Fortunately, I had to be out of town for the afternoon for work, so I didn’t actually MAKE any of that response.  No doubt some of the 100 odd people who popped up to comment probably made my points for me without the need for me to get involved, even though the poster himself deleted any comment he didn’t like, while making responses such as this jewel:

I don’t have the time, nor the inclination to deal with a pack of throw-away housewives [emphasis mine] who still sit around thinking about romance like a 13-year old girl. You can do that if you want to, but do it away from me. I like women, not little girls. I think you’ll find most men in the upper half of the IQ spectrum feel the same way, as do most women.

Yeah, good like finding any actual women, since you think so little of our sex.  You do a great disservice to both our gender and your own.  And given your consistent restatement of your thesis and failure to support it with a single relevant example (renaming anything that is deemed “good” from traditional literature as something other than romance–my college freshmen make better arguments than that), I can’t see that you’ve provided any evidence that you actually DO belong to the upper half of the IQ spectrum, so really, you don’t know whereof you speak.

Really, there’s no point in any of us getting involved because no amount of reason or logic is going to sway his ill-informed opinion.  There’s this widely held belief that the answer to prejudice is education.  Actually, psychologically, that doesn’t hold true (most of the time).  No amount of erudite argument pointing out his fallacies of thought is going to change his grunting Neanderthal attitudes (since it’s obvious from his entirely unflattering profile picture and the statements he makes on said profile he actually IS a Neanderthal).  However, for some truly enlightening discussion of the issue, check out this post over at Promantica (and do read the comments–they reiterated several that were made and deleted over on the original post).

So I was one of the lucky few to get ahold of an eARC of Vicki Keire’s latest novella, Worlds Burn Through.  First, the blurbage: 

Chloe Burke dreams of creatures who walk through fire and a strange boy who saves them both.

Her parents convinced her long ago that the dreams are the result of a childhood fever, but she can’t shake the feeling that some of it is real, most especially the boy.

Beneath the dreams lies a deeply buried reality: Chloe and her family are refugees from Annwyn, once a formidable techno-agrarian civilization now burned to ash. Years before, a handful of her world’s survivors escaped to present-day Earth after their world was razed by the Abandoned, powerful elemental creatures who burn through world after world in an endless cycle of consumption and destruction.

Using a combination of alien technology and indigenous elemental magic, the refugees sealed off their burning world from modern-day Earth by binding one of the Burke bloodline to the portal. To keep her safe, Chloe’s parents hide her as a normal teenager in Atlanta, with no knowledge of her true birth or purpose. But the Abandoned slowly infiltrate anyway, brutally murdering everyone who knows their ultimate goal: to reopen the portal and let more of their kind through.

Eliot Gray is a Guardian, the last member of a powerful warrior tradition, kept isolated from his adopted world by the uncle who trained him. Unknown to his blood-bound Ward except in dreams, he must convince her that not only is her life in danger, but to trust him as well. Enraged by her family’s lies and grieving over her losses, Chloe must face the truth about her origins as she becomes the Abandoned’s next target. Together they journey to Gray’s Landing, the tiny town sparsely populated by refugees from her world, in order to protect the portal hidden there.

But just across the river from Gray’s Landing is Raven’s Ward, an industrial wasteland of a town determined to expand no matter what the cost. When Alexander, troublesome heir to the vast Ravenwood fortune, returns home after getting kicked out of school, he finds that his power-hungry father has strange new business partners who are determined to make Gray’s Landing their own. Unsettled by the changes he sees in his family and home since their arrival, Alexander vows to do everything in his power to keep these bizarrely dangerous partners from growing stronger.

Can Chloe and Eliot keep their adopted world safe from annihilation, while Alexander fights the Abandoned in his own home? Will the secrets buried in the past’s deepest, darkest ashes destroy yet another world?

