Tag: romance

Dear ‘Zon… Just no.

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I spent fifteen hours yesterday working over Contract Taken until the editing was done. Only to realize the whole thing was corrupted and I had to basically start over. Then I got it all nicely done up and found out that Amazon strips basically all the formatting out.

I know it’s not because your Kindles are incapable of displaying fonts. I’m looking right at them on my kindle, to which I placed a .pdf. It looks fantastic. It looks like I spend hours working on it (let’s face it, I spent almost a year on this).

So I’m a little peeved. Just a little. Okay, maybe I threatened to light my office on fire, but I was at the end of a sixteen hour work day and it was two in the morning. My Google-fu was also failing me.

I know others have used fonts in their kindle books. Beth was all, “of course it works!” so I grabbed her first book and now she’s also threatening to light her office on fire.

So it is up for pre-order with no inside visible because I desperately want to sort out the fonts before I do that. When it comes time, every other retailer will have the awesome copy and Amazon will have the one that looks like it’s a text book on boring topics.

 

Prototype

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

The following is an excerpt of a world being labelled Prototype. The story’s tags would be: m/f, romance. The genre is sort of caught between sci-fi/fantasy.

This world, if explored would be open to all genders and sexualities. Which is why I kind of want to play with it. Other stories ‘suggested’ by the muses would follow this one in timeline and involve: m/f, m/m, m/m/f, m/m/m, D/s. The only thing they haven’t tossed at me yet is a f/f but just mentioning it, they’ll probably conjure six of those to explore as well.

Continue reading “Prototype” →

Updates

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

My goal over the weekend was to write approximately thirty thousand words, I only made twenty-five thousand. I’m sure that if I wanted to do a dump and run type of publishing, I should be scolding myself, but I made twenty-five thousand words over the course of two days.

Technically over the course of about eight hours.

Saturday I wrote for two hours, then spent six hours running errands an the like. By the time I got back I all but crashed. Later in the evening I did get out another chapter. On Sunday, I wrote for an hour or so and then somehow got distracted.

About eight hours later I had a mailing list set up, though I can’t seem to link it through my blog like I’m supposed to be able to do easily. I haven’t returned to that to play with again, because I’m trying to get as much writing done while I can.

On my commutes I’ve been reading Contract Broken. There seems to be less errors in the book, though the ones that are there are pretty glaring. I don’t know if it’s because I did better at editing, or I’m doing worse at editing this time around.

Last night I contacted my cover designer, haven’t heard back yet. Contract Taken may be ready to go.

The rest of last night, I just crashed. That’s all. Crashed. On the couch, with two cats sleeping on me.

Dorian came over after a social event he had to attend for work. We were supposed to have some fun, but he found me sprawled on my couch, passed out as my streaming services played. He tucked me into bed and I slept until Grover decided to stand on my chest and lick my nose as he drooled.

Apparently I “overslept” and he was hungry.

I tried writing a bit more it hasn’t quite worked. So tired…

Dorian has suggested a day off. I think he’s crazy. I’ve been back at work less than two weeks and had a day off just last week. Pfft, over worked? How is that possible?

As I’m trying to edit Contract Broken, Nathaniel has been talking very loudly, he does that every time I try to touch the book. Probably because he’s barely in it. I now have a basic outline for the way the book goes.

Except he keeps popping in with random scenes he did with his Master and I squeak, hurt myself, or full on stumble in real life.

If the book Nathaniel was dictating didn’t centre around his getting beaten up and forced to submit, I’d alter it just to screw with him for his annoying behaviour. There’s little I could do to him that his Master hasn’t, however.

Shut up and do What I Told you to do!

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Gah!

Stupid with the stupid and the stupid!

I’ve spent a better part of the morning trying to set up MailChimp. Okay, so the setting up was easy (but do you have to give my address? Really? Ugh) but the trouble is that I can’t get it on WordPress and had difficulty getting it on Facebook. Let alone setting up emails.

See, for some bloody reason it’s no longer about adding html. WordPress has a text widget which is supposed to let you put html onto the widget to create whatever. At least, that’s the way it sounds.

But that’s not the case.

No, that little “add html” widget has never worked for me. I have a brain, I have basic, minor control over html.

Oh, and I literally copy and paste. Copy and paste from there to here.

Beth has her Goodreads Author page linked to her blog. Apparently that’s no longer an option? Because try as we might, we can’t get it to work on mine (set up two years later, give or take a bit).

Don’t even get me started on this other thing I was actually trying to get to work today, which was a way to sell little stories through my blog or website or both. It comes highly recommended, so I figured I’d give it a go. It said to sign up, then download. I do and then nothing happens.

