Book Not Working? I Never Give up!

You're talking to a woman who taught someone to perform the Heimlich Maneuver on me AS I was literally dying from complete lack of oxygen and passing out. I. Do. Not. Give. Up. If this was the Middle Ages, that would be my family motto.

Now granted having a book plot not working out for me is a bit less dire than nearly dying.

I might set the subject book aside for a while and work on something else that my Muse was more seduced by or interested in....there's no telling how long I might wait to go back to said nonworking book...

There is in fact such a book (in a box and on a disc, not in a trunk under the bed LOL. The only things under my bed besides dust bunnies are cat toys that I refuse to retrieve for Jake, who finds it amusing to drop them between the headboard and the frame but we digress....) This epic tome is a paranormal fantasy, set on another world. It's known to me as "Kyle and Caitlyn." My freelance editors have said they'll never look at this book again. Let's go back in time....

So in 2010 I got fired up that now was the time to work seriously toward being published. I was inspired by the books of Cynthia Eden and Nalini Singh, as well as Andre Norton's Witch World, and had this idea for a PNR novel. I wrote it in a hot burst of wild creativity where the flow takes you and time stops. I thought it was THE best thing I'd ever written, I had sequels lined up in my head (still do). My beta reader, who was a published author, asked me if I was serious about being published. I said yes. She ripped it to SHREDS, people. (But I needed that. No worries.)  For about a week, in shock, I said this was it, I was never writing again. I had ALL the problems - too much telling, not enough showing. Lack of stage business for my people to do while talking. A heroine who had no agency. Some dubious consent issues. Omniscient POV. Head hopping. Use of dialog tags other than "said"....well, the list goes on, all the classic  newbie stuff.

Then I got stubborn (see the Family motto) and buckled down to start learning all these skillz I needed.  Carina put out a call for Ancient World romances and I wrote Priestess of the Nile with my newly acquired craft. Happy ending: that book got published in January 2012. I've got a total of 9 books, one novella, one short story, and 5 audiobooks released, the tenth novel is all written and the 11th one is 20K into the first draft. But I STILL keep wandering back to good old Kyle and Caitlyn in my mind.

I did do a massive rewrite on the manuscript, last year, I think, or maybe in 2014, and tried to address all the concerns the beta reader and editor had brought up originally. I applied my new toolbox of author craft and learning....massive comments back from the freelance editor and as I mentioned, the statement they never wanted to see it again. (This is my regular editor, by the way, so they're usually very cool with my books.)

SOME DAY I will bring this book and these characters I love up to the line and it will get released.  But to do that I'm going to have basically start over from the first word, let go of some of my favorite parts of the novel, probably change all the names....but Kyle and Caitlyn and my Muse know I will find the magic that brings their world alive in the same way I write ancient Egypt and the far future in my other two series.

And then we will celebrate!

One Character Is Not Like the Other Character Because...

Since I like to write the same general type of adventure stories whether I’m doing science fiction romance or ancient Egyptian paranormal romance, I do have to pay attention to making the hero and heroine in each book different from the others I've written. Not all real life Special Forces soldiers are carbon copies of each other, any more than every businesswoman has the same outlook and knowledge…which holds true for ancient temple priestesses as well!

I spend quite a bit of time thinking about the character, in terms of their life experiences previous to the moments in time captured in my book. Why are they the person they’ve come to be, and how does that life experience shape the way they’re going to handle what gets thrown at them in the course of the book? I don’t make notes or keep spreadsheets (because that’s not me, folks) but I know enough in my head to write the person’s journey.

For example, in Priestess of the Nile, Merys the heroine is a bit naïve, does her best to keep some semblance of worship going at an abandoned temple.  It’s her connection to her late mother, and the one thing her unpleasant stepmother can’t take away. So her choices and the risks she takes stem from that situation. The love of Sobek the Crocodile God (in his human form) is everything to her.

 In the sequel, Magic of the Nile, her younger halfsister Tyema is now the high priestess of a full-blown temple, running all the associated businesses as well as the ceremonies.  Tyema was a victim of an

enemy attack on her village when she was young. When I first started working on the book I felt it would be unrealistic for her to have reached adulthood with no aftereffects from the terrible ordeal,  even though she grew up to take over the temple and runs its complex business affairs at the god’s direct command.  She’s structured her life to be in control at all times, as much as possible, to avoid triggering or even revealing the symptoms of her malady. The coping plan works for her until Sahure, a handsome, noble warrior, is sent by Pharaoh on assignment to her remote province. Complications for Tyema – good and bad – spiral from there.

Although Tyema’s anxiety is only one aspect of the book’s plot, the condition and the lengths she goes to cope drive some of the decisions.  The ancient Egyptians wouldn’t have understood an anxiety attack the way we do today, and they certainly had no idea how to effectively deal with it. “Cures” tended to be heavily based in magic and some fundamentally misguided theories of female anatomy.  Even Sobek, who takes care of the Nile and is a force of nature, doesn’t understand the struggles of his priestess. “She knows I watch over her - why isn’t that enough?”  the god asks in the novel.

Tyema isn’t magically cured by the end of the novel because that’s not realistic in any world, but she and Sahure have a better understanding of what she’s dealing with, and what she’s capable of.

I wish I had time today to talk about the research and thinking I did to arrive at the human version of the Crocodile God (what motivates him, what would attract him to a human woman, what’s he afraid of…) but alas, this week’s topic is done….so there you have my somewhat organix "think it out"  approach to developing and differentiating my characters.