Now I love Vicki Keire’s work.  I fell in love with her Angel’s Edge trilogy last year and have been eagerly awaiting its conclusion (she assures me it’s coming right after The Chronicles of Nowhere finishes up, in case you were wondering), so when the chance arose to take a gander at the first novella in the Chronicles of Nowhere trilogy, I jumped and might have gone through several iterations displayed by students who want to get the teacher’s attention.

The novella did not disappoint.  Despite being short, it packs a wallop, building fast and intricate characterization and setting up a fantastic situation that manages to take a few familiar genre tropes as a foundation to orient the reader and build them into something wholly unique.  Which is to say that it hits the ground running on the first page and doesn’t stop. I like Chloe.  I like Elliot (though the spelling of his name makes me twitch…there should be another t).  And I want to know how she’s going to get them out of this hair-raising situation.

Plenty of readers might feel that this is a tease.  To that, I say, hey, volume 2 comes out next month, so you don’t have long to wait.  Volume 3 is the month after that and the whole thing will be released in totality in April.

That would be the marketing musings part of this post.  This notion of breaking the whole up into three parts (which are, in themselves, complete, despite what detractors impatient for the rest of the story might say) and releasing them back to back to back prior to the whole is intended to really play up on the changing market with ereaders.  We want stuff and we want it now, and it is an intriguing concept.  I’ll be very interested to see how this tactic plays out as a means of launching a new title/series.  Give them enough to hook them–then make them wait…just a little while (not long enough to have forgotten the story or characters), before feeding them the next installment.  It’s meatier than a serial but faster than a normal series of release dates.  My gut says that it’s a method that ought to work quite well.

Anyway, Worlds Burn Through is available:

• Amazon: US | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES
• Also: Barnes & Noble | Smashwords

And you can find Vicki down here:

• Vicki Keire’s Homepage
• Follow Vicki Keire on Twitter
• Like Vicki Keire on Facebook
• Circle Vicki Keire on Google+
• Vicki Keire on GoodReads

Things are moving right along on the writing front.  Sunday: 612.  Monday: 668.  Tuesday: 617.  Nothing outstanding, and not far above my test mile minimum of 600, but there’s been lots of distraction and a bit of fumbling through some of these scenes.

It’s odd, really.  I used to love Act 1 of books.  Back in my pantsing days, that was the clearest part, the most connected I was to the heroine.  Now…she’s crystal clear AFTER the FPP but I’m struggling through the set up and how she is BEFORE.  But today I’m up to the inciting incident.  It’s a pivotal scene, one that really begins the emotional shift, so I’m hoping to get through this and really start to hit my stride with Bree.  She’s a challenge of a character for me.  Unlike most of my heroines who start out strong and kick ass and take control, Bree has to grow into that.  Which means she’s much harder for me to relate to on the front end.

I’ve also started blueprinting a new/old project.  Something I came up with two or three years ago, jotted down the basics for, and never returned to.  It’s a YA (or more probably, New Adult) novella trilogy.  The characters started waving at me the other day.  They’ve evidently been quite busy in my subconscious while I’ve been focused on other things.

In any event, I’m pleased with this and am just going to keep chugging on along.

Lemme splain.

While on vacation in Kansas, my buddy got a couple of guest passes to her gym for me.  On the second visit, once I’d finished my weight lifting, I didn’t feel like doing the bike (what I normally do at home) because I’d done that the first day and it put my butt to sleep.  SUPER uncomfortable seat.  So I got on the treadmill.  Was just going to walk and do my interval training that way.  And then I thought, what the hell, I’ll try to jog.

