Tag: romance

At Death’s Door

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I opened At Death’s Door and discovered that I was almost done with the first round of edits. These were mainly typos, autocorrect issues, and some formatting. The story is now on my phone in pdf form and I’m going to give it a read to check the global edits. This includes adding things that I couldn’t during the initial writing, going back and revisiting all descriptions, and such on and so forth.

I found a premade cover today that I quite like the look of, one from someone Beth has used in the past. They’re even offering to do the wraps now! Beth had to make her own… or maybe Beth didn’t read the entire site like she lectured me on doing several times. She gets like that sometimes.

So I need to rush through and get the edits set up so that I know the approximate length of the print book to get the cover ordered. Once I have the additions to it and the cover on order I’ll run back and start over as if I haven’t done any edits at all.

Which means a read and mark down edits. Then a read to make certain I didn’t create a typo in the mean time, because I do that because I’m stupid. Then through a grammatical editing program which does all right. Then another read to make certain I didn’t make a typo again, because I do that because I’m stupid.

Then I’m going to ask for a beta reader.

While they have the book I’ll read it again in the freaked out way I do. Which is basically as follows:

OH GOD SOMEONE IS READING MY BOOK WHAT ARE THEY READING WHAT DID I DO OH GOD WHY DID I DO THAT THERE’S A COMMA MISSING RIGHT THERE IM STUPID AND SHOULD JUST GIVE UP.

No punctuation whatsoever, just screaming at the top of my lungs inside my head as I start ripping it apart for more errors.

As Beth says, the editor in me hates the writer in me.

The Missing Link

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Or in this case, too many links.

Prototype has been on my work desk, so to speak, since September when it seemed to fight every step of the way. Since then I’ve revisited it in the planning stages several times. Each time I can only shrug and put it back on the shelf, uncertain of what happened.

I think I figured it out. 

I  was walking to the bus stop and thinking about Contract Signed which is m/m. That’s definitely not everyone’s cup of tea and Signed would be my first published m/m so those who are not long time readers are not going to be expecting it so much.

Just because I keep talking about it, doesn’t mean people are listening. In fact, for me it almost guarantees that no one who the warnings are for are listening. That’s the way it goes, how it’s always gone.

So, walking to the bus stop, I’m trying to figure out how to word that once the trilogy is complete and ready to go. It kind of comes to me, except inside my head me was all “if you don’t like this, give me about an hour.”

And I went, “What the fuck does that mean? Who can come up with a solution in an hour? This is problem solving time, not fantasy!”

To which the voice inside my head said something very mean.

A few minutes later I was presented with another status update that started with, “and for all you readers, here’s a m/f story.”

To which I did role call to try to put something in that spot.

Prototype is always at the top of role call. Every month I’ve started, or said I was going to start, a new story, Prototype is the first story brought up as a possibility. 

This time the voice didn’t ask. The world was dumped on me and then we proceeded arguing with one another about it being broken and which of us was to blame for it being broken. 

Yes, I talk and argue with myself inside my head. But it’s nice to have a sounding board sometimes. 

At some point the voice in my head started ripping scenes out of Prototype and basically throwing them out as I protested that it couldn’t go. We needed that and that and…

And then it hit me in the face with the pared down version. 

Which had removed the general world building and just focused on the characters.

“It’s a series. There will be plenty of time for world building in books two to sixty.”

Yes! 

I don’t know when I’ll be able to work on it again. Nearly everything but chapter one news to be thrown out. That’s okay though. It’s not the first time I’ve had to start from scratch on a story.

Just Keep Writing 

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Three weeks, I could not work. Which is now totalling about six weeks out of work. Driving me crazy, is what it is. 

Masked Intentions goes live in nine days and I don’t have the final draft up. Not because I have been lazy or because it needs more work, but because I haven’t been capable of work for six weeks. 

I think I had two days around Christmas before everything went to hell.

I haven’t been on social media or marketing or anything. My sales reflect that. And I can maintain that…

If I can work. 

So now I have to make that all a habit again. Get back to working on all the things.

The moment everything was fixed, I went back to writing. But I’m now six weeks behind on my plan. That really messes with everything. 