April is National Anxiety Month, which is partly why I’ve focused on the issue today. I'm one of the 40 million people who have anxiety issues, mine triggered by a bad car crash years ago. My priestess heroine had few choices 3500 years ago, but nowadays there are things to be done if anxiety becomes a problem in conducting daily life.  For more information on anxiety, I encourage you to check out the National Institutes of Health “AnxietyDisorders” page. Don’t hesitate to seek help if you’re having issues that could be anxiety-related. Talking to your family physician is a great place to start!

I Love Research From Chariots to Crocodiles

...but I can get lost in it sometimes! I do the most in depth research for my paranormal novels set in ancient Egypt. It's not that I don't research some specific things for the science fiction, but the Egypt of thousands of years calls to me. I maintain a large library of actual books, most of which I list on the my blog under the topic of overall historical accuracy. At some point I realized I probably owned a lot of the books I’d need if I was pursuing a degree in Egyptology (but facing no tests).

So how do I pursue this research? I don’t write strictly historical novels because I wanted to have the Egyptian gods and goddesses take direct action in the events. Right away this takes me outside the boundaries of what’s acceptable for historically accurate. I don’t want my novels to be “wallpaper historicals” either though, where I just toss in a few cool looking Egyptian words and make reference to the pyramids, pat the Sphinx on the head and I’m done. I want the Reader to be in ancient Egypt, even if it’s my paranormal version. There are some plot conveniences I want, like talking about actual coins (which the actual deben system was not). I do some deliberate anachronisms to serve my stories.

Let’s take my latest novel MAGIC OF THE NILE. Since it’s a sequel to PRIESTESS OF THE NILE, I’d already done the research into the Crocodile God Sobek, hero of the first book and major player in the second. But for the new book, since we spend time at the temple my heroine Tyema runs, I researched how Sobek’s temples were organized 4000 years ago, a lot more details about crocodiles, how processions were conducted, which deities were important in the capital city of Thebes, the hierarchy of an Egyptian temple’s priesthood, what Pharaoh would wear for different activities, what foods would be served on a big feast day…

I needed my hero Sahure to be dashing, so he’s a charioteer, which was about as dashing as you could get in 1500 BCE. That led to research on chariots, including a wonderful NOVA special, called “Building Pharaoh’s Chariot.” (Available on dvd.) Watching a team of British researchers attempt to reconstruct the chariot of ancient times, with the help of Egyptian craftsmen, basically by studying tomb paintings and the few actual surviving chariots, was amazing.  But where does Sahure need to drive in his gleaming, horse-drawn vehicle?

Turns out there was a chain of fortifications along various Egyptian borders, including at the Southern Oasis of Kharga, located on a major caravan route. I’d already researched caravans pretty heavily for a sequence in DANCER OF THE NILE. That’s one nice thing about writing a series – I can build on the tidbits I’ve learned before.  Also, research suggests plot points and vice versa. Since I’m a seat-of-the-pants writer, this approach works for me! Now I know all about Kharga, including the topography and weather.

At one point, Sahure needs to tell Tyema about a battle he’s fought in beside Pharaoh. I drew a suitable tale to adapt from translations of  4000 year old eyewitness accounts of actual warfare and gave my character the right ‘memories’ to share with the heroine. I also needed to be able to talk about his weapons and tactics. Back to researching bows and arrows of the time…

Were the native people of the Southern Oasis descended from the goddess Sekhmet? They apparently thought so, which sent me off to ponder all the cool facets of her powers and background.  In many cases there are alternate versions of the myths surrounding an Egyptian deity so I’m free to choose the aspects that work for my story and to extrapolate other ideas for my plot.  

A lot of the research I do never shows up directly in the novels, so if by now you’ve been thinking that my books must be pretty dry, dusty tomes, possibly akin to the textbooks, let me reassure you. I have to be able to put myself in the headspace of ancient Egypt, so I can create characters who are believable residents of that time and place, even while they’re having these amazing adventures. I don’t have to show off all my research (except maybe in blog posts LOL). If it doesn’t serve the plot, it doesn’t go in the book, but the knowledge might influence the story’s direction.

It’s trickier than you might think though and I know I don’t always succeed. Let me give you an example from the first draft of DANCER OF THE NILE: “The chariot bounced over iron hard ruts…” The problem? The Egyptians didn’t have iron at this point in time! So I changed it to “bronze hard”…but to a modern reader that’s an unfamiliar phrase and it took me completely out of the flow when I read it. Eventually the line became: “The chariot jounced over deep, hard ruts…” 

So there's my example of how researching one thing takes me to the next and so on and so forth...

And below the art is the NOVA special on chariots:

>

Writing the Books Is The Best Promotion

First of all, thanks to Carolyn Crane for stepping in and posting last Saturday when I was ensconced in a hospital bed! (If you want to know what happened, I've written about it over on my own blog but I'm recovering nicely and I appreciate all the good wishes.)

When I got The Call from Angela James of Carina Press in the summer of 2010, I had no online presence. None. Looking back, that's hard to imagine LOL, say I with 65,000 tweets under my belt now and countless blog posts here, there and everywhere...They were buying Priestess of the Nile and I immediately realized I'd better get myself on the internet in some form and start connecting with the greater world of readers.

I had been writing a behind-the-firewall weekly blog on process improvement issues at the day job for several years so I wasn't a complete newbie. With some help from my daughter, I set up my Wordpress blog, got onto Facebook and explored Twitter. Turns out I loooove tweeting.