So I look up how to and it takes me to a blank page that… tells me to register and then download.

So frustrating.

And Rachel? My new MC? Stopped working. Why, you might ask, why would a character go off the rails and stop responding?

Because there’s no chance of interacting with Morgan, her male counterpart.

Whining, bratty, stupid, insignificant little…

Sometimes characters go off script. Actually, they go off script all the time with me, but at least they stay within the bounds of the boxes I set up. Rachel is basically sitting in a clothing rack (you know those circular ones?) hiding from the other two she is with because she wants Morgan but isn’t going to tell them she wants him so the chapter isn’t moving because I can’t get her out of the stupid clothing rack!

Because in the chapter, the clothing rack isn’t even mentioned. She’s not supposed to be there, this isn’t supposed to be happening. What is supposed to be happening is stuck in place thanks to her hiding in the damned clothing.

Somehow, I have got to get out of this funk. I need to get moving so that I can finish this chapter and then do the descriptions, then write the next chapter. Etc and on down the line.

Writing, My Dear Friend

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I’ve missed writing, I really have. Beth warned me that editing was time consuming and I didn’t doubt her. The return to writing is like great sex. 

Due to the throat infection, I have been very slow. Yesterday I actually slept until two in the afternoon, and was exhausted by my usual bedtime. Today my throat doesn’t hurt as much. I don’t sniffle as much.

My legs ache something terrible though. I walked with Beth for over an hour Monday night. We met up at a store and she walked me home before heading for her own. Beth doesn’t exactly set a slow pace, and thanks to a bum leg won’t walk at anyone else’s pace.

Not that I blame her. She simply can’t walk faster and if she walks slower she ends up limping for days. I’m fairly used to her pace, but not with packing around items as I’m going her pace.

She makes me feel like a lazy bum sometimes.

After getting up yesterday, I kind of used my sore legs as an excuse not to do much. I sat picking away at chapter two of D.o.t.A while watching television.

Today I almost did chapter three. The latter two pages were lifted straight from the original, so tomorrow morning I need to work them over while I drink my morning coffee. 

The chapters are longer this time around. Rachel tells a bunch, but I swear it’s all bitter and sarcastic. 

“Well, I wouldn’t be in this position if the Dom hadn’t killed my father. An act that was illegal until twelve years before.” 

I think that ‘ending’ for Morgan’s story wasn’t the end, I think it was the beginning which could be interesting. 

We’ll see. As I write Rachel’s story, Morgan’s will come to me.

Maybe it’s the Fever

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

But the end of Morgan’s story has come to me. It’s dark, sure, but it still amuses me to no end.

Of course I don’t have paper to jot things down because I only reminded myself sixteen times to bring a notebook with me.

And I’m going to be pretty near to late for work. Civic holiday but the only thing actually effected by it is the bus schedule.

… then it’s really not a civic holiday, now is it? 

I completely phased on it being a holiday, my fault for not realizing. Though, I’d like to blame what kind of feels like a fever. 

I don’t like being almost on time, it makes me anxious. What if the bus breaks down?

The one plus side of riding late is I did catch a bus with a man wearing a three piece, tailored suit. Just a little scruffy. Morgan’s a little scruffy almost constantly. He just doesn’t care. All the other Alphas are going around in suits and ties with their estates and sports cars.

Then there’s Morgan. “I only own a sports car because my father left it to me in his will and I can’t afford another. Da also says that if I sell or break it, he’ll break me.” 

Most of what Morgan does do is because his ‘Da’ (afford Alpha who is older and had a hand in raising him, who he is a dependant of) had an image to maintain. 

About four times in the original draft, Morgan motions between him and Rachel and says, “very different worlds.” 

As in, they grew up with vastly different expectations. Even the differences between Morgan’s upbringing and that of the Alphas Rachel knows are two separate worlds. 

One is an example of basically everything you’d fear would come from people like this. The other is what they were really meant to be. The first only even exists because the dust is still settling, everyone is still finding their places and young Alphas like Morgan, coming into their own, are not certain which traditions they should and should not question.

Or, perhaps they haven’t challenged the bad Alphas because they haven’t been given a reason to yet.

Prep Work

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Me: I need, like, a book to keep this all in.

Beth: So, you need something like a bible?

Me: Yeah, I need a world bible. Look at all this paperwork I have.

Beth: For two books, you have three sheets of paper. Oh, honey.

Me: Don’t ‘oh, honey’ me, like I’m being cute or something!

Dorian: *drops a book into my lap* That one is Beth’s bible for a world she dabbled in one time.