I couldn’t even write on my phone, so Death Mask isn’t written yet, it’s in a perpetual state of half-done chapter one. So I’m skipping ahead to chapter two and will return to chapter one later on. 

On the computer, I’m writing the Signed trilogy, which resides in the Contracted world. This is Nate’s story, so m/m and bdsm, and all that explosion of crazy. I completely blame Nate and his Master. They kept messing with me so I figured I’d start the world up again to torment them and it all just came spilling out. 

At Death’s Door will probably have to wait until March for release, so that I can do all the fixes that I was supposed to do over the last six weeks. It’s going to take longer because I can no longer remember what the fixes are. So now I need to read the entire thing before I can start edits so that I can get the bigger picture again and catch all the problems.

So annoying.

Because all I want to do is write. 

Sure, I could ship this work out to someone else, but that costs money I don’t have, and I’m not earning from the books themselves. In the last month I’ve only sold one book.

Probably because I couldn’t do anything or access anything or get my head to work. 

I’m on kdp select, and discovered that Contract Taken was up for free days. I’ve grabbed three and have moved a few free copies with the help of marketing and some from social media.

This morning the book was sitting at #9 on Amazon’s free-romance section. Suppose that’s good, but we’ll have to see how that goes.

A review blog somehow picked up my book and listed it. It’s weird because I don’t recall applying to them or anything of that sort. I’m not certain how I landed on that page, basically. They also made a “review” on Goodreads that was just the description.

I have no idea what their plan is, but I’m afraid to ask.

When everything was in the middle of breaking, Dorian did something stupid. He booked a trip to Cuba for the two of us at at five star resort.

I’ve never been to Cuba, and we all know I’m not comfortable being gifted expensive things. Hence why he’s stupid. 

I appreciate it, I will try my darndest to enjoy the trip, but accepting such a gift makes me uncomfortable. Even if I had purchased the ticket myself, I’d probably be uncomfortable. That’s money I could put into covers or marketing.

I’m starting to sound like Beth. While I’m not certain that’s a bad thing, it does sound a little crazy. If I had the money to go to Cuba, I should go to Cuba. Experience for an author is absolutely necessary.

Who knows, it could spawn a story. I could end up writing a best selling novel because I want to Cuba.

Oh, but think of the promotions I could have bought with that money… Bookbub and ENT and all the things. Such shiny things.

Suppose a beach and all inclusive resort stay will have to do. 

Signed – or Why I Hate How my Mind Works

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I can no longer play games on my desktop, it’s that messed up. It was a free upgrade, and still works for things like editing and writing. Basically, my computer is forcing me to work when I wanted to play video games.

This time of year is high stress for me. I want to relax sometimes and just unwind by killing things in a wasteland, or lighting my dolls on fire. 

Instead, I opened Signed yesterday afternoon and started writing. The first chapter took six hours to write, the second two. I was up until almost two in the morning writing when I wanted to be playing a game and taking over the world.

I dreamed of Signed last night. 

This is a problem with me, and I know it is. Sometimes I get caught on tangents and can’t get off until it’s written out. The entire trilogy is acting like that.

All at once. 

I’ve had books overlap before, both playing out on repeat inside my head as I finish one and am going to start another, but never three. And certainly not from the beginning of the first book. Two chapters in, Nathaniel’s Master is tying him up in all kinds of places and doing all sorts to him. 

Half of it won’t even make it into the book, a line has to be drawn somewhere, damn it. 

More just keeps getting tossed onto the pile. And more. 

Then Dorian made a comment, because he’s expressed a desire to be there when I do research on these things. I suppose, so he knows what he’s getting himself into. 

“Why in male/male domination porn does one always where that little strap thing over their shoulders?”

If you saw it, you’d know the one he meant. It’s the kind of thing that might hold wings on for a Halloween costume, except made of leather.

At those words, Mr. Wrightworth popped into my head, grabbed a random male character, slapped one on him and grabbed it by the strap that runs between the shoulder blades. 

“Men typically don’t have hair to tangle a hand it, a grip on a shoulder does not give the control one needs. With this, however…”

Thanks for that thought, Mr. Wrightworth. 

“Aya, why do you have that look on your face?” Dorian asked.