When I first went to have my author photo done, the wonderful Dick Wieand asked me what I wanted to convey with the picture. I said I wanted to look as if I was sitting with the reader at their kitchen table, sharing a good story over a cup of tea. That's how I feel about "doing promo" too - I like being online, talking to people, sharing interesting content that I've found on various cool websites, or that other people have curated. Of course sometimes I tweet or post about my own books but the vast majority of the time (I hope!), I'm just engaged in conversation with the online world and if people enjoy what I share, or enjoy my "voice",  then hopefully they'll decide to sample one of my novels along the way. It's all fun to me!

I also indulge myself occasionally in certain promo that just appeals to me. I have book trailers (love that, like mini movies). I've had one of my covers in a group ad buy in a national magazine that regularly features Kim Kardashian on the cover - which thrilled the grocery store checkers and my relatives when I showed them my group's ad but probably did nothing for my actual sales. (The cover was one of nine in postage stamp size, no blurb or anything but I loved being in a mass media magazine just once LOL.) I've had ads in other, more relevant-to-my-books places and I believe those might have resulted in some sales.

Probably the best tangible promo I did was to have genuine Egyptian papyrus bookmarks at RWA, featuring reproductions done in Egypt of gorgeous tomb paintings. I slipped my business card inside the protective covering, put them in a basket in the goody room and they disappeared nicely. Did that lead to sales? Who knows? I liked giving them away and hopefully people enjoyed the novelty.

I don't mean to sound cavalier about promo but I don't analyze much. I'm not someone (obviously) who tracks the ups and downs of my book sales (which is what I would have said if I'd been in a position to post last weekend) but I do care how well the books do overall. I'm chasing that dream of being a fulltime author and sharing my stories is important to me. What it all boils down to, I believe, is writing the next book and the next book and the book after that, and ensuring that each book tells a good story, is professionally edited and professionally formatted. If readers are enjoying them, the sales will happen.

Thanks again for all the good wishes on my health scare last week! Really helped!

So do I Write Series or Not?

(I have this deja vu feeling I've discussed the topic in this space but it's this week's subject so here goes!)

First let me share my pretty new science fiction romance cover with you, just revealed! (Cover by Fiona Jayde.)The book is going to be out August 18th. It's the third in my loosely connected "Sectors" series, which is a series by virtue of occurring in the same Universe. Along with Wreck of the Nebula Dream and Escape From Zulaire, this new book is set in the galactic space known as the Sectors and features a hero who is a member of the Special Forces. The three heroes don't know each other (or if they do, it's never mentioned, even to me, the Author LOL). Two of the heroines happen to work for the same company, Loxton Galactic Trading, so they may know each other but I've never addressed that question.

I definitely plan to write more stories set in this Universe and have several sketched out. I might write a sequel to one or more of the existing books. We'll have to see. As with everything else, I'm a seat of the pants planner.

My ancient Egyptian paranormal novels are even more connected, being set in the same time frame, 1550BCE, with the Pharaoh Nat-re-Ahkte as the central point. A number of the characters know each other, having served with this fictional ruler as he fought to take the throne and then to defeat the Hyksos invaders. (The Hyksos were real, by the way.) I've written one sequel (Magic of the Nile is a direct sequel to Priestess of the Nile) and have another in mind. I also have some ideas for an actual series, following one set of characters through three books' worth of adventure and plots.

So, you may be saying by now, if I write a series, it's kind of going to be happenstance? Well, yes and no. I tend to think in terms of one book at a time and I realize to have a successful series I really need to sit down and figure out an arc, and the events for each book and the character growth. On the other hand, if I do too much advance thinking, I never write the book because my Muse grows bored with it.

Sort of funny, the first book I ever wrote, at age 7, was a fairy tale starring a princess and herds of flying horses and handsome princes (the hero owned a riverboat for some reason) and many MANY sisters. So I was clearly creating hooks for the inevitable sequels...which I never wrote. I think doing the illustrations wore me out!

In junior high, when I got more serious about writing, I did a science fiction series with about eleven volumes but I vaguely remember not planning ahead. I did use the same characters and they evolved (well, as much as my teen age Muse could envision) but each new adventure came to me separately. No big arc.

In senior high school I wrote another SF series and I did plan the three volume arc...

(Insert years of college, career, children, widowhood, single motherhood, grandchild HERE)

But when I jumped back into writing seriously in late 2010, it was one book at a time. I think I had to get rev myself up to speed, as it were, because my goal for 2015 is definitely to develop and write at least one series. I love series myself, with Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey being one of my favorites, anything by Nalini Singh as my current Must Buy and our own Jeffe coming close behind with her fabulous Twelve Kingdoms fantasy series. I devour such books and crave more!

So we'll see what 2015 brings for me and my Muse!

And here's the blurb for Mission to Mahjundar:

An attempted assassination left Princess Shalira blind as a child and, now that she's of marriageable age, her prospects are not good because of her disability. She's resigned herself to an arranged marriage rather than face life under the thumb of her cold stepmother. But then she meets Mike Varone, a Sectors Special Forces officer sent to Mahjundar by the intergalactic government to retrieve a ship lost in her planet's mountains. After Mike saves Shalira from another assassination attempt, she arranges for him to escort her across the planet to her future husband. She's already falling hard for the deadly offworlder and knows she should deny herself the temptation he represents, but taking Mike along to protect her is the only way she'll live long enough to escape her ruthless stepmother.

Mike, for his part, resists his growing attraction to the princess; he has a mission on this planet and rescuing the vulnerable but brave princess isn't it. No matter how much he wishes it could be.

