The Infinite Details Live Only In My Head

I'm much more on board with James this week on our topic about how we track the details of our series, fantasy worlds and what have you. I really don't track stuff per se. I'm very much a seat of the pants writer and I don't outline, keep a series spreadsheet or anything else of that nature. Yes, sometimes I do have to go look up a fact in an earlier book but for the most part, I keep it all in my head.

Since I was a kid, I've been blessed with a near-encyclopedic memory, apparently so I could write multiple books set in the same universe, remember all the zip codes I've ever lived in and ace tests that were based on pure memorization. I sure haven't put it to many other uses!

There are a few limited things I may do at some point when writing a new book. When I wrote Wreck of the Nebula Dream, my science fiction adventure loosely based on the sinking of Titanic, I had to stop at a certain point and draw the darn ship for myself. This was necessary (and WILDLY non-artistic, I assure you), so I could be consistent what feature of the ship was on which Deck as my characters raced around in their efforts to survive.

On other occasions I've had to stop and write out the timeline of the story, as in what events are happening on which Day. My stories tend to be pretty compact as far as the realtime duration and sometimes I'm just putting too many events on the same day. Or, with Ghost of the Nile, the main character has been granted exactly 30 days to be back in Egypt to solve his own murder, so I had to be sure I was utilizing his allotment of days effectively with all the plot elements I had.

Sometimes I'll scribble notes to myself on plot ideas, kind of "talking out loud" on paper....

I’ve also developed a method to my madness to help me at least consider alternatives when I reach a plot point that seems too obvious to me. Jump off the roof? Pfui, there must be a more dramatic way to escape the ravaging alien hordes!

In the previous day job, we had a root cause analysis tool called the “Five Whys”. Basically you ask yourself a series of questions about some issue or problem, until you’ve drilled down to the real cause. Our example in the classes we taught was the degradation of the stone in the Jefferson Memorial. Why did the stone degrade? It was washed too often. Why was it washed so often? Because there were so many spiderwebs. Why were there so many spiders? Because there were so many flying insects at night? Why so many insects? Because the Memorial is brightly lit at night. The solution? Turn on the lights later, after the other monuments in the area, to let the insects be attracted elsewhere. I’m not sure if that’s a real story or apocryphal, but it illustrates the principle. There are various root cause diagramming tools and techniques that go with this. The instructor who taught me always emphasized you stopped asking Why? as soon as you’d reached a reasonable level of root cause, rather than drill all the way down to the Big Bang beginning of the Universe.

I use a variation of that analysis to solve knotty little plot problems. I take my desired end result and then diagram the possible ways to achieve what I want to happen. In an upcoming SF romance there’s a need to escape from a facility. I listed the possibilities starting with duh the roof, and then forced myself to really sit and think about creative alternatives. For each choice, I drilled down a bit more, asking myself “if this/then what?” questions. I usually find that one leg of the diagram starts generating more questions than the others, leading me to get excited about the plot possibilities, and other decisions and events that might flow from the choice. That’s where I end up going in the book. 

Here's one of my adapted "What next and what next" charts from the current SFR WIP. You can tell the ideas were flowing along one of the legs and that's where the plot ultimately heads.

The other absolute key to all of this is that the paper is lavender!  (Sorry the color doesn't come through in the photos but it's late and the camera is cheap...) I just think better when confronted with a blank piece of purple paper.

Gotta Have Audiobooks!

I'm an enthusiastic proponent of audiobooks, because I know there are readers out there who want to listen to good stories in their car, in the shower, while doing housework, jogging, walking, crocheting...pretty much anytime! Some people will read the book on the kindle, switch to the audiobook while commuting and return to the kindle version in the evening. It’s a rapidly growing audience and I want my novels to be available for anyone who wants to hear them. I’ve even presented workshops on the subject to other authors who were interested in the process.

Vicky Hensley of the Audiogals website says audiobook listeners are "double taskers" who want a "seamless listen." In her learned opinion, the narrator or voice actor is the key to enjoyment of an audiobook.

Four of my books are also available as audiobooks. The first two, Priestess of the Nile  and Warrior of the Nile, were picked up from  Carina Press by Audible and I had utterly no involvement in the process and no connection with the person who recorded them. No fun!