I could only whimper in response. 

It is with great uneasiness that I head into work, worried about what might happen in my errant thoughts. I plot my stories at work. Most  of the time this isn’t a problem at all and all revolves around PG13 type of material. 

Smutt is left for the bus rides or at home. Work is the place to figure out how they say things and what the reaction would be to having breakfast taken away.

Nathaniel and his Master don’t seem to want to obey my rules though. They don’t react to threats to beat them, because they went into this knowing things were not going to go well for them.

So my uttering threats does absolutely nothing. I can’t threaten the other of them, holding one hostage because… I don’t even know why. 

I have two days off coming up. Without the ability to play games I only have one hope: a writing marathon to get as much of Signed written as I can before I go back to work.

That’s right, I’m aiming for a fifty thousand word weekend, if only to shut the pair of them up for a few hours.

Wish me luck.

Publication Schedule

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Snagged the app for my new phone. I’m quite pleased with this thing.

Any who, with the app and data I can make blog posts again! 

I’m supposed to be writing Death Mask to finish that series off. I’m not certain that I can get the same effect from writing it on the computer as I can on my phone. It’s the focus that the phone draws in because I don’t have so many other things going on. 

My main problem with that at the moment is that my autocorrect is new, and not yet driven insane by my style. I’ll bring it around, though. Soon it will be writing full sentences and actually capitalizing after periods!

You’d think capitalization would come standard.

With Contract Broken launching today at midnight, it’s gotten me thinking about my publication schedule. 

I want to publish often, that was the point of writing a book a month. It’s always been the editing that catches me up. Another problem is that every once in a while, things just stop working. It happens, and it sucks.

The past two and a half months have been an example of that. I’ve written At Death’s Door but that was on my phone during commutes. I might as well have been reading the thing for the first time.

And that’s why I want to continue writing on my phone.

At the same time, nothing got done at home. stuff happens, you end up playing games because the words just don’t come.

So I don’t think I’m going to be able to maintain one book a month. Okay, that’s fine because that’s how that goes. Guess those are now the rules. 

I still want to launch as often as possible. At least I’m writing full novels and not ten thousand word snippets.

Oh, and then there are the snippets, starting to come to me and I may just give in and publish those too.

I like my day job, I’m just tired of getting up at 6am every day and being exhausted and walked all over for a job no one but me even cares about. I’d rather work part-time, and snippets are faster to write and edit.

I’m considering it, is all I’m saying. I definitely would not stop writing the novels. Me? Stop writing novel length works? Ha!

At this point the plan is: 

Masked Intentions – January

At Death’s Door – February

Morgan’s Story? – March

Death Mask – April

Maybe snippets throughout. Maybe Signed in between. 

Signed is a trilogy I’ve been debating writing. It’s basically Nathaniel’s story but is not a complete recounting. The first comes before Izzy, the second during the events of Contract Broken, and the third afterward. I’m just not certain yet if anyone would be interested. 

Oh, and maybe Angel in between or afterward.  I didn’t start it last night, so okay, let’s set this up for me.

I will start working on Angel on December 1st. December is the busiest month of the year for us at the day job, so I’m not expecting to write it in a month. There.

See?

There’s already that tingle down my spine and the whining voices of the muses at the back of my mind. This is what they get for not writing for two months. 

That’ll also give me more time to plan the series out. Which means I could be cast out to May, maybe June if I can get Cheating Death written. 

I was talking to at friend recently who knew I’d be getting into Romance publishing and she inquired so I told her about the next launch.

“Oh? Is that all? That doesn’t sound like you.”

“And another next month, editing one for January, planning the world of another, writing another, have one sitting for editing, oh and the side project.”

“That sounds like you! At least you’re publishing them instead of just writing them and then leaving them on drives laying about my house.”

“Is that like my telling you to stop tearing up your drawings?”

“Shut up, they’re terrible.”

“That’s totally why I’ve got them hanging on my wall.”

…

The long and the short of it is that I have plans for more launches and very soon. Well, soon in publishing. 

Beth publishes one or so books a year. I’ve got three this year and six planned next year. Different genres, though. Different authors too. 

Good luck to me, I feel like I’ll need it.

