Tag: Contracted

Time Off is Important Too

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Beth and I try to make certain each of us takes time off. Even if it’s just a couple of hours. Back in February when I started setup,  Beth had been working two months straight. She had taken an hour here or there, but even while out, she was on and focused on her writing. 

It drove Dorian crazy. He likes all the attention focused on the conversation when he’s there. I swear Beth does it just to mess with him, but their friendship is like that. 

He pokes her, she pokes him. Like a big brother, little sister thing.

Anyhow, as of Saturday I’m off work for a week across my birthday. Thank goodness work was okay with that. I’m not exactly the most stable person on my birthday, which actually has little to do with getting older and more to do with having no family to rely on. 

An entire week, no writing. Whatever am I going to do with myself? 

I’ll be back to work July 31st, restarting a novel August 1st. Along with editing and combing through formatting on Taken and Broken.

I’m supposed to be walking all over next week. Exploring the city to keep myself busy. Dorian promises to keep me out of the apartment and busy the entire time (out of his apartment too,  we tried that last year and it didn’t work).

Exploring could be good for the creative flow. 

Everything Takes Longer Than Expected

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

When I talked to Dorian about my plan, he went ahead and told Beth that I was looking to set up a home office. Beth researched and did the math. How much it would cost to buy versus the frustration of building.

Apparently she had the same idea as me, probably for a while since she was the one who pointed out the free pallets to me.

We met up at the store Monday night. The lucky bum got a ride from work because she stayed late to help someone. We did kind of rush through the displays, because we both had a budget and the moment we walked in started oh-ing and ah-ing over the setups.

Then went back to my place where I polished off Contract Renewed some more and we both ate pizza. 

I’m not certain I’ll ever be happy with the book. But you should hear Beth go on about her published books never being good enough for any audience. 

I got my delivery early in the morning. Beth shortly after. I know because we texted each other. We get way too excited over new furniture.

The last three times I’ve had deliveries, it’s been the same team of guys. Very respectful, quick, and relatively clean. Just a little dusty because they’re moving dusty packages. 

When I opened the door there was no identifying marks and my first thought was, “shit.” Thankfully it was the delivery, but I whined at Beth about it.

An hour later I got a text, “You didn’t say the older one was drunk!”

Apparently we both had the same delivery guys. We proceeded to get in an argument because the company always calls afterwards to check and I was going to report it to the supervisor. So I ended up not hearing from her until she had put her desk together. It was the least expensive, while not looking like it was cheap, so we both got the same thing.

“How did you connect the desk top to the trestles?” 

“Dunno, just doing it now.”

We can’t figure it out. I contacted Dorian and he sighed and said he’d fix both desks when he got back. Just drilling some holes, but while I’m not great with measurements, if it’s off I’m going to go crazy. So I’ll leave it for the guy with a construction background. 

It took nine hours of work to paint the bookshelves. The paint remains tacky despite drying overnight. The air feels moist though, so that may be it. Even the thin first layer I did on the last piece of the second bookcase felt that way. The first piece of the first bookcase wasn’t tacky by the end of the nine hours so it must have to do with humidity.

Trixie: hopped onto the first piece, leaving paw prints all over it and the floor. Twice. I got non-toxic paint just in case. Surprisingly she let me put her on her back and wash her paws. 

She leapt onto the desk top, sitting on the trestles but not attached, and rolled all over the desktop. Claiming it as hers.

After I built the first bookshelf, she jumped onto it, almost taking it to the floor. It’s now attached to the wall. 

Jumped onto the drying side, leaving permanent kitty prints up it.

Used the trestles as an obstacle course. The trestles which are under a desk top not yet bolted down.

Used the boxes as toys, getting irritable when she couldn’t simply bat them around.

And finally, this morning attacked me when I had my mug in my hand, getting coffee on my new keyboard. 

I have an important meeting today at work. Thankfully the coffee missed me. 

It’s almost built though. Soon, I’ll have more space to work. The coffee mug will be to the side, where it never comes over the keyboard. 

And I’ll be able to get to work.

August 1st I’ll be restarting D.o.t.A. I still don’t have a title for the first one. I wish it were a simple matter. I know the full plot of the first one. I could do Cracked and Broken. As the first arc is at least two books. Or Self Discovery and maybe Self Destruction. 