When I began independently self-publishing my science fiction romance novels in 2012, I knew I wanted audiobook versions as well. Working through ACX (an Amazon company) I was extremely blessed to find a wonderful actor to bring my books to life. Michael Riffle has now narrated two of my scifi novels and is in the middle of recording a third. There’s nothing like hearing my characters the way Michael embodies them. I knew he was the right person to play the hero from the first words he spoke during the audition for Wreck of the Nebula Dream.

I did a series of blog posts about the process of creating an audiobook and here’s a snippet of what Michael had to say regarding his preparation for bringing the various characters to life:

Michael: I think the biggest influence on what I try to do with my voice comes from your description of the characters.  Not just how their voice is described, but how they hold themselves, what sort of personality do they have, how they are feeling during the whole process.  I try to equate each character to someone I know, or a character I’ve seen in a movie or television, something to ground it in reality.  I might be a little selfish by giving my own voice to Nick.  It’s hard to NOT want to be the modest, able-bodied hero who gets the girl.

To read more details about how the process went from beginning to end, here is the link:

Interviewwith Michael Riffle Audio Book Narrator WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM

 For the second book we did together, Escape From Zulaire, I had the heroine narrated by Mary

Fegreus, another extremely talented actress, while Michael did the rest of the book. I interviewed them about doing the recording for USA Today Happily Ever After.

Here’s what they had to say about the steamy scenes:

Since this is a science-fiction romance, there were some intense and even steamy moments between the characters of Andi and Tom. Did those scenes present any particular challenge?

Michael: I don't know if it's because Mary and I have a very comfortable relationship or if it's because we recorded our parts separately, but I didn't find any of the romantic or intense parts challenging. From a directing standpoint, there was a little bit of challenge in the romantic scene because Mary wasn't entirely comfortable with the intimacy.

Veronica: I know they always say the steamy scenes in the movies or TV are among the hardest to do, because there'll be all the crew members watching and the elaborate choreography of the action. I imagine this must have been a bit similar, as far as comfort levels.

Mary: Mike's being nice about it. Full disclosure: I did a lot of kicking and screaming during Chapter 6, and I may have had a bottle of soju in the recording booth with me. The outtakes from that scene are pretty funny. That's been my experience as an actress with all romantic scenes. The moments that are the steamiest in the final product tend to be the silliest behind the scenes.

The rest of the USAT/HEA interview with Mary and Michael is here.

In closing, if I could afford it, I’d have Michael narrate all my books just for me while they were still Works In Progress, because it’s such a pleasure to collaborate with him. Hearing how he interprets the dialog and embodies the characters always gives me fresh insights and ideas. I’m definitely going to continue having him record the final versions of the novels so there are audiobooks for the listeners out there!

The Only Good Reason For Time

"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."  Albert Einstein

Good advice for authors...

I’m not very good at keeping track of the passage of time in my novels. I tend to write stories with adventures that happen pretty speedily, like in Wreck of the Nebula Dream where the characters only have a few hours to get away before the ship blows up or Other Bad Things Happen (no spoilers). But even then, in classic disaster movie format, I did spend the first part of the book letting my hero meet the people he was destined to rescue, so I had to figure out what the heck he would do on a spaceliner for two or three days!  At one point poor Nick is so bored, and has exhausted the amenities to the point he muses about spending the rest of the trip in cryo sleep. Of course that would have meant no novel and maybe no Nick, given there was going to be this wreck….*

I sort of do what Marcella shared yesterday – at some point during the writing of the novel, I sit down with a pad of lavender paper and I start writing out what happened on Day One, Day Two etc.

Sometimes dealing with the issue calls for research, as in Magic of the Nile, where my hero Sahure had to travel various places in ancient Egypt in his chariot, as well as with a small army, some of whom were on foot.  So how fast could a chariot travel, how far was the oasis of Kharga from Thebes, how far did an ancient army typically march in a day….apparently the ancient Roman legions covered 10 to 15 miles per day by the way. I gave myself a pass when Sahure and Tyema, the heroine, end up in an area of the Afterlife, battling demons. That took as long as it took, while back in Egypt only one night passed. Thanks to the goddess Sekhmet for an assist there! Gotta love magic when you can deploy it….