But what should have been an easy trek through Mahjundar's peaceful lands swiftly turns into an ambush with danger around every turn. Shalira's marriage begins to seem less like an arranged union and more like yet another planned assassination. The more they work together to survive, the harder it becomes to stop themselves from falling in love. Caught in a race against time, can they escape the hostile forces hunting them and make it off the planet?

Can there be a future for a simple soldier and an intergalactic princess?

Inspiration Is Full of Twists, Turns & Research

For my science fiction novels I tend to be fascinated by an event, which leads me to that first "What if" question and then I'm off and running. So far I've been inspired by the sinking of the Titanic, the 1857 Sepoy Incident in India and various other real occurrences. I'll be reading or watching the news and suddenly my eyes glaze over and I start thinking in terms of a plot. I always begin from the point of what I would have done or what it must have been like and go from there.

WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM was inspired by the idea of retelling the story of Titanic, but set in space. I like to have a Special Forces guy as my hero in the SF novels, so I had to figure out why he'd be on board this luxury liner in the first place. Once I knew the answer to that, then the plot began coming together. At some point I realized I had to stop and design my spaceship, because the characters were moving all over and between decks in their efforts to save lives and escape the wrecked vessel. So I'd better know if the cargo hold was on level ten or level 8! I researched cruise ships, aircraft carriers and certain features on the Titanic, all of which gave me plot points and ideas. I drew a really bad schematic of my ship and kept writing.

For the paranormal novels I set in ancient Egypt, I tend to start with a situation (a dancer, captured by the enemy...or a priestess who finds it a personal challenge to be anywhere but inside the safe confines of her temple, suddenly sent to Pharaoh's Court....).

Let’s go with the latter situation, which became my latest novel MAGIC OF THE NILE. Since it’s a sequel to PRIESTESS OF THE NILE, I’d already done the research into the Crocodile God Sobek, hero of the first book and major player in the second. (My inspiration there having been the realization that the god was a shifter, which led to the question what kind of woman would catch such a being's fancy? One with a beautiful voice, since crocodiles have excellent hearing.) But for this book, since we spend time at the temple Tyema runs, I researched how Sobek’s temples were organized 4000 years ago, a lot more details about crocodiles, how processions were conducted, which deities were important in the capital city of Thebes, the hierarchy of an Egyptian temple’s priesthood, what Pharaoh would wear for different activities, what foods would be served on a big feast day…

I needed my hero Sahure to be very dashing, so he’s a charioteer, which was about as dashing as you could get in 1500 BCE. That led to research on chariots, including a wonderful NOVA special, called “Building Pharaoh’s Chariot.” (Available on dvd.) Watching a team of British researchers attempt to reconstruct the chariot of ancient times, with the help of Egyptian craftsmen, basically by studying tomb paintings and the few actual surviving chariots, was amazing.  But where does Sahure need to be in his gleaming, horse-drawn vehicle?

Well, turns out there was a chain of fortifications along various Egyptian borders, including at the Southern Oasis of Kharga, located on a major caravan route. I’d already researched caravans pretty heavily for a sequence in DANCER OF THE NILE. That’s one nice thing about writing a series – I can build on the tidbits I’ve learned before.  Also, research suggests plot points and vice versa. Since I’m a seat-of-the-pants writer, this approach works for me! Now I know all about Kharga, including the topography and weather.

At one point, Sahure needs to tell Tyema about a battle he’s fought in beside Pharaoh. I drew a suitable tale to adapt from translations of  4000 year old eyewitness accounts of actual warfare and gave my character the right ‘memories’ to share with the heroine. So I also needed to be able to talk about his weapons and tactics. Back to researching bows and arrows of the time…

Were the native people of the Southern Oasis descended from the goddess Sekhmet? They certainly thought so, which sent me off to ponder all the cool facets of her powers and background.  Sekhmet became a major player in certain events that take place in my book. In many cases there are alternate versions of the myths surrounding an Egyptian deity so I’m free to choose the aspects that work for my story and to extrapolate other ideas for my plot.  

A lot of the research I do never shows up directly in the novels, so if by now you’re thinking "Wow, her books must be dusty tomes!" hopefully I can reassure you. I have to be able to put myself in the headspace of ancient Egypt, so I can create characters who are believable residents of that time and place, even while they’re having these amazing adventures. I don’t have to show off all my research (except maybe in blog posts LOL). If it doesn’t serve the plot, it doesn’t go in the book, but the knowledge might influence the story’s direction.

For my latest science fiction romance, however, it was a single photo that made me pause and ask myself, "What if?" 89K words later and about to publish in August, turns out there was a lot of action, romance and adventure in that what if!

I Take The Topic of Debt In A Completely Off the Wall Tangent

“Harry Potter created a generation of readers in an era when kids could have disappeared into the depths of the Internet. That's no small feat. Every book series owes J.K. Rowling a debt of gratitude.” Gary Ross

So our topic this week is debt and I have to tell you, writing a post about finances is so not my thing. I admire the approaches the other Whores have taken to the topic this week but inspiration wasn’t stirring. My Muse isn’t amused, intrigued or made productive by the subject of debt. Paralyzed maybe!