I’ll have to really think on that. 

Knife Play is a ‘no’

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Yesterday at work I somehow managed to get my little finger caught between a hard place and a sharp object, almost skinning the pad off. It’s the kind of incident that no one expects to happen. 

Which, in my experience, means I’ll be the one to do it to myself.

I’m fine, I should add. 

But afterwards everything got dopey and slow. Having been a part of that lifestyle for a while, I recognized the drop. If I had been playing, it would be called sub drop. Apparently it’s not my reaction to playing itself, but the crash after pain has been caused.

Interesting. Thankfully it was only a little drop.

Because Dorian is out of town until next Sunday. I don’t do well with a big drop and being by myself. Did that with my ex, when I had no idea what was going on. 

When I found out he did know what was going on and ignored me on purpose, I broke up with him. While shouting and throwing things and going on because I was still in the middle of it all.

Anyhow. 

When I got home all I wanted to do was curl up with a stuffie and be petted and kissed and taken care of. Recognizing what was going on, I ordered pizza (with the little brownie bites) gorged like Dorian never lets me (because his rules don’t apply when I’m weepy and on my own) and after two brownies found myself with Contract Renewed open on my laptop.

I got that last chapter done after four hours. It took my mind off the finger until I tried to save. Apparently the left little finger is used exclusively for ctrl+s. 

Also, apparently I went four hours without saving! Thank goodness I didn’t lose progress, or I’d really be in a bad spot.

I didn’t write the entire time either. No, I spent about half the time wrangling Trixie.

Off the laptop, away from the wireless keyboard, away from the mouse. Then away from markers when I took a short break to try to fill out the planner again. And off the planner, then away from the planner,  then to the scratching post because she seemed intent on digging her claws into everything.

I first tried petting and cuddling her, of course. That didn’t work.

So now I have leftover pizza, brownies and pop. I let Dorian know, mainly so that he doesn’t order pizza next week. 

Then only reason he restricts me is that if I’ve dropped and there’s pizza available,  I’ll eat until I’m in a food coma, then feel terribly lazy all the next day.

So, long story short, Contract Renewed is almost ready for the beta reader. I’m planning on starting over on D.o.t.A in August. Taking the last week of July off… 

And I really think Contract Taken could be up on Amazon as early as September. Just have to contact the cover designer.

On Tuesday I’m headed out to get my desk.

… and two bookshelves. I have zero, in my defence. Books are just laying around all over the place. Stuff ends up on the floor because I have nowhere to put it. It’s also hard to argue with that price. 

Oh, and I’m putting the shelves on either side of my mantle to keep Trixie off of it so that I can out the TV up there where she can’t reach it.

My only problem is that everything will be white, to fit in my budget, and I have a strong dislike of all furniture that is white. 

Sounds like I’ll need to spend a day getting crafty, which is fine. Once Contract Renewed is off to the beta, I could probably use a nice day off from all the things.

Front and Back Matter

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I keep thinking about formatting. I haven’t even done the final edit on Contract Taken and I’m obsessing about formatting. 

I like pretty things, so sue me.

Beth showed me the various stages of her ebooks. From just basically tossed up, to no real back matter but still a bit of a layout, all the way to the print version.

Mainly I’m obsessing about my back matter. What do I want to do for excerpts? Or do I want to do the MC talking to the reader? Which ones would I include? Daughters of the Alphas for certain. Maybe the working title Blood Bound as well. I’d like to finish that book or duo, might have a trilogy in it. Then there’s Prototype.

Mm, Prototype. I’d love to explore that world. Sex and magic, what’s not to love? It also goes full on fantasy, which is something that I haven’t got really. 

D.o.t.A is more alternate world so I suppose it might count as urban scifi. I’m not even certain to tell you the truth. I’m writing it, it’s fun. That’s all that matters to me right now.

So, okay, what if I did D.o.t.a, then Blood Bound, and then Prototype? 

All I’d need then is to wrangle Blood Bound’s MC and come up with proper names for Blood Bound’s world and then the first books. Shouldn’t take too long considering each ‘excerpt’ should fit on one page. Nothing more than a snapshot, really. 