I have never really been a runner, despite being the progeny of one (my dad has been doing 10ks all my life).  I mean, seriously, it has such an unreasonably low calorie burn considering the effort expended.  In high school I tried to become a runner, but I preferred swimming laps.  In college I did become a runner as part of the training program of being on the university Taekwondo team.  Running in fully lined, long sleeve, long pants windsuits in the dead of JULY in Mississippi is nothing but a recipe for heat stroke (yet my coach seemed to think it had something to do with endurance).  Even after I left the team, I kept up with the running through my Junior year.  The habit faltered when I moved abroad for several months.  I came home, got my first dog Daisy, and mostly was content to take long walks at the park.  I got back into running before my wedding to make sure and get back to the Scarlett O’Hara waist that was required for my dress.  Then I stopped again.  I tried to get back into it yet again as a project for my Behavioral Modification class in grad school.  Built up to 2 miles but as soon as class was over, I quit again because my knee just couldn’t take it and I didn’t like it.  I have an old injury from high school where I fell down a flight of stairs (see, nothing glorious like a sports related injury while kicking a winning goal) and jacked it up and it’s never been quite right since.  That was five years ago.

So Monday last, I decided to try it and see how I did.  Did my interval training and went about a mile and a half.  Maybe half a mile of that was jogged.  I was so sore by that night I was wincing, and the 12 hour car ride home the next day left me almost wanting to weep.  Yoga.  Please, dear GOD, yoga.  But my knee held up.

Saturday night I dreamed of running.  Not like running for my life in an escape kind of capacity (which, given the stuff I write about, would not be outside the realm of possibility), but the actual exercise of running.  So I woke up Sunday morning with the hare-brained idea of going jogging again.  If my knee held up to the squishy of the treadmill, I decided it was worth seeing what it would do on pavement.  I went 2.25 miles, of which I jogged about a mile.

Then this morning I got up and did it again.  At 6:15.  When it was still dark out (which was kind of nice, as there was no squinting into the sun).  That would be the part where I’m insane.  Not that I’m not usually working out at that hour during the week.  But this was jogging.  In the morning.  I hate the morning.

And yet…

It was kind of nice being out in the cool dark, nobody stirring yet, with nothing but the beat of drums and pulsing brass to drive me (I decided to make a running playlist of all the fight/chase scenes from the assorted movie scores in my collection).  I pushed myself, making little deals–just one more driveway, to the next stopsign–as I made my way around the honeycomb of residential streets in our area.  Two miles, of which I think I jogged about 1.25 miles, with less of an ice pick in my ribs this time.  (I’m being told on Facebook the key to avoiding this is to exhale more than you inhale…shall try it next time)

I don’t really know what’s come over me other than the need to shake up my routine.  My body has acclimated to almost everything in my home workout repertoire other than the weight lifting.  And I keep seeing all these inspirational running things on Pinterest. And there’s a tiny, tiny part of me that looks at my characters running for their lives and thinking it’d be nice to know if I had to I actually, you know, could.

I have no idea how long this insanity will continue.  There’s a helluva lot of difference between running at 6:15 in 32 degrees and running at 6:15 in 70+.  But for now…it seems I’m getting back into it.  Because, you know, who wouldn’t want to look like this:

Feel free to call the men in white coats.

If you get past that point and determine to learn your craft (the thing that ranks you above the average Joe who thinks writing a book must be easy and anybody can do it), then you immerse yourself in book after book telling you how to do it.  Some will resonate with the brilliance of a thousand lightbulbs in your brain.  Others will leave you scratching your head and wondering how the heck you’re supposed to apply that.  Over time, if you work at it, you begin to develop a better understanding of stakes, of pacing, of character arc, and all the myriad tiny pieces that come together to make a truly good book.  You learn what you’re doing.

But you know what?  There will still be times when you revert back to that holy crap I don’t know ANYTHING feeling.  In the dark of the Dreaded Valley of the Shadow of the Middle.  When your hero refuses to even talk to you.  When you’ve made it through the Zero Draft and realized that your heroine didn’t change a whit and you don’t know what to do about it.  When you run slap up against a road block at any point in the book and your brain is waving it’s little legs like a turtle stuck on its back (because it’s too tired to do anything else, you’ve been beating it against that wall so hard).

Then what?

Writing is hard.  Any pro will tell you that.  The whole 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration saying.  Professional writing is showing up, day after day, even when you aren’t inspired and putting words on the page.  Perseverance is what what separates the women from the girls.

