Fall Project (non-writing) and a little bit of BWB

Since my job basically has me sitting at a desk all day–well, sitting, anyway, whether at my desk or somewhere else to write–I like a bit of hands-on work to balance things and to air out the brain. Gardening, or some renovation project around the house (and there’s always a renovation project around the house), or tinkering with something, preferably wood. Now, that the big deck planter is completed, I’m coming back to a project I’ve been wanting to tackle for years.

There’s this cabinet from probably somewhere around the turn of the last century. It’s no valuable antique by any means. My great-aunt had already used it as a paint cabinet in her (rather damp) cellar for 60+ years, and it’s sat in our carport as storage cum potting bench for another ten.

cabinet

It’s a skeleton of a cabinet. A rotting skeleton at that with ample wood borer traces. But I’d kinda like to restore it. Or rather, make it into a usable kitchen cabinet that still retains some of it’s old-world charm. It’s too far gone for a proper restoration. It needs sundry parts replaced, and probably a sturdy re-enforcement of the back wall, if I don’t want it to collapse under whatever I put on top of it.

Anyway, today I cleaned it off and brought it inside, so I can keep working on it, even when the snow starts falling outside. So, that’s where I’ll be when I’m not writing. My man thinks I’m utterly demented, but he’s too much of a gentleman to say so. He even helped me bring it inside, which, I might add, means, middle of the living room. Yeah, he rocks. Hard.

When I’m writing, I’m currently re-writing. Bluewater Bay that is. Filling in holes, straightening plotlines, ironing out character motivations. Slowly, ever so slowly, it’s starting to turn from a first draft into a manuscript. Which is good, because I need to wrap it and get it out to betas, preferably before the line edits for Santuario II come back, which could be any day, now.

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Queer Romance Month is coming

I finished, honed, and submitted my entry for the Queer Romance Month blog event:

QRM badge

It runs through the month of October and I’m tickled pink, purple, and blue to be part of it.

I was going to write something quite linguistic and academic, but I quickly got bogged down in the personal and emotional, so the result is about as far from the original plan as one can get. Hard to be objective when you’re in the thick of things.

Anyway, I hope you’ll note us on your schedule, follow us in our quest for romance unconditional, and drop your 2 cents in the discussion and comment box.

It’ll be interesting, and there’ll be prizes. Pinky swear.

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It’s out of my hands again

Hard to believe, but developmental edits are actually done, and two weeks ago the boys were relinquished into the line editor’s hands. It’s a bit like a desensitization process so release day won’t kill us authors dead on the spot, or so I imagine.

I’ve bashed my head against a suitable synopsis and blurb and all the other info that goes into the cover art request, ran it all by my most lovely dev editor last week, and the CAR for Santuario II went out on Saturday.  So, until I get the line edits back, I’m free again to do some work on the Bluewater Bay story.

Yeah. That.

I kinda stalled out on the first draft in the penultimate chapter, there. Not because I don’t know what’s going to happen, or how it ends, but because I have the uneasy feeling that underlying chara motivations changed somewhat, and that the whole build-up of that is a bit wonky. So, I’ve printed what I have so far and am doing rewrite notes early to regain a handle on things. Since the beginning of the week is supposed to be blessed with stunning weather, I’m planning extensive deck chair work. (Did I mention I love my job?)

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Rounding in …

… on the end of dev edits. Or so I hope. Haven’t heard back from my editor, who might still be on vacation (I should’ve asked when she’ll be back). So shit might still hit the fan. But I’m working on the penultimate chapter, and hope to get through by tomorrow. So far, all still on track.

Took a much needed day off yesterday in stunning weather. If you ever get a chance to hit any part of the Trans Canada Trail, whether on foot or by bike, do it.  So worth it. Glad we took lots of water, though. It was HOT. But it aired the brain out. I need that now and then.

So, diving back into chapter 18 with fresh vigour. I’m still not tired of the boys. Read: I’m not ready to let them go just yet. Glad I still have another book on the planning list for them. Don’t think these two will ever let me go completely.

 

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Mice

Sent off the edits for chapter 12 on Friday, and was looking forward to a relaxing long weekend. Then woke up Saturday morning to kitchen counters covered in mice droppings. All the kitchen counters. Disgusting.

Scrubbed one side and the stove, so we could at least make breakfast. We were meeting friends for an extended lunch/birthday thing and weren’t about to put that off to clean. We get a deer mouse or two every fall, when the weather turns cool, and it had been cool enough the week before to mimic fall. Set a trap that night, and it took less than an hour to catch a fat one. It was transported to the antipodes and told not to come back.

Now, I have an early warning system in the form of a single elbow mac, cleverly positioned between dishwasher and undersink cabinet, which is where the little buggers usually come up from the basement. The prognostic pasta had been carefully replaced Saturday night, but Sunday morning it was gone. Apparently the intruder had brought a friend.

After much cleaning of counters and everything on them during the day, we re-peanutbuttered and re-set the trap that night. We were engrossed in a movie (Snowpiercer – I recommend), when ka-clang, the second intruder got himself locked up. So, another eviction was set in motion

This time the monitory macaroni was gone before we’d even had time to scour the previous inmate’s prison cell (they’re filthy little buggers). But the seasoned mouse hunter is prepared. There was a second trap in the basement somewhere.