In my new novel Ghost of the Nile (coming in May if all goes well), I set my time-challenged self a real hurdle. The main character has exactly thirty days in Egypt to accomplish the task the goddess Ma’at has set for him. (The ancient Egyptian month was thirty days so my plot was tied to that.) Of course she didn’t exactly explain everything beforehand (what goddess does?).  I had to do a lot of scribbling on my lavender pad as the writing progressed. “If they spend three days here, and one day each way in travel…ok, no maybe they stay four days and there’s a mock combat contest…” I have Periseneb the hero keeping track of each day as it passes – no pressure!

I’d be very bad at writing a novel that spanned decades or centuries. I’d probably do a lot of “and then time passed until…” stuff that would annoy my editor and my readers LOL. Kinda like one of those old time Hollywood biography movies where the person whose life is being dramatized shows up as a baby for a few frames (blink and you miss him/her), then a kid for maybe a quick character-building incident, then he/she is in love or in the army or what-have-you and THEN we get to the part of the lifetime the movie is interested in. With maybe a final shot of our person as a much beloved oldster propped up on a lot of pillows, dispensing one last gem of wisdom before the music swells and the credits roll. Yeah, I could write that!

*Wreck of the Nebula Dream is on sale now for 99 cents, by the way. "Titanic in space..."

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Characters Don't Have Perfect Lives Either

I haven’t written a character who was perfect or whose life was perfect since I was seven and madly printing (by hand) my opus about flying horses, flying cats and princesses. With a riverboat captain as hero, mind you. Pretty sure he was perfect too. No problems in his life, probably not even any challenges navigating that river, unlike the real Mississippi.

And I’m positive to anyone other than seven-year-old me and my parents, that story was probably boring. No growth. No conflict. No real people. The flying cats were probably more compelling than my perfect princess and her riverboat guy.

As an adult, I know I’m not perfect, nor is my life problem free (surprise!) and my characters can’t be in that perfect life condition either, not if I want anyone to find their story interesting. Our theme this week was supposed to be characters with flaws but my twist on the theme is characters with less than perfect lives.

In Wreck of the Nebula Dream, my military hero is suffering from PTSD, self-medicating with a lot of future-liquor and generally not a happy guy. Obviously PTSD as a result of a combat experience is NOT a flaw in any way - it's a result of  living through severe emotional trauma and coming out the other side. His life as a special forces operator has left him suffering the emotional costs of some heavy life experiences.

But he’s the right man in the right place when the ship suffers its catastrophic wreck and he steps up to save others. Events of his recent past continue to cause him problems at key moments. He has to work through that and trust in himself to bring about the needed rescues.

One of the most fun people to write in Wreck was actually a secondary character, a high living rich young thing named Twilka, who is S-P-O-I-L-E-D and more than a bit clueless. You might think she had the perfect life but no. She grows up a bit over the course of the novel and eventually does her part to help everyone survive.

When the small party of survivors ventures to the hold of the badly damaged ship, seeking a vital piece of equipment, here’s what Twilka has on her mind:

“Maybe I can get some of my jewelry,” Twilka said, clapping her hands together, as if the idea had just occurred to her.

Which, Nick reflected, knowing Twilka, it probably had.

Eyes open wide, she gazed at them, perplexed no one else was as happy. “I wasn’t going to need it all on the cruise, so I checked some of it.”

“How much more could one person wear?” Mara said it nicely, eyeing Twilka’s complicated set of gold chains, charms, earrings, rings and bracelets.

And once the group has broken into the area of the hold they need to access, here’s her reaction:

“Hey, it’s every bit as messed up in here,” Twilka called out, having impatiently and imprudently gone ahead. Apparently she wasn’t worried about taking any precautions. “How am I supposed to find my jewel case in this mess?”

“Maybe she should get the hint she’s not supposed to,” Mara said to Nick, half under her breath. “Is she for real?”

He shook his head. “Real enough for her own world, I guess. A bit lost in the current situation. The ’Lites aren’t used to dealing with mundane issues, like the rest of us, who don’t have generational billionaires for ancestors.”