I knew I couldn’t serve up another set of quotes again this week, fun as they are to assemble, but I went to the quotes lists for inspiration for the post. The one listed above struck me because I have yet to write a series but I’ve been mulling it over lately. I used to think as a seat-of-the-pants writer I could never do a series. I admire the people who can, including but not limited to, J. K. Rowling, Anne McCaffrey for Dragonriders of PERN, John Scalzi, Nalini Singh (you can read my interview with her this week over at USA Today HEA – shameless plug!) and our own Jeffe Kennedy. (Well, actually probably all the Word Whores except me LOL!)

But I thought it would be beyond me to know what was going to happen over the course of multiple books, plant little seeds in the earlier books that would blossom into lovely flowers much MUCH later and bring All the Plots to a satisfying conclusion down the line. I was a one book at a time writer, even if my novels do occur in a connected series by virtue of being set in one Universe. (I write science fiction in the future world I call The Sectors and I write paranormal romance set in 1550 BCE Egypt, during the reign of my mythical Pharaoh.)

However, I must tell you, series are sneaking up on me! I just wrote my first ever direct sequel, where MAGIC OF THE NILE follows onto the story I told in PRIESTESS OF THE NILE. I’ve been jotting down notes for two or three different series possibilities, set in ancient Egypt, set in the Sectors, even – gasp! – set in modern times. I’m thinking that if I take things in a three book arc and I know who my heroes and heroines will be, I CAN DO THIS. Actually, I find I want to do this.

I’m on the second draft of my third Sectors novel and I have the next Egyptian paranormal plotted, with a few scenes written but my Muse really likes the idea of stretching her wings (I did tell you she apparently has gorgeous feathery wings, didn’t I?)  and launching into a series forthwith. Planning to finish the Sectors WIP and the one remaining standalone paranormal since it has momentum and then we’ll…just…see.  I do think it’s good for a writer to try new things and tell new stories…the only limits on me are the ones I set, after all, since currently I’m self-publishing and can tell any story I want.

Soooo, going back to the subject of debt, here was the other quote I liked but that’ll have to be a post for another day!

“Worrying is like paying on a debt that may never come due.” Will Rogers

In Ancient Egypt They Thought They Could Take It With Them

If a person writes novels set in ancient Egypt as I do, when the word for the week is "bury", where do you suppose my mind travels? Right - beautifully painted tombs, amazing sarcophagi, King Tut's mask....but the Egyptians went to all that trouble because they were trying to ensure themselves a happy afterlife, and to have everything they needed with them in that future. (Sort of you can take it with you...)

Here's a scene from Priestess of the Nile that shows a small part of what the ancient Egyptian citizen thought would happen to them, after they were buried in that well appointed tomb. (Warning: possible SPOILERS if you haven't read the book yet). I've edited and abridged this a bit from the published version, to focus on the Afterlife events:

Merys was tired of walking. Where am I going? How did I come to be in this tunnel? She contemplated the passageway filled with mist and bathed in blue light. She stumbled and stopped, one hand on the cold stone wall to steady herself. She was dressed in fine robes, bedecked with jewels. A thin gold circlet held her hair. Rings and bracelets she had never seen before adorned her hands and arms. Her shoes were soft leather, lined with fur, trimmed in gold. Merys turned to see what lay behind her. The tunnel ended at a closed door. The door fit snugly into the tunnel wall, with no handle, no hinges.

“My tomb,” she said out loud and the words echoed. She felt strangely detached from the reality. “But my family wouldn’t honor me so, even if they had the funds.”

*****

She slid down the wall and sat huddled for a few moments, mourning all she had left behind in the upper world of the living. Eventually, Merys took a deep breath and stood, using the wall for support. She smoothed her skirts and straightened her jewelry. Every Egyptian, even the children, knew at the end of this tunnel lay the Hall of Judging, where her heart would be weighed and her spirit’s ultimate fate decided. It is no less and no more terrifying than what I have already endured. ....

She walked on. A lighted chamber lay ahead and as she entered the enclosure, she found Anubis, Thoth and Lady Ma’at waiting as she expected. Anubis had the semblance of a man from the neck down, well muscled. From the shoulders up, he was a sharpfeatured, ebony-furred jackal. Long, pointed ears framed a feral face. Cold emerald eyes glowing with uncanny brilliance scrutinized her as if assessing whether she was to be his prey in some otherworldly hunt.

Breathtakingly beautiful, Lady Ma’at had a kind face and welcoming smile. She was clad in fine white robes, and many intricate necklaces formed a multicolored collar swathing her elegant neck. A scarlet ribbon headband threaded its way among the glossy curls on her head, holding a large feather, which curled gracefully back over her hair.

Thoth sat behind her, cross-legged on the floor, in the manner of all scribes. Merys rejected a mental picture of her father, working on his scrolls in the village. I won’t think of him anymore. Thoth held a sharp reed pen upraised in one well-formed hand and clasped a small oblong tablet in the other. His head was in the form of an ibis, with an elegant, long curving beak and fine green iridescent feathers. Merys had often seen such birds in the shallows of the Nile.  

*******

A scrabbling sound in the corner of the room beyond the table drew her attention to the beast Ammit, busily chewing on a pile of bones. The sheer wrongness of Ammit—heavy crocodile head blending into the neck and chest of a powerful lioness, with the sturdy hindquarters of a hippopotamus—made Merys want to vomit. All the most dangerous and fearsome predators of Egypt embodied in one obscene creature, waiting to devour the unworthy. Ammit paced in the shadows, scuttled a bit closer as if sensing Merys’s fear, the claws on her feline front legs scrabbling on the floor, while the muscles in her stumpy hippopotamus hind legs bunched as she readied herself to spring.

Merys swayed and closed her eyes.