*Unitalisized titles are working titles.

At Death’s Door

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

At Death’s Door was titled ‘Vampire’ until just a few chapters ago. This is written on my phone and will be extensively edited on a computer. Or, edited as any of my works are. There are two more books to be written, though I’ve not dabbled much in the plot of those so I can’t even give away the ending!

Vampires come out to humans and interviews are set up. Many humans are still skeptical as the vampires haven’t given physical proof besides some historical records. Those doing the interviews expect fluff and a little grief stricken darkness. A smidge of “oh, how killing mortals pains me!”

Most interviewers get just that. Boring vampires with boring lives (or at least edited for mass consumption) then there’s Quin.

Who probably shouldn’t have ever been on the list of interviewees. Like. Ever.

 

Continue reading “At Death’s Door” →

Updates

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

What have I been up to?

Well, Prototype in a month was a bust. I seem to be missing something to tell the story, even though I know how it all ends. That kind of sucks, but I’ll keep working on it and maybe do a re-write. That seems to work well for me recently.

I’ve almost written another book, At Death’s Door is part of a trilogy called Wraith’s Rebellion. All the writing is done on my phone. Isn’t that a nifty thing? More like crazy as could be, but I have long commutes and haven’t wanted to read anything. It doesn’t even feel like work because it’s doing a great job at distracting me from hours on a bus.

The Contracted trilogy is up for pre-order on Amazon, and I’ve reached out to the cover artist to do the wraps she had promised. Coming up with other options well, I know she’s very busy and might not have the time to put them together.

I’m considering getting Indesign as I’ve heard you can do the ebook formatting on there and have Amazon accept the fonts. I’ll believe it when I see it, but it’s kind of expensive. Its subscription based and would cost me the same to hire out for the work, and that’s a problem. So I’ll keep looking around.

My laptop was failing to the point where it couldn’t work with some web pages, WordPress included. It works on my phone, but I’ve been writing At Death’s Door on there. So that’s kind of why I’ve been absent.

I won’t accept large gifts from people. It’s never ended well for me even to accept gifts in general. Dorian knew that, and one day showed up with his brother’s old computer. He set it up before I arrived and absconded with my laptop. The act of it led to our first fight in months, because there were things on that laptop I needed.

Apparently, his brother upgraded to a full on gaming rig, and Dorian told his brother he’d recycle the old computer. His brother isn’t the sort to ask if Dorian recycled it or not.

So my computer issue was fixed, though the monitor is driving me batty. I may have to save up and buy a new one, but those are a great deal cheaper than getting the entire rig.

I’m thinking about working on an angel and demon story. Woooo scary.

Because it’s just not possible, and I should know better.

But then… I also said no vampires.

My list for October is simple. Finish Prototype, finish At Death’s Door, do the first edit for Masked Intentions, and get the final copies of Contract Broken and Contract Renewed up. Preferably, get the hard copies of the Contracted Trilogy settled so I can do a giveaway.

I am planning on resisting the urge to write. However, as I can now write on my phone, most bets are off.

I also have this nifty world building app, which I put At Death’s Door into before I started writing. It has helped immensely. I barely follow the plot I wrote up, but the few times I’ve gotten stuck, I’ve been able to refer to it. The chapters are broken up, and I’ve found it much easier to dart all over. No extra pulls or anything, all the chapters linked together and at my fingertips.

If there’s mention of Hitler or random insanity that’s inappropriate, that’s because I caught the person sitting beside me reading my screen. Most of them moved pretty quickly.

Except for the one woman, who is on the bus every day with me. The next day she also sat beside me.

People are weird.

Okay, a Little Work

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Dorian would be about to kill me, if I hadn’t done work while making a roast dinner. Beth’s been teaching me for a while, mainly because I’ve seen how Dorian reacts to her food. He loves it, I was jealous.

When I told her I was jealous she told me, and I quote, “Quit your fucking bitching, any moron can learn to cook.”

She had to add an addendum, when I somehow screwed up a hard boiled egg. It exploded.

… along with about fourteen after it.

So today I made Dorian a roast dinner and he reacted almost the same way. I know him well enough to know when he’s putting on a farce. It probably didn’t hurt my chances, that I did the entire thing in a summer dress with a loose skirt and bare feet.