“Lucky she has us.” Mara shepherded the children in front of her into the bonded stores enclosure. “I never spent any significant amount of time with a Socialite before, I have to admit.”

“Has its interesting moments.” Nick walked after her. 

Twilka was a hoot to write and I’ve had a number of readers ask me to write the sequel about what happened to her next, after the events in Wreck. I might actually tackle that story in 2015 – it would certainly have quite the character growth arc!

The Big Money Fantasy - We Make A MOVIE!

Before I found an effective medicine for my migraines, an average attack lasted 39 hours...which is relevant to today's post because I would lie in the dark room, kinda self-hypnotizing myself to get thru the nausea and the pain by thinking of every single thing I'd do if I won the lottery. First of course was always quit the day job. After that I'd start small - pay off the bills. Then I'd go bigger - pay off the house, buy new cars for myself and all family members, donate to charities.....

But eventually, if I hadn't managed to put myself to sleep, I'd get to THE Fantasy: making a big budget movie from one of my novels. I live in Southern California so I know the perils of a total newbie trying to make their own movie - there be sharks and hucksters in the waters, looking for unwary investors with too much money and not enough sense, right?!

But this is MY fantasy and therefore I'd have enough money to make sure it ALL went right. I'd start with WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM, because (a) it was loosely based on the sinking of the  Titanic, although set in the far future, in outer space and (b) I wrote it in classic disaster movie format. In fact, many of the reviews mention the fact that there's kind of a slow buildup and then the book kicks into high gear, nonstop action until the end. Yup, did that on purpose, folks. In a disaster movie the audience has to get a chance to meet the people who are going to be in dire peril, so there's some connection, some reason to care, right?

I used to cast the movie in my head too although nowadays I'd probably hire a top notch casting

director and let them propose the right actors. (Although if Charlie Hunnam is available....)

I have no desire to write the script - I know my limitations. And I understand that a movie has to be somewhat different from the source novel. I'd keep creative control though...

I don't need to be a character although I'd love to be in a crowd scene, maybe one of the people getting into the lifeboats (in a suitably fabulous, non-sheer nightgown, oh and wearing jewels)....and I might need to be in the casino scene...maybe a line or two....

I absolutely want to watch some of the filming, see the magic happening, "meet" my characters as they come to life...

OK, that's the ultimate "big money" fantasy for me, although I'd be perfectly happy to have Hollywood come knocking at my door of their own accord, a whole lot sooner.....

My Hero Has A Side Kick

Well the science fiction romance heroes do anyway. In my SFR's the heroes are usually Sectors Special Forces operators (the far future version of SEALs, you see) and they almost always have a sergeant working alongside. The sergeant is also a medic and all around badass. I have great respect for sergeants. My father was a sergeant at the very end of WWII (busted back to PFC for reasons he was proud of, regarding his men, but we won't discuss all that here.) My late husband was a Staff Sergeant in the USMC Reserves when he was killed (in a civilian accident).

Also, the sergeants are my little tribute to the character of the sergeant in the original 1951 version of "The Thing From Another World." (shown above) Crew chief Bob in that movie knew everything. He was the linchpin of the whole team (and is in the center of the photo).

I like the idea of a tight, two man team sent to deal with dangerous situations, watching each other's sixes.

In Wreck of the Nebula Dream, my hero Nick Jameson is on his way to be court martialled for the loss of his entire team, including the sergeant, on a mission gone really south. When the civilian ship he's on has its catastrophe (this book isn't referred to as "Titanic in space" lightly), his ad hoc team becomes one D'nvannae Brother (think deadly assassin/bodyguard serving an alien goddess) and one determined businesswoman who isn't waiting around to be rescued. Help her or get out of her way, you know? His team expands as they fight to survive and get off the ship. He also ends up shepherding an elderly alien woman, two small children and a Socialite girl who surprises everyone....I deliberately wrote Wreck of the Nebula Dream in classic disaster movie style, so that was the logic behind who forms the nucleus of passengers Nick cares about and tries to save.