But sometimes when you’re slogging through and every word is crap, when each and every sentence is won with the ease of digging a tunnel to china with a teaspoon…sometimes THEN there is a tiny voice in the back of your mind that says stop.  Wait.  Think.

No, NO, you want to protest because, dear God, if you STOP then you’ll lose all the momentum you’ve built and you’ll never get going again.  If you STOP just because the words aren’t flowing, you aren’t really anything more than an amateur hack and you have to PROVE you can hang with the Big Boys.

Then it’s time to ask yourself these questions:

1) Am I distracted and just unable to buckle down on the story because of stuff going on In Real Life?

2) Am I bored with what I’m writing?  And if yes, is that because it’s gotten hard or because what I’m writing is truly unengaging to the reader?

3) Am I going in the wrong direction (even though it’s how I outlined everything on the front end and I have hit all my plot points, damn it)?

If it’s #1, then either take some time to deal with the Real Life stuff, or, if it’s going to be an ongoing thing and you’re not going to be able to get away from it for a while, keep on slogging.  Eventually something will shake loose.

If it’s #2 (and you may need to solicit a second opinion from a trusted crit partner or beta reader to fully answer this), take some time to figure out what would make it more exciting.  What would get you eager to see what happens next?

It is #3 that is often the hardest (for me anyway) because I put so much in to the pre-planning phases of a book that I want to think I got everything right the first time.  Admitting that I didn’t is sometimes really really hard because it’s inefficient (which might as well be a 4-letter word to my busy little brain).

But after all the years I’ve devoted to learning craft, all the memorizing of the aspects of writing a book, I do actually know my shit.  I’ve internalized this stuff, whether I can adequately verbalize it or not.  So if I’m hitting that unacceptable writer’s block, it means something.  And I have to get to the point where I trust myself, trust my gut and my brain for balking, for telling me, whoa now, this isn’t the right way to go.  I’m still learning that trust, still struggling with the desire to push on through because I should.  But every time it gets a little bit easier.  Maybe some day I’ll get to where I trust my instincts well enough to climb write….er right over that wall.

Do you trust yourself?

So it’s actually with a bit of surprise that I find myself with two active projects: my YA paranormal DOTH and a Mirus novella Longest Night.  When LN popped up, I actually set DOTH aside to start it because it’s been AGES since my Mirus characters have deigned to speak to me, and it seemed wise to go with it.  I got it plotted out, even started it before I left for vacay.  Then last night I sat down to pick up the next scene.  Nothing.  Nada.  Not a word.  The two phone calls I got during my writing time didn’t help with that.

So I opened DOTH back up, read the previous scene.  And ripped out 661 words in my last 20 minutes of my writing block.  This morning I spewed out another 782.  Apparently in the downtime, my brain worked out some kinks in DOTH I wasn’t even aware I had.  No doubt that’ll slow down again, then I can switch back over to LN and work on it.  For the first time in my life, it seems that having multiple projects might actually be a good thing.  Except instead of actively trying to work on both each week, I’m just gonna go as long as I can with whatever is clicking before switching over to the other one when I get hung up.  This will also hopefully help me in my quest this year of increasing my total number of writing days.  A LOT of time has been wasted in the past, staring at the screen on a scene that wasn’t working.  So we’ll see.

What about you?  Do you juggle projects?  Keeping one on the backburner for the slow times?  Or do you abso-positively have to stick to one thing at a time?