Beth: my favourite world has three books and multitudes of sheets for every time I jotted down random information. That doesn’t even include maps, since the face of the world changes so much.

Me: You mean, this is a thing?

Beth: Yes, it’s a thing. Dorian said you’re planning a masquerade, I’m guessing that’s for a book, since I didn’t receive an invitation?

Dorian and I went to Beth’s to help her set up her desk  While there I continued doing some work, filling out some odds and ends that I might never use in the story itself, but will probably mention at some point. Kind of need that information available, rather than searching for it in the middle of a scene and forgetting where I was, let alone where to find the information.

I can start writing around 2PM today. Why such an odd time? I don’t know, ask Dorian. That’s also about the time that my office gets finished, so that could have something to do with it.

He has promised me alcohol. Something I’ve not had in several weeks and have been craving all this week. Vacation and birthday are drink occasions.

Except when you get real depressed around your birthday and the last time you drank on the day, you ended up bawling your eyes out and drunk dialling your ex while sitting beside your current boyfriend.

Thankfully I had warned Dorian ahead of time, though he didn’t believe me until he had to take the phone from me and put me in bed.

All last night I was planning a masquerade. I’m getting pretty close to done, which is fantastic. The colour theme is white and gold, with trimmings of silver. I was going to go perverted with the servers, but I’ve decided to dress them all in white with Moretta masks.

A string quartet, canapes for food. White and red wine to drink, though the Alphas won’t necessarily be participating in the wine. There will be drugs and other alcohols available because it is an excess, kind of party thing going on. There’ll also be an after party which will probably degrade into an orgy.

Alphas are very sexualized beings. The way they claim things is to come on them, especially people. Beats urination, and apparently there’s this belief that if it stays still long enough for you to come on it, it must have submitted to your will.

Which gets really… tricky… when the females are born because they can’t exactly claim things like that.

I’ve now got the male and female pronouns written up, and the designations for last names. The Alphas take on a bit of a tradition that I heard the Welsh (maybe?) once used, altered of course. Where their ‘last name’ is their father’s (or mothers in the case of female alphas giving birth) with the designations Ap/Ep, Ad/Ed, Ab/Eb, Ag/Eg depending on their status.

Their companions also have the Ip, Id, Ig, Ib pronouns, but are attached to their alphas. There are even special titles for random alphas, though the only one that’s really still in use widely is ‘Da’ which is an alpha’s way of bowing to a stronger alpha and insinuating the alpha is his father, but not necessarily so. Not using the term is an invitation to a challenge.

And if challenged, one who is supposed to be given the title of Da will… you guessed it, come on the offender.

Fathers and sons never have this problem. If the son stops using Da, the father will put him in his place, but if the son wins typically the father is killed in the process. Sons were once forced out of the home and only returned to claim the territory after their fathers died but in modern times it was altered.

The research going into D.o.t.A is a lot different than what went into Contracted.

For Contracted, I did research some BDSM. Sure I participate, but I’m not an expert and wouldn’t claim that the story is perfectly researched, but I like how it’s turned out. For D.o.t.A. the research has mainly been for masquerade balls. The rest has been set up because this is a whole new world.

It might count as urban fantasy, considering it is in a similar world to ours but different all the same. Contracted was the same world, just about two hundred years in the future. So I could literally write using whatever bits I wanted to and any flaws in the law system, etc, could just be because it’s a new era.

Though, D.o.t.A. is a new era as well.

I ramble about my worlds sometimes. Especially when I can’t write them right at that moment.

When Left Alone

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Dorian had to go out last night to meet up with a friend who was having some troubles. His only comment on leaving me was that I wasn’t allowed to actually write.

I was tempted, I’ll admit—how would he ever know?—but instead ended up researching masquerade balls and as much attachment to that as I could. I now have two pages of notes for D.o.t.A. ranging from mask style choices, to plot notes. I now have a little more of a plan for the later half of the book.

Last night as I was falling asleep, Rachel came to me in the opening scene. I wouldn’t call her the most patient person in the world, she wants to get started now, not tomorrow. I still have to work out a few character bits with her and Morgan.

Rachel is basically an orphan in the opening scene. The plan at the moment is to have her father, the man who raised her, be the brother of the husband of the Master of the area. Yeah, confusing way to label it, but still. She’s not his biological daughter, because she and her sister were born of rape during a time of war between the government and the Alphas. Not “full” rape, but that’s what it’s called because the government impregnated thousands of women against their wills with various Alpha and common genetic material.