Now in my Egyptian series, the plots focus much more tightly on the hero and heroine. The gods of Egypt take an active part in the action but I don't think Horus the Falcon or Sekhmet the Lioness would appreciate being labelled as anyone's side kicks. I know Renenutet the Snake Goddess wouldn't!

The series anchor character is my Pharaoh, Nat-re-Akhte, and through the different books we also catch glimpses of his Great Royal Wife Ashayet and his Chief Scribe, Edekh. While being far too grand to be viewed as a sergeant, Edekh is like Crew Chief Bob - he knows all, he takes care of everything before anyone else even realizes there's a need. Maybe someday I'll have a novel that calls for me to tell you more of Edekh's backstory. I have a whole court of characters ready to deploy if and when the plots call for them to take a bow.

We know from past posts here I don't plot in great detail before I dive into the writing, but I do usually know if there's going to be a "sergeant" involved! I write who and what the book calls for....there will be many minor characters perhaps, like the caravan master in Dancer of the Nile or the lady-in-waiting in Magic of the Nile, but they aren't significant-enough players in the action to be a side kick.

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!

Writing Slump - Who You Gonna Call?

We're in the middle of a major audit at the day job, nine auditors in residence, hundreds of files, I'm supporting the activity eleven to twelve hours a day...not doing much writing this week! I've been coming home exhausted and so although I don't have writer's block (which my fellow Whore James pointed out on Monday is a different thing than a slump), I guess you can say I'm in a slump of sorts. In my head there's black magic going on in ancient Egypt and the hero is slaying a demon or two to rescue the heroine BUT I'm just too tired to write it down. All the plot is there, but as Marcella said in her blog today, I need REST. I went to bed at 5PM the day before yesterday! I fell asleep before Project Runway Allstars even started last night!

So I was perfectly poised to write this blog post on my remedies for slumps. Then I opened my email and discovered that my self published science fiction romance WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM had received Second Place in its category in the 2013 Laurel Wreath Awards. BOOM, all my lack of energy promptly disappeared LOL. I was so thrilled and excited....of course I still haven't worked on my WIP tonight yet but hey, full of energy now so watch out, world. (I'm writing this post on Friday night, as usual...)

But normally when I'm in a slump, no lovely e mails  arrive out of the blue to knock me out of the temporary downtime, so what do I fall back on? Well, sleep, obviously...My best remedy is to walk away from the computer and just sit with my iPod and listen to music. I have all my favorite songs on there and I let myself drift with the music and forget about the book I'm writing or the cares of the day. Sometimes I'll watch music videos on youtube but when doing that I'm still AT the computer, so not as good. Music is definitely my number one pickmeup.

I enjoy taking a walk, with or without music. I love taking a long drive on the freeways, usually going north so as to miss the traffic jams, and blast music really loud.

I have been known to meditate - not a patient person so - don't laugh - but I meditate for five minutes and that always helps. I can even bring my blood pressure down 20-30 points at the doctor's office if I do this specific five minute mental exercise, which centers around a visualization of the beautiful lake in Upstate New York where my grandparents had a cabin.  I used to take the rowboat out by myself and go fishing or exploring...

I have a feeling these guys could bust writing slumps as well as ghosts (sorry, HAD to do it, since the song is now stuck in my head, I'm sharing it with you LOL).

Villains (Twirl Mustache Now)

I think the actual subject this week is something along the lines of Villain as Protagonist, which just isn't something I really do in my books. Obviously there has to be a "villain" of some kind. I was imprinted young by two very different, old fashioned science fiction classics (as shown on late night TV, badly cut up to allow time for endless used car dealer ads). So on the one hand we have Ming the Merciless whose only motivation seems to be that he feels born to rule the Universe and consort with hot babes...and on the other hand we have Dr. Morbius in Forbidden Planet, who has so many motivations and so much backstory, including being based on a Shakespeare character, that it's hard for one movie to contain it all!

Flash Gordon kinda says "Not my planet and not my hot girlfriend - hands off!" in reaction to "his" villain. Captain J. J. Adams  has to keep Morbius's id from killing them all, rescue the hot lady (and the all knowing robot) and get the heck back into space before the planet blows up.