And of course after the heart was judged, and the person managed to get past this stage of the Afterlife, they had many more perils and dangers to traverse, as documented in the well known Egyptian Book of the Dead. But hopefully they'd prepared well ahead of time and their loved ones had stocked their tomb with all the amulets and unguents and spells and paintings and tiny statues of servants that would be needed.

Sometimes the World Is Already Built

I write two different series - a loosely connected set of science fiction romance and adventure  novels set in the far future of a galactic civilization I call the Sectors and another loosely connected set of paranormal romances set in Ancient Egypt. 1550 BCE  Egypt to be pretty exact.

Talk about a rich background in which to to set stories! By then the Egyptians had about 1600 years of history already behind them, the pyramids were built long ago, there were myths and gods, heroes and legends, male and female pharaohs, and a well organized civilization with all of its own rules and intricacies. OK, so I did not create Ancient Egypt. But I don't write pure historicals either...I want, no I need the gods to be personally involved in the events that occur during my novels. So I do research and more research and I never know where the research will lead me, in terms of either new plot ideas or facts to weave into the stories.

It really made my day when Kirkus Reviews said I'd "clearly done my research".  Thanks, guys!

So I invented my own Pharaoh, made him a composite of several real men who sat the on the throne around that time. I gave him a Usurper Pharaoh to fight  and she's very loosely based on Hatshepsut. My ruler and the heroes and heroines of my books constantly battle the Hyksos, who were Egypt's primary enemy at that time, and their gods and demons, which I freely admit to having developed myself, based on research into a great many belief systems of ancient peoples in that part of the world (Sumer, Mesopotamia, Akkadia) and what little we know of the Hyksos.

But it's not as simple as plunking my characters down in hot, sunny ancient Egypt during the Nile inundation and "just"  writing. I want  the people in my novels to inhabit their world believably, even if black magic is going on and the goddess Isis is issuing commands... First of all, while we know a great deal about the civilization, most of the knowledge is from tomb paintings, scraps and fragments of papyrus, broken columns etc. So a lot of what we "know" is theorizing, which leaves me room to maneuver. Secondly, the Egyptian pantheon of deities had origin stories that shifted over time. Not only that, the gods themselves changed during the thousands of years the Egyptian civilization reigned. In some cases three or four previously separate gods eventually morphed into one. And many cities and towns had their own local  god or goddess, or a version of one of the more well known gods.

So like anyone who has built a world from scratch, I have to keep track of which aspects of the mythology and the history I've chosen and be consistent. I have to try to weave daily details into my novels that place my characters in ancient Egypt for you, without either going overboard on how much research I've got at my fingertips or having the dancers, priestesses, warriors and others take too much notice of things that would be routine to them.

I enjoy the challenge. I love the time period, which is part of why I write novels set there...I sometimes create

deliberate anachronisms to make the story flow a bit more easily...I catch myself in other anachronisms that need to be fixed. "The chariot jounced over iron hard ruts..." Umm, no, they didn't have iron at this stage. and saying the chariot jounced over bronze hard ruts is just going to take my Readers out of the story most likely so...time to rewrite that sentence!

So yes, I "moved into" a world that I didn't have to create from thin air, but once I was there, I definitely did some rearranging and expansion to make the background into the place where the stories I want to tell can take place.

Maybe another week I'll tell you about my science fiction world building. Anything can happen at Word Whores!

Did Someone Say Inner Voices?

My heroes and heroines tend to be people of action, pretty much always in motion. They have thoughts, they do grow and change over the course of the novels, but there isn't much inner dialogue. Or at least not too much that gets shared with the audience or even with me, the Author LOL!

The Egyptian god Sobek in PRIESTESS OF THE NILE, for example, is grappling with the idea of being in love with a human woman and by extension having to care about the things that concern her, like Merys's younger sister. Sobek is a force of nature, keeping the Nile flowing smoothly, so it was fun to write about him trying to understand the emotions of another person. He was especially challenged to bring his attention down to the mundane daily issues of human life but because he loves Merys so much, he makes the effort. At one point he even takes on human guise to walk through her village and see the people and the place from her viewpoint. So there were bits and pieces of his thoughts in the book, but no long, extended self debate. In fact, he's trying to hide his thoughts from the goddess Isis.

In WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM, my main character Nick is supposed to be using the time he's on board the luxury space liner to think about the military tribunal he's going to be facing, and to figure out what he's going to do next. I'm afraid he does a lot of drinking before the disaster happens, some gambling occurs, a tour of the ship...he's really reluctant to sit for too long, revisiting the nightmares of his last mission. He consciously avoids that pain. Once the ship comes to grief, Nick is thrown into survival mode, and trying to save other people so his thoughts tend to be along the lines of How many people can I put on this lifeboat and Is that bulkhead going to give way before I get these two trapped children to safety? There are a few moments where he's wistfully contemplating what might have been if he and the heroine had met in a better place and time but....then another crisis hits. I guess that's just how I roll as an author.

Now Khenet, WARRIOR OF THE NILE (out in September), has a recurring dream in the novel. I always feel that my dreams are my own subconscious trying to tell me something important, especially when the dream is long and detailed, or especially vivid. All of which are aspects of Khenet's dream.  Here's the way it usually begins for him:

He was walking up a small ridge, taking deep breaths of the fresh mountain air, inhaling the perfume of delicate white flowers that grew nowhere else but here. Soon he would be at the top of the rise and the village would be visible, safe in its snug valley. Only it had not been safe, had offered no shield for his people from the violent, bone breaking sickness brought one spring by a flock of migrating birds that had fallen from the sky, ill, dying. No matter how many times he had this damn dream, no matter how hard he tried, he could never control the sequence of events as they unfolded, the direst of nightmares, based on the most painful memories in his soul.