1. Unless you are one of those writers who never abandons a project, don’t buy cover art until a book is finished or nearly so.  While having lovely cover art is often a good motivator and certainly makes for pretty desktop wallpaper that makes you grin from ear to ear, if you buy it for a project that isn’t finished, you risk the possibility of becoming disenchanted and falling out of love with a story.  Or worse, figuring out that the story just flat won’t work with the metaplot you’re creating (if you’re writing a series).  This happened to me with Riven.  It’s gorgeous cover art and yet the story’s been abandoned.  I’ve been kicking around ideas and may have come up with another story that could use the cover finally (incidentally recycling a heroine from ANOTHER abandoned story in the archives), though who knows when it’ll get written.
2. By the same token, don’t list one of your books on Goodreads for people to add until you’re finished or nearly so.  This was another lesson learned with Riven, which I ultimately had to email Goodreads to remove since the book was never going to come out.  Plus, in general, it’s good to not have it there and reviewable until the book is actually out.  One of the massive irritations of Goodreads is that if the listing is there, even if it’s months before even ARCs are available there will be trolls who review it based on nothing or who misuse the rating system instead of using a TBR shelf as intended.  Of course they’ll still do this once the book is out, but at least they should be balanced out and tempered by ACTUAL READERS.
3. Never, ever make proclamations or announcements on your website, blog, twitter, in the back matter of your published works, etc. about the release date or expected next project unless you have said project finished or in the final stages (by which I mean the draft is done and you’re doing the formatting).  This is because no matter your good intentions, you never know what will happen to change that release date or order.  Um, hello, Revelation?  The book that I expected to be the first full length Mirus novel following Blindsight?  Yeah…it’s gonna get written at some point, but I have no idea when.  There are other stories that must be told before that one.  And yet fans are reading Blindsight and they want to know what happens!  Which is totally fair.  It sucks to have to tell them I don’t know when I had announced it as the next release.  So just save yourself some headaches and don’t do it.
4. Accept the fact that even though one of the cool things about self publishing is that you can jump around and publish unrelated projects in different genres, doing so will probably slow down the momentum of building your fanbase.  I don’t regret pausing work on my Mirus stuff to write Red.  I love that book and I think it’s the best thing I’ve written.  But the people who read one are not necessarily the same people who read the other, so I have split my resources on that front and really slowed down the build I’d started with the releases of Forsaken By Shadow, Devil’s Eye, and Blindsight.  When you have limited production time and lots of wide and varied interests, this is just kind of a fact of life.  And it’s one of the reasons that in traditional publishing, they tend to prefer you stick to one genre unless you’re freakishly prolific.
5. There will be indie darlings who are hugely successful.  Studying their every move will not make you equally successful.  They are outliers.  There is no substitute for BICHOK (butt in chair, hands on keyboard) finishing your freaking book and making it the best possible book you can make it before turning around and doing it all over again with a new book.  Self publishing (or any publishing, frankly) is a long haul game and you cannot go into it expecting any kind of instant success.  You’re more likely to be hit by lightning or attacked by a grizzly bear in Central Park.  Focus on your own work and getting it finished and polished to the best of your ability, then go learn more.

I slept in this morning instead of working out.  I totally should have done yoga because I’m stiff as a freaking board and my quads feel like dry rotted rubber bands.  See, I went jogging at the gym while I was in Kansas.  For the first time in…well I only ever run on treadmills due to an old knee injury and last time I had access to one was grad school.  So…yeah, long damn time.  Good news: I did it without keeling over in a gasping, wheezing puddle.  Bad news: Muscles are SOOOOOOORE.  Twelve hours in a car did not help with that.  Which is almost enough of an insult to make me get back into running.  But no.  I can’t tolerate running on pavement with my knee (treadmills are squishy), and even if I could, it’s only cool enough to run here comfortably 3-4 months out of the year.  Maybe in the next house we’ll have room for a treadmill there. On the upside, I had 2 12 hour car rides inside a week and MY BACK DIDN’T HURT!   I was stiff but not in pain.  I am a serious believer in chiropractic now.

I’m hoping to get back to writing today.  I have planned out the next scenes for each of the two WIPS, so that’s sorted at least.  But of course it’s going to be a big catch up day at work, then at home as I reclaim my kitchen and sort out grocery needs and what not.  So…that might not happen until tomorrow.  But either way it’s good.  I feel mentally rested and pretty clear after my trip.  I’ve got a batch of spicy tomato soup started in my crock pot and I’m looking forward to getting back on the band wagon with the healthy food.  I don’t think I’ve got any interruptions to routine for a bit over a month, so should be ample time to really get back into the groove and drop the holiday weight.  Plus my new adjustable weights came in, so I’ll pull those out later and get them put together.  It’s definitely time to amp up my weights.  The batwings beware!  I’m on a warpath!