The Alpha of her area has taken her mother and older sister, breeding the older sister and breaking them both. He knows there’s something different about the family. For starters, her sister keeps trying to kill him when a broken companion isn’t supposed to be capable of that. The only way to control the one is to threaten the other, but never Rachel. Any mention of Rachel and both mother and sister just shut down and shut him out.

In the nights he hears them whispering to one another, “Rachel’s special, she needs to be whole.”

Now the Alpha is curious, he needs to know what Rachel is like. If her sister and mother bring him such…pleasure, what might the special Rachel bring? He’s trying to force Rachel to bow and do the same so he gets her on stupid charges and registers her as being property, because the laws allow that.

In walks Morgan, a young Alpha with no purpose in life who has never fully served or led in the Alpha world. By his age, he should have done one or the other. He’s the last of the War Brats, a group of child soldiers the Alphas trained and then released on the government forces.

He’s been to the territory before, so it’s possible he saw Rachel and just didn’t quite register her. Or he saw her sister and when the list of names popped up he had a sudden, unexplainable urge to go see what was going on. Morgan’s not just there for giggles, but because Alphas sometimes process information differently than common people and end up doing things that appear coincidental from the outside, but really aren’t.

Morgan’s father is dead, his er… step-father is driven by a need to claim the young Alpha who looks so much like his dead husband, he owes a blood debt to Abraham, is being challenged for Gerrid.

And to top it all off the only living female Alphas in three hundred years have decided to adopt Rachel as their sister. The females used to beat him up all the time because they liked him, but if he crosses a line over someone they’ve decided they like more than him, he won’t survive.

Is it Saturday night yet? Dorian said I could start writing Saturday night.

Commitment 

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Somehow on the drive down Dorian talked Mary’s friend into spending his last day with us. Mary included, of course. He also talked the friend into letting him pay for everything. Something about us being good hosts and us being such good friends.

The universe brought us together, and all that jazz.

Dorian is used to being in control and is a great deal better at keeping control. Yes, he can be manipulative when it comes to people he doesn’t care about. Which I suppose makes him a bit selfish.

We went to breakfast upon arrival and began exploring a bit. Mary declined to do anything scary, which is really most of the attractions.

Which probably had something to do with her friend teasing and then offering to hold her hand to get her through. 

Offering to protect her from the big scary world.

Mary’s not a damsel in distress, at least not usually. From what I’ve learned she was a D.i.D who got pissed off that her white knight wasn’t showing up, so she suited herself up. Her friend offering to save her constantly is a wound to her pride. He’s behaving as if a woman can’t function without a man.

Not a great thing to say to an ex-D.i.D. If he wanted to save her, he should have done so years ago, when they first met and she needed the help. Not now that she’s on her feet because of her hard work, heartbreak, and scars. 

I frigging love Mary. 

She’s physically taken on men three times her size (though she is a tiny woman) in order to protect those in her life. She moved to a new country by herself for opportunity and because she knew she needed to shed everything else if she wanted to survive. 

A woman like that, you don’t offer to save. You might offer to carry her burden for a while, but never save. She doesn’t need saving or a shoulder to cry on. 

I’m playing with character ideas, can you tell? Rachel is supposed to be an ex-D.i.D. This trip could work in my favor. 

Anyhow. 

After breakfast we did explore, as I had said before. When we got down to the Falls, Dorian quietly excused us and said we’d catch up to them. It’s not the first time he’s done that. Public play, out of sight but with the possibility of getting caught is definitely a turn on for him.

He took me off to the side. Some garden thing. This was my first time to the Falls so I don’t know the name. But there was a nice covered walk and in the back corner was a little pond that almost felt natural, almost like we were alone in the woods.

And he got down on his knee. 

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

“Three years we’ve been dating on and off, I think it’s about time, don’t you?”

We haven’t had a fight in over a month. I got a little suspicious when he offered to spend the whole week with me, but I never thought he’d be that stupid. 

“Fuck you, Dorian. We’re not even-”

And he produced a ring that I knew. 

I knew it because he had once bought me a candle and the ring had been in the candle. One of those new popular candles with mainly fake jewelry in it. That ring had been too big for me on any of my fingers, but I had liked the colour.

“Go steady with me.”

“You bastard.” 

“I had you going though, didn’t I?”

No more breakups and makeups. We’ll be official as could be. He won’t just be my Sir, but my actual boyfriend.

Hey, in this day and age, who says you can’t have great sex and get spanked by someone for three years before you go steady? 

He’ll meet my family, I’ll meet his. And we’ll see where this goes. 

The ring had been resized. It now fits on my right middle finger. It may not be worth much, but it means the world to me.

Because it’s from Dorian.