It’s not the barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen thing with him. A woman barefoot is somehow seductive to him—in the kitchen or not—add in a skirt and what he calls ‘flouncing’ and I had to slap the man off of me so that I could carve the roast.

I’m years away from cooking like Beth, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying.

So while I made a wonderful dinner, I also filled out my Goodreads author page, set up the Amazon Author Central page, and slapped up an author profile image.

I need a better camera. Or to get one professionally done, both will cost about the same.

 

When Your Mind Fails You 

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I’m so tired, I can barely think. It’d be a good feeling, if only I could write like I want to.

My new MC is Maggy. A green eyed, brown haired beauty with pale skin who is a little bitter. I like her style, it’s not as Snarky as Rachel and Isabella. She’s more defensive than anything, quickly trying to defend even her own thoughts.

While that might get old fast, she’s not going to be able to keep on that thread long. 

Her pairing is a little confusing, but her story revolves around Zak.

This world has existed for probably sixteen years inside my head, so the back stories of most of the characters are already written, which is awesome. 

… on the way to work, I had a startling realization that made me choke on my coffee. 

According to stories that came previous, Zak is actually the oldest son of a king and was supposed to inherit his father’s world. Except the world is very, very traditional and Zak was a lot more… silly. So like every good, honorable prince, he ran away and hid his identity from his new friends.

Possibly because once they found a new home, his daddy was the driving force behind the attacks that started happening to try and claim the land.

Every time I try for a regular guy… 

Meh, prince-in-hiding, billionaire, and sadist are much more interesting. 

Not that Zak is scheduled to take over from his father. The worlds balance one another out. His home world always has to be traditional. Suppose if the balance was offset everyone would start bickering and war mongering and generally trying to “kill it with fire” when it came to anything new and strange.

His being a prince might not even make it into the story. 

I’m not sure what the plot is here, but I know what happens so that’s what I’m going to write. And I’m going to keep writing until someone kidnaps someone else or maims them. Maybe even a little explosion.

Hell, they’re being difficult, let’s unleash some crazy villains to make an example of them.

The other books for the world centre around a couple of different things. In one, a nightmare world is discovered. Maybe I’ll have Zak eaten then. 

But for now, I’ve got these two people who are living their lives and then they intersect. Just my brain isn’t working so well in figuring out the rest.

I need sleep. And food, if my stomach rumbling is any indication.

Working and Working More

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I had Tuesday off my day job and worked sixteen hours to get Contract Taken up on Amazon. I did a preorder in case anything went amiss … it did.

Now, I could have simply pulled the book and started again but I’m worried if I tried that, it’s never go up. So yes, I’m doing a preorder on my first book. This is not usually suggested. 

But at least the book will go up.

When Dorian found out what I had done, he scolded me.

About the long work day on my day off, not the preorder. 

I was up at 9am and didn’t get to bed until 2am. I did take probably 15mins every four hours to do chores, feed myself, and feed the cats. The last hour was spent trying to find a way to use fonts in a book on Amazon.

It looks so … unfinished without them. Unpolished, like I just don’t care. I’ve seen others use them, but I just can’t seem to figure it out myself.

Using a free epub converter (I discovered this morning) does the same thing! 

When I told Dorian that he scolded me again! 

Because I told him I wasn’t going back to work until next week. I will start writing today (get between me and writing, and I’m likely to bite you. In his case, literally) but I swore I wouldn’t do anything else.

It’s a long weekend, meaning Dorian and I are both off. I get the feeling I’m going to be … er … tied up most of the weekend and at this point I’m not sure it’ll be in a naughty fashion. I’m in so much trouble, he couldn’t even bring himself to threaten to smack me.

Someone asked a valid question though, and she’s willing to do a review on the book, but can’t use Amazon. So I was just trying to do a fulfillment now rather than next week when I’m running around like a crazy person before heading on “vacation” to a wedding across the country.

I don’t know what to do about the font and formatting thing. I don’t want to have to pay someone to format for me. I should be able to do it myself, but no one wants to tell me how.

I have just over a month to figure it out.