***

I’ve been reading several novels based around characters in the WITSEC program.  One of the ones I requested arrived this weekend through interlibrary loan, and I started reading through it last night.  It was a romance put out in 1984–when WITSEC was still relatively new and the public knew next to nothing.  The author took several liberties that I, at this point, know to be “against the rules” of the program (now anyway, I don’t know about then), so it’s not going to be much help on that front.  I didn’t realize its age when I requested the book.  But I’ve been reading along anyway, and thus far it seems to be more a post-trial, the heroine must move on with her new life and new identity and get over her trust issues and fall in love with the sensitive, hot lawyer who lives downstairs kind of story than a suspense of the bad guys actually finding her and posing an honest to God threat.  I’m only 8 or 9 chapters in, so I could be wrong, and I’ll keep reading.  But the heroine annoys me.  She’s not in the too stupid to live (TSTL) category–so it’s not that.  I suppose what I’m finding annoying about her is that she has this vulnerable-hero-please-save-me kind of feel.  She compels the hero to be all soft and gentle with her.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  And maybe if she were in imminent danger and the hero rushed in and saves her or something, I might feel differently.  But I find that this is not the sort of heroine who pulls me.

I like strong women.

This is probably because I am a strong woman.  I like to see women who are in charge of their lives, their situations.  Women who take charge, take responsibility, and don’t necessarily wait on the hero to rescue them (I am delighted with the end of Ever After–need I say more?)  Mostly, this is the kind of heroine I write.  Kensie, my heroine in House of Cards, has had all sorts of adversity, but she’s still strong enough to do the job, live her life and not let it stop her.  Actually the thing she has to learn is that it’s okay to lean on someone else, which is a whole other thing I won’t get into here.  Marin, my heroine in Til Death, is a well-adjusted woman who isn’t afraid to take risks.  She doesn’t have a tragic past or even a tragic present (it’s very much a story where external forces drive the conflict in the beginning).  When strange stuff (otherworldly and more corporeal) begins to happen around Blackbourne Hall (the antebellum home she’s turning into a B and B), she does what has to be done and falls apart later.  And Rowan, my current heroine in Without A Past, had the guts to do the right thing, take the incriminating evidence against her employer to the feds and testify (well she will be testifying–that happens toward the end)–entering the witness protection program and starting a new life after her family is gunned down in an effort to intimidate her to silence–clearly a strong woman.  And though the hero (Mitch) feels compelled to be gentle with her, it’s not in the condescending manner I sort of feel from the hero in the book I’m reading.  I don’t think he’s deliberately trying to be condescending.  I think all of this gentleness to her fragility was probably a hallmark of romance in the early to mid-80s–but it’s not something with which I identify.  I suppose I’m most like Marin of all my heroines–a do what needs to be done and fall apart later kind of gal.  If something needs doing, I do it, whether I want to or not.  I try not to use things as crutches or excuses.  And, if I’m honest, I’m a control freak, so that lends quite a bit of support to my high level of independence and personal strength.  I don’t like depending on other people.  And oh, hey, there’s a bit of Kensie in me after all.

Yet I also particularly like stories of women who haven’t been and grow to find their own strength over the course of the story.  Lily in Nora Roberts’ Montana Sky (which I’ve been listening to in audio form at work while I do data entry this week) comes to mind.  Also, Brianna Concannon from Born In Ice.  Yeah, I know, I really need to work on expanding my horizons beyond Nora–and I honestly DO read more widely, but her characters tend to stick with me!  So despite my misgivings, I will keep reading this book in hopes that this heroine I’m reading will turn out to be one of the latter group.

What about the rest of you?  What sort of heroine do you like?