Then to figure out hyperlinks in ebooks, which I’m sure there are ten to a thousand tutorials on. Maybe tweak my author’s bio.

Notice I’m ignoring front matter? 

Every ebook I get on my Kindle takes me right to the first page of the story. I don’t know how they do it, but they do! This has been on multiple classics and an ebook. Which I traced back to look at two pages of chapters, the legalese we all need to include, a description of the book (in the front matter? Which no one is apparently seeing anymore unless they go out of their way?) And… no effort put into the title page. 

In school, I was one if those crazy girls who carefully measured a third (or half at teacher’s request) down the page and penciled in perfect lettering before…

Yeah, the title page matters to me. Even if I don’t think others will see it. It’s even already done up!  Usually it’s created in the rough draft. Everytime I open the file, there it is, the first thing I see.

We all have our quirks, that’s one of mine.

On Planning

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

My original plan was to set up preorders for the Contract trilogy three months apart. Of course, I’m being guided by Beth, who is a planner. She makes me research everything. Or… nearly everything. 

When it first came to the preorder she was completely on board with the idea. Three months would give me a ton of time to market and build a readership. 

But the other day she stumbled on a discussion between authors. One of them was in a situation similar to mine. A trilogy was at the ready and this person was debating between doing preorders or launching all three books at the same time.

The author was advised to launch the first immediately, then do a preorder for three weeks for the next, and three weeks for the one after. The idea is to drive readership. And this will help you start off strong. 

Except I’m not certain three weeks is enough. What if something comes up, what if I need to make an alteration to the second or third books? How is three weeks going to help me, as a new author, to build readership? 

I, of course, went to Beth with these questions. So she sat me down and we had a discussion of our own.

See, Beth views writing as a type of business. It is still a hobby for her, she is not making enough to live off of it, but she hopes to one day. 

The way you would treat a customer in retail is how you should treat your fans. Or, if you can, treat readers better than you would customers. Now, she works in retail so that imagery works very well for her, and I can see where she’s coming from.

Businesses who treat their customers well, do well. If you were going to buy a suit and the salesperson was rude, would you still buy the suit? Most cities have multiple fine clothing stores, you don’t have to be limited.

Most people would go to another store. The same is true for indie authors. You aren’t the only one writing stories like that.

Of course, I adore my readers so for me that part isn’t really a problem. 

The part that deflated my ego was the next bit: it takes five years to build a business and about a minute to destroy it.

Beth, when she first published, wasn’t even close to popular. After two years she’s finally seeing some traction, but has to take a break because she can’t afford editing costs at the moment. That means her… cloud? Is slowly going to get smaller unless she gets the next book written  and finds the money for editing. 

Being a new author, she told me, I need all the help I can get. That means that if three weeks will help me build my foundation, I need to swallow my pride and just do it.

It also would mean that I’d have two months or so before I was back where I am now. Growling about editing. In two months I could probably finish writing the Daughters of the Alphas trilogy. 

Or I could finish the first and finish its edits, putting it up for a three months and basically buying myself time to write and edit the second, then do the same to get to the third. If I really focus I could work another writing project in the background. 

Because I’m keeping up a free story somewhere, so it’s not entirely impossible. If I could get the freaking tablet cord, I could write at work and edit at home. Which is what I was doing before. 

On the Contract Renewed front, I discovered why I only had four chapters left when I swore I had five chapters worth of stuff. That was because in the first draft, I somehow created two Chapter Fourteens. 

Go me. I can’t believe I missed that in the first two reads. Checking that the chapters read appropriately is one of the first things I do before I start editing.

So now I have twenty-one chapters with the possibility of rewriting the introduction to be more of an introduction instead of just a short chapter. I can take the old introduction and probably mire it into Chapter One, I think.

Before I left the house today, I went through Chapter Seventeen (I think) and started Eighteen before I got listless. Had to get ready for work. It’s still possible that I’ll finish Eighteen tonight.

Who knows, with tomorrow off and only three chapters left, I could finish with Contract Renewed tomorrow.

*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.

Too Many Ideas, Not Enough Time

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

If I do no editing whatsoever, I could write all the ideas! But that won’t work… so what I’m thinking instead is finishing Contracted and getting it up and out of the way, then writing for about nine months straight.