 All he could do was walk through it until the last, bitter moment when he could force himself awake. Again.

Tugged along by the dream, he walked into the village, heading down the dusty central street. The road was empty, no merchants calling out their wares, no women gossiping, no children playing…only the buildings watched him, the windows like blank eyes, doors hanging open like silent screaming mouths. Even the pets and livestock had vanished in his dream. He knew the dead lay fallen behind the walls of their dwellings.

            As he walked, unable to help himself, Khenet stared around longingly. The village itself was always unchanged, just as it had looked the day he’d hiked out, untouched by the disease, sent by his father, the village headman, on a useless journey to the provincial capital to plead for help.  Oh, Nat-re-Akhte’s grandfather the nomarch had sent help – he was a good provincial ruler – but the assistance had arrived much too late to do anything but bury the dead.

His family’s modest house stood at this end of the road.

The only good part about this dream was that he never got that far, never had to open the door and see what had happened to his parents, his brothers and sisters.

Because now the worst portion of the dream was going to begin, as it always did....

So that's about as inner monologue-y as I ever get...

(You can find out more about WARRIOR on my web page and it is up for pre-order...but I'm afraid you won't be able to see how the dream turns out until September 16th!)

(Photo at the top of the blog post from SXC by ba1969, photo directly above is from the Author)

Faffing, Dithering - It's All Procrastination!

One of the fun aspects of being a writer is “meeting” people from all over the world, especially on twitter (which IS my biggest enabler of procrastination but since Jeffe Kennedy covered that so well earlier in the week, I’m not going there LOL). I have several really terrific friends from Downunder on twitter and they introduced me to the best term : faffing. It even has its own hashtag and a Tshirt. (What you think I’m kidding?)

I guess it actually comes from “to faff about” and it isn’t a euphemism for the other “f” word (or so I’ve been assured by everyone, including such an authority as Worldwidewords.com.  Here’s what they had to say about where my new favorite word comes from:

“It starts to appear as a dialect word in Scotland and Northern England at the end of the eighteenth century, as a description of the wind blowing in puffs or small gusts. …It may have been imitative of the sound of gusty wind, or it may be a variation on maffle, a more widely distributed dialect term in Scotland and England that means to… waste time and procrastinate…” so I guess I could be maffling, but does that have a hashtag?

So when I #amfaffing yes, I tend to cruise the social media, lose myself in eBay (the number of categories of things I can search for is amazing and endless and always leads to more treasure hunting…very bad for my budget), do research which leads me down paths to other things I never knew about and before I pay attention, hours have passed and I have all this very scholarly data which is fascinating but can’t be crammed into a romance novel - at best I can say with confidence my Ancient Egyptian heroine used crushed malachite for eyeliner and only I will ever know the entire backstory of where it was mined and how it got to Egypt and what it cost and what other trade goods came from…oh I digress. (Yes, yes I do tend to work Egypt into everything …)

My other favorite word about procrastination is dither.  While not exactly procrastinating, dithering overcomes me when I’m doing one thing but somehow I feel I should be doing something else or even two other things and then I get into a grid locked state and can’t make progress on anything, whereupon I go back to twitter and the faffing.

My best tool for avoiding either pitfall is to create a To Do list, figure out what the highest priority item is and then focus on just that one thing until I’ve taken it as far as I can. That frees me up from the glittery attraction of other chores because the Stern Mom Voice in my head says, “What does dusting up the living room have to do with Task #1 on the list, hmmm?” Playing this annoying but effective little recording keeps me from the dithering mode, where I try to do multiple things at once and have a massive FAIL. And possibly require a restorative nap or emergency administration of chocolate.

If the top priority item is too big to do in a reasonable amount of time, I’ll tell myself I’m going to work on it for half an hour, then check it off the list and move on.

Not going to tell you how many times I drifted off into faffing during the writing of this blog post!

Publisher Spotlight: Carina Press

(<=Jake the Glowing e Cat LOL!)

First of all I have to thank fellow Word Whore Jeffe Kennedy for leaving Carina Press for me to write about, since I’ve had exactly two e publishers so far and one of them was myself!

Carina is the digital first imprint of the mighty Harlequin and here’s what HQN has to say: 

“Be adventurous in your reading and try something new!” Carina publishes works from 15,000 words on up, including contemporary romance, steampunk, erotic romance, gay/lesbian fiction, science-fiction, fantasy, or any number of other genres. They’re also very excited about New Adult right now. For more specifics on what Carina does and doesn’t publish, you can visit their Submission Guidelines page.

Here's what their page has to say regarding royalties: "Carina Press pays 40% of net digital receipts to books sold on 3rd party retail sites and 50% of net digital receipts to books sold directly on the Carina Press website. Our contract also lays out royalties for the other rights, such as audio, print and foreign translation."

I can only speak to my own, short experience with Carina but I’ve been very happy. Carina let me live a writer’s fairy tale – I submitted my “Priestess of the Nile” novella to their slush pile in 2011. It was the first thing I’d ever submitted anywhere…and they decided to acquire it! I was so excited and disbelieving that I’m afraid  I wasn't very coherent when I received The Call from Angela James, Executive Editor. “Priestess” came out in January 2012. The second novel in my “Tales of the Egyptian Gods” series will be released by Carina this coming September. The stories are set in 1550 BCE Egypt and have a strong paranormal element.