I was hunting for that when I found the snake droppings in the laundry room. I really don’t mind wildlife raiding the garden. But I was seriously getting fed up with the indoor zoo at this point. We’re reasonably sure it’s a garter snake, which is what we frequently see around the house. It prolly followed the mice inside, which is a good thing. That snake is working on oury side, here. But, man …

Monday morning we’d trapped the third mouse, but not before it had scouted out one of the counters, and left its little gifts there. Needless to say we’d both envisioned our long weekend to involve way less scrubbing. We’re apparently rid of the mice for now; the notable noodle was still present this morning. There might still be a garter snake in the basement, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s welcome to whatever it can catch down there.

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On schedule

You’ll be happy to hear that the muse made a brief reappearance on Thursday to grudgingly give me some inspiration on a scene involving darkness and tents. Yeah.

So far, dev edits are going smoothly (I haven’t gotten to the hairier parts yet). I’m almost through chapter 7, just have to enlarge one scene for a tad more connective tissue. If this sounds like surgery, the analogy is not that far off.

There’s, of course, the possibility that I’m living in a fool’s paradise, and that I’m so happily gambolling along simply because I haven’t heard back from my editor yet. I choose to ignore that possibility. Onward ho!

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Stages of Edits

Spent the week marking spots in the printout and writing up a storm of edit notes on the draft, and finished that Friday night. Did I mention I hate developmental edits? Yes? Once or twice? Fair enough.

The muse hates edits, too, btw. Possibly even more than me. She went on vacation somewhere and told me to call her when I’m ready to continue writing BWB. Screw her. I can at least take the weekend off. It started as a bit of procrastination, but actually, turning the brain off and playing with wood and drills and the circular saw (No, I’m not dismembering my editor, just building a deck planter.) gives me just enough creative juice back to think up solutions for some knotty problems.  There are the clear demands of the letter of edits (more of this, less of that). But there are also murkier thoughts and the uneasy weighing of the demands of the story against the demands of the market. It can feel a bit like Indy trying to make it through the Temple of Doom. 😉 I’m sure there’s another, longer blog post in that, but that one needs a bit more detachment and percolation.

So, for now, the printout sits on my desk along a pile of edit notes awaiting Monday, a long sigh, a self-motivating kick in the posterior, and buckets of coffee.

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WIP Weekend

I’ve been trying to get on board with this WIP Wednesday thingie, but blogging during the week just doesn’t seem to happen for me. So, in keeping with the alliterative meme, I’ll try to shoot for WIP Weekends. We’ll see how that goes.

Today’s WIP Weekend is brought to you by Santuario 2, which is now officially a thing. As the clock struck the witching hour, I signed away my soul the contract. (Yeah, I know, that makes it officially Monday and no longer the weekend. So, sue me.)

I’ve printed the MS for I don’t even remember the how manyeth time, and am taking it to my favourite seat by the pond with the discussed dev edit suggestions and pen in hand to get an idea where in the text to realise what changes, and start my notes. I may or may not survive this exercise.

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Bluewater Bay

This post has been a long time coming.

Remember the surprise project I mentioned back in April? The contemporary in a shared universe? I’ve been wriggling to tell you all about that.

So, when, some ten days ago, Riptide Publishing raised the curtain and officially announced the Bluewater Bay series, I erupted all over twitter and tumblr. But I just didn’t get to blog about it. The muse and real life conspired to keep me busy with other things.

Which, that muse. Seriously. She’s been bugging me about the third Bengt & Alex book (which is going to be the fourth–and so far last–Santuario book) as if there was no tomorrow. That one is not in any way scheduled yet, Muse. It doesn’t even have a plot, only a very general idea of needing to resolve a last issue from the first book and maybe bringing the series to a full circle if I can pull it off.

Anyway, Bluewater Bay. The contemp I’m currently writing is part of that series and will probably come out late next year. I’m very excited about being part of this shared universe. It’s a first for me, and I’m having a blast writing it. Remember the names Xavier and Doran. I’m occasionally posting snippets on twitter.

In other news, Santuario 2 is currently in dev edits at Riptide, and I’m expecting it back any day now, hoping any changes won’t be too substantial (Don’t we always?). For that one I’m expecting a release date late this or early next year. We’ll see.

In between those two projects I’m collecting plot points for Santuario 3. I have the MCs and the corners of a plot, but still need to connect all the dots.

You see, things are moving from and in every conceivable direction at, for me, breakneck speed, and I’m surprisingly unstressed so far. Right, we’ll see how well I’ll hold up when those edits come back.

There, you should be all caught up now about what’s going on in the Gordonverse at the moment. Feel free to poke me with any comments or questions, here, or on any of my other regular haunts. Of the latter, twitter will get you the fastest response. I’m always lagging a bit on FB and GR, and I do apologize for that. My excuse is that there’s only so much time I can take away from writing. 😉

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Stuff happened

So, I finish the rewrite of Santuario II, send the manuscript out to my betas, and start plotting the next book in the series, when, with a terrible screeching sound, a project careens in sideways and shimmies right in front of me, tempting and seductive. Did I mention, I’m weak?

So, yeah, I’m writing something completely different right now. A contemporary romance in a shared universe. More about that later.

In other news, I got all my beta edits back last week, and will be starting the last pre-sub edit pass today, submit the thing in May, and probably work on the requisite structural, line, and copy edits over some part of the summer.

Plus, write the contemp. Which has a submission deadline (My first fiction deadline ever! I’ll be hyperventilating over here in the corner.) for the end of the year. That’s an easy ride for some authors I know. For me, that’s warp speed. The muse, insensitive little witch, is, of course, dancing the Snoopy dance of delight.

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