not in a rush, I’d very much like to complete the whole trilogy before doing the first pre-order so that there’s no cliff or hang off point. Everything will link into one another and I won’t have to worry about the world again unless I decide to write another book for it.

Mm, books.

What are your favourite classic works?