Why nine months? 

Because I believe Amazon will let you do preordering three months out at the most. So once Taken goes live, I give it a week and start the preorder for Broken. 

And avoid all the reviews.

I’ve got a new idea kicking around for a world with vampires. I know, typical creature stories are overdone and after that, then what? Werewolf? 

I have a dislike of shifter stories, though.

While I’ve always sworn never to write a vampire story, my dislike of them boils down to the tropes. Like, if there be vampires, there must also be werewolves.

So I just play with the tropes I dislike. Such as having vampires argue the spelling of vampire, or upon being asked where the werewolves are, the MC is told this is the real world, not some romantic fantasy.

I’m also thinking about including excerpts at the end of the books. A sort of ‘coming soon’ but I’m not sure if I want proper excerpts or if I should have the MCs explaining their world to the reader. 

“In my world, genetically ‘superior’ humans are called Alphas. They spend their lives trying to outdo one another and accumulating wealth in the form of property, money, and companions. 

What’s a companion you ask? 

I am. 

We’re humans who carry what the Alphas call the G14 genetic marker. That specific sequence of genes means that under the right conditions we will break and form an everlasting bond with the one who breaks us, Alpha or human.

Women were once excluded from the selection and breaking process, but when the Alphas overthrew the government, everything changed. 

I’ve been caught, charged with a ridiculous crime, and they’ve decided it’s time to break me.

I won’t go down without a fight.” 

Seems to catch my attention more than trying to select am excerpt from the entire book. It also gives a look at the world, oh… it could be the description  of the book too! 

I may be spouting the stupidest idea ever. I need a sounding board. Being in a different genre and even writing in a different perspective, Beth isn’t much help for excerpt and description set up.

World creation, yes. Though she’s constantly asking me why my worlds are based around BDSM and domination. Guess that’s just my thing? 

Sweet romances don’t go over well. The last time I did something fluffy, everyone expected the characters to all be slaughtered at the end. Apparently I have a tell…

If I write something adorable, somebody’s going to get hurt.

So I’m trying to change that. It’s an amusing tell, though, so I’m still kind of debating whether I should just keep it. 

End a book in a trilogy with fluff and watch everyone cry…

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?

Reading Through

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I just finished the trilogy—reading it, that is. The first and second books are great, there’s a running theme to the sex and everything else. The third seems to be lacking the theme on the sex.

I asked Beth to read them, as I had mentioned before. She did and her response to the first two was to basically blush. The third she said, “well… I feel like it needs a balance. The others were sub, sub, the last one is like… wtf is going on? What happened to all the talk about domming?”

She’s right, I need to rewrite a few chapters. Fix a lot more things in the third book than in the others. It’s okay, I got this. So besides the opener, things have to be swung into the domme mode instead of having them switch back and forth and there’s not so much play or sex in the last book. Which is kind of understandable.

Now I’m just talking to myself as I try to figure out how to position everything to get it ready.

The first book has some timeline edits and small things like that, but mainly typos. The second is the same thing, really. A fact change here, a fact change there. I’m actually on the fence about the decision I had made before. Reading through, I don’t think it works any other way.

I suppose my fear is upsetting some readers with that, but removing it would require altering three other things throughout the entirety of the book and I don’t think I could accurately give the presentation any other way.

So far the titles I’ve come up with are Contract Taken, Contract Breached, Contract Renewed, or Contract Taken, Contract Lost, Contract Found. With the first being the preferred.

I realize in the genre I’ve chosen, I want to write fast but I’ve just never been that sort of person. The Contract trilogy was written fast for me, at one book a month. Still need to go through edits, however. And I’m so happy I put off the edits until I was finished writing them.

A month or so to edit, set the first release three months from now, the next one three months after that, the next three after that. I think that’s the pattern that you need to have. Not certain. But maybe by the time the second book releases, I’ll have the next trilogy done and schedule that up.

That’s actually a good idea. Just one problem…

If I’m writing at that rate. What’s my world after the next one going to look like?

Ugh. This is the point where I rub my face, shake my head, and remind myself that I have to get the first trilogy off the ground first.