Entertainment Weekly very conveniently has a story written by Anthony Breznican on this very subject in their November 8, 2013 issue, which I received today. Good thing I got my mail today! I don't know if the article is also on their website at  http://www.ew.com/ew/ but it's a fun story, including a table of the five Archetypes, including such tropes as The Snubbed Sibling and the Vengeful One, tracing them backwards and forwards in time. Sauron from LOTR is a Power Monger, according to them. I think Ming probably falls into that category too, although I can't recall Sauron paying any attention to women, which was a key oversight on his part. (SPOILER: Remember Sauron's subordinate the Witch-King and what Eowyn did to him?) And we don't know if Sauraon had a mustache, come to think of it.

The article also has this great quote from Sean Bailey, President of Production at Walt Disney Studios:
"The better you make your villain, the better your hero has to be." Mr. Bailey goes on in the article to discuss John McClane of "Die Hard" and how he had to rise to a level where he could defeat Hans Gruber.

Some of my books have a specific villain, as in Escape From Zulaire or Dancer of the Nile, but often this person is working within the framework of bigger events, like a war. So he's on his side, which is the opposite side from that of my hero and heroine. The conflict doesn't start out as personal.  In Wreck of the Nebula Dream the disaster traces back to a greedy corporation more than anything else and the fight during the book for Nick and Mara is just to survive and get off the wrecked ship.

Now I am writing a villain (or maybe a villainness, just to keep you guessing) in Magic of the Nile, which will be out in January, and I'm giving this person more of an in-depth set of reasons why they do what they do, and why they feel what they feel about the heroine and her hero.... no war, no wrecked cruise ships...

But so, if you know that I began with Ming and Morbius, you can probably figure out that I won't be writing any villains on the level of what my colleague James A. Moore talked with such enthusiasm about on Monday.

Although I do have an idea for a D'nvannae Brother* gone bad......never say never, I guess!

(*think Ninja/Monk/Badass/serves an alien goddess - first introduced by me in WRECK)

Questions for Readers About Audiobooks + Giveaway

My fellow Word Whores have all asked a lot of excellent questions of you, the Readers, over the past week. Thanks for all the answers!While trying to figure out what was left to ask, I decided to go in a slightly different direction and ask you about (drum roll please!) - AUDIOBOOKS!

I'll give a copy of my award winning Science Fiction Adventure novel WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM to one randomly selected commenter today, in honor of the topic. (AudioFile Magazine raved about the acting skills of my wonderful narrator, Michael Riffle, as he brought this story to life BTW.)

Do you listen to audiobooks?
How many would you estimate you've listened to in the past year?
Do you like to have the book or ebook and the audiobook version?
When or where do you listen to audiobooks?

And that's it for me but I would very much appreciate any insights you'd like to provide because I'm really committed to having audiobooks available.

Once Upon A time I Wrote A Series in Longhand

Actually, I've written two series - one in junior high school, "Tales of the Space Dragon,"  which a very observant reader will notice might have some resemblance to the old Tom Corbett Space Cadet books. But my series vastly expanded on that limited concept and I involved the extended families of my characters all across the galaxy, as well as introducing new characters with each installment and creating one gigantic HEA somewhere around Book Eleven (lots of marriages and kids). Although written in my very best cursive (wow, I can't even print legibly these days), this series will of course never see the light of day. I can't even reread them. I did, however, drop a nod to the Space Dragon, which was the name of the space ship, into my best selling "Wreck of the Nebula Dream" last year.

In senior high school, I wrote a vastly more sophisticated series, "Tales of the Starfire," with Starfire as the name of the ship. A very observant reader will notice some oh similarities to "Star Trek,"  although I had a female protagonist and all of humanity was either under the dominion of the evil alien race ("Rzzkstor" - say that ten times!) or living on a sekrit base under Antarctica. Or on this one ship! And again, cue the HEA with marriages and babies and I even wrote a sequel about the granddaughter of my heroine and a prequel about the ancestress of all of them. The connecting thread, besides the ship, was a nearly immortal, many-armed alien Chief Engineer. And as you might expect, ALL of this SFR marvelousness is totally unreadable. OMG. But hey, I was learning.