I loved my Editor Alison Dasho (who recently left Carina to become the Acquisitions Editor for Thomas & Mercer). The whole editing process on both books was a wonderful collaboration, in which I learned a great deal that made my writing stronger. Carina gave me a stunning cover for “Priestess” - it wasn’t at all what I had been picturing (can you say six pack abs LOL?) but was beautiful, mysterious, evocative….ok, yes, I fell in love with the art and the vision of my story. There’s a delicious hint of the Crocodile God…I haven’t seen my next cover yet but I’m confident it’ll be as satisfying. Carina does outstanding cover art!

One of the biggest personal benefits to me of being a Carina author has been the two wonderful author loops I’m now on (Carina and also Here Be Magic). I’ve met some terrific people on the loops, and everyone is very generous about giving advice, commiserating as needed, and celebrating the good stuff with you.

“Priestess” was also issued as an audio book through Audible, which was exciting for me. Carina does put some books into print also, as I understand it, but as yet I’ve not experienced that. They don’t pay advances, the royalties come quarterly, I was pretty much responsible for my own marketing but they have been very supportive with materials for book signings or other events. Carina does have quite a social media presence, with Angela, editors and others tweeting, etc., so I received some promo there. As a beginning author, trying to make a start on creating the all important backlist, having my series at Carina has been a very positive thing.

I believe every author should do what works for them as far as publishing, self publishing, traditional publisher, e publisher, agent/nonagented. Listen to the experiences of others, remember this is a business, stay flexible, but ultimately, do what takes you further along the path you want to go. Happy writing!

New Word Whore Checks In - Introduction & Self Publishing

Hi! No you’re in the right place even though this is Veronica Scott signing in! I’m your new Word Whore and happy to be here…

Only the fact that my co-workers would not have understood kept me from squeeing up and down the day job’s halls late last week when the Word Whores    e mailed to tell me I was now one of them. I’ll be holding down the Saturday slot, wrestling weekly with the knotty questions this group ponders.  (On my personal blog I have a tendency to talk about Titanic, Ancient Egypt, vintage chandelier earrings, LEGOs,  old science fiction movies, gladiators, Mars rovers….in short, anything but writing and so it’ll be fun to talk about the craft here.)

In addition to the day job, I write science fiction romance and paranormal romance – two genres I also love reading, not-so-coincidentally. More on that in a minute! I’ve been writing since I was a little kid...the library in our house was equally full of science fiction books (Dad’s influence) and tomes on ancient history (I think Mom wanted to be an archaeologist) so it’s no wonder I write novels that blend aspects of the two. The first movie I ever remember seeing (other than “Bambi”, long traumatic story there) was “Forbidden Planet,” on television, with Leslie Nielsen in his serious heroic acting days. So science fiction imprinted itself on me very young!

I have two grown daughters and a wonderful grandson - I’ve made sure all three share my love of SF and ancient history. I am supervised by two cats (not as fluffy as Jeffe Kennedy’s Jackson, but who is, I ask you?)….pictures of them will no doubt appear here from time to time.

Priestess of the Nile was my first published work, in January 2012 from Carina Press. I was still basking in the excitement when it dawned on me that the 100^th anniversary of the Titanic sinking was fast approaching. This was significant because I also had a completed science fiction novel loosely based on the Titanic disaster, but set in the far future on a spaceliner.  There was no time to submit it anywhere, not with the 2012 anniversary being only three months away at the time.

And so I fell into self publishing, which is the Word Whores topic for this week. I actually enjoyed the self publishing process. It was nice to be in total control of my book, Wreck of the Nebula Dream, but also a bit scary. I worked with a free lance editor – my first piece of advice is you must have an editor. You’ll never catch all the issues in your beloved manuscript on your own. I commissioned a professionally done cover –  my second piece of advice is you need a kick ass cover (am I allowed to say kick ass here???Guess so LOL!).

I found it mildly stressful to be in charge of all the technical aspects of getting the book properly formatted for the kindle and Nook, and uploaded. (I’ve been told I still have some backward quotation marks in the ebooks – sorry!)  Getting formal reviews has been something of a challenge since many book bloggers and reviewers don’t welcome self published books. I think that’s the place I most wished I had a publisher standing behind me, but there were tradeoffs involved with going independent and I really wanted to tie in to that 100^th anniversary and all the attention and interest in Titanic. (And the book was picked as a 2013 SFR Galaxy Award winner, if I may sneak that fact in.)

I then took the next step in self publishing and had an audio book released. Now that process was all kinds of fun. I loved collaborating with the talented actor Michael Riffle who narrated and produced the book for me. He embodied my hero so perfectly, and portrayed the other characters with elan – it was a personal joy to hear each new chapter as he finished recording. Next best thing to having the book made into a movie! I’ve talked extensively about the audiobook process on my blog, starting with a fun interview with Michael, so I won’t go into it here.

 

Will I self publish again? Most likely at some point. It was overall a good experience. Let me hasten to add, I’m thrilled to have my Ancient Egyptian paranormal romance series published by Carina Press, really enjoy working with everyone there. (The next one is Warrior of the Nile, coming in September 2013.) But I can definitely see myself going the self pub route again under the right circumstances, as I did with Wreck of the Nebula Dream.  Never say never!

Future posts will be shorter, I promise! Had to do double duty today what with introducing myself AND addressing the weekly question….

Any questions for the newest Whore?