(I also messed up my GPA because on the day we were supposed to be diagramming sentences, I was at a key plot point and I consciously decided to take a C on the diagramming and work on my novel all 6th period instead. Seriously, WHAT is the point of diagramming sentences??? Although I can still stick those pesky adverbs on their downward pointing lines to this day...but I digress.)

So when I began seriously working on becoming a published author a few years ago, I decided connected series were probably the way for me to go. Tell lots of stories in one universe but not try for direct sequels. So my SFR's are currently all taking place in the galactic Sectors of the far future and my Ancient Egyptian paranormals are all occuring in 1550 BCE, during the reign of my pharaoh Nat-re-Akhte. (You can peruse my web page if your curiousity is piqued.)

But now, I find I'm "thinking in series mode" again! I'm finishing up a witch & shifter WIP that would be the start of a four or five book series. I actually know the key plot points for each, which is amazing since I'm NOT a plotter.  I'm contemplating the arc of a generational family series in my Ancient Egypt. I just wrote a direct sequel to my first ever published novel...Readers have been asking for the sequel to "Wreck of the Nebula Dream", which is an author's dream (they actually want to know what happened to Khevan and Twilka next?!)....what is going on here??? Maybe my Muse is getting ambitious LOL, stretching her wings. (Do Muses have wings? Save that thought for another post.)

I don't think I'll ever be a Nalini Singh, with her incredibly detailed series, where you're reading book 12 and you discover she's now resolved a question she barely brought up in a much beloved short story years ago - I love her books!!! Or an Anne McCaffrey with all the years of delicious revelations about how the Dragons of Pern came to be. But maybe there's hope for me yet.

Do you have a favorite series?

Trend Setter, Trend Avoider or Trend Neutral?

Not sure I can add too much to this topic that my wide ranging fellow Word Whores haven't already said this week, as far as trends, technology and troglodytes. (Which by the way that word always causes me to visualize the Morlocks from the old "Time Machine" movie - no idea why.) However, I think it's in my unwritten contract somewhere that I can't just say "what they said" and be done LOL!

Trends - I'm watching the "Hybrid Author" development closely and am one myself actually, being self published and also published by Carina Press. Some hybrid authors have massive backlists from the traditional publishing houses that they're now in various stages of reissuing themselves, which is very exciting to see.

You can Google the term and get millions of hits. You can read Chuck Wendig's post "What the hell is a "Hybrid" Author, Anyway" here....

Hmmm, looked up just now and both cats were staring at me fixedly. Apparently the term hybrid author implies to them I might suddenly become either something small, furry and edible or something large, furry and hungry! Sorry to disappoint my faithful feline companions but being a hybrid author means I publish in various ways and avenues. As Mr. Wendig says, I find advantages and disadvantages  inherent in either but the choices all make me happy. 

One of the nicest parts of this trend is how helpful authors are to other authors. A lot of the advice on the loops about independent publishing goes wayyyy over my head at this point - foreign rights, for example - but I file it away for the day I might need to know how to best market my book in Germany. Some of the advice is immediately pertinent to me and so helpful, like how to do effective promo with free books and 99 cent books...I tried it and my book Wreck of the Nebula Dream recently became an Amazon Best Seller in SF Adventure, which was such a rush I cannot tell you. And I was so grateful to all the Readers who bought the book during that special promotion. I hope they'll enjoy the story!

Another trend I've personally participated in over the last year is the growth of audiobooks. I've done one with a very talented actor (he read it, I just admired the end result) and I loved the entire process. I can't wait to increase my self published audiobook backlist (but kind of need to publish the actual books first. Which means writing them...)

Troglodytes - someone at the dayjob told me last week that no one should ever take notes on a pad of paper again. So in his mind, I guess I'm a trogwhatever. (But much better looking than a Morlock, I assure you!) I always have my pad of legal sized, lavender paper with me at work and I take notes or I doodle. Depends on the meeting! When it's time to seriously write, I'm all about the computer.

The bottom line to me is keeping an open mind to new developments,watching the trends but not necessarily adopting them, picking and choosing what works for me, experimenting...and always, writing my stories!

Is there a trend or a technology that you've recently adopted and recommend?

Jake the Glowing e-Cat is Everywhere!

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)

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?