As I’m quietly and steadily working my way through Blood Stone, and the weekend started out with an empty email in-tray, and nothing moving on Facebook or anywhere else, I thought this was going to be one of those bulletins where I would have nothing to report, except for progress.

But Sunday, which is usually the day when everything on the Internet falls quieter than the grave, suddenly got busy.

And, I’ve had a small flurry of reader emails with questions about future books that I thought I would answer here, as well as the private answers I gave, in case others were wondering the same thing.

__

Bannockburn Binding was nominated for Book Of The Year 2011 by The Romance Reader.  It just manages to scrape in for this honour because it was released on December 13 last year, so it was a great surprise — especially as the book is indie-published.  A nice hats-off.

Now, though, the winner is selected by reader votes.  I’m always reluctant to trawl for reader votes.  There’s so many polls and reader-vote elections out there, and in my category alone there are about twenty books, each with their individual author possibly hounding readers for votes!  So…I’m not begging you to vote.  However, if you have read Bannockburn Binding and really feel you would like to vote for it, you can click here, then scroll down to the erotic paranormal category (about half-way down the page).  Bannockburn Binding is the second book is the category.

__

The Royal Talisman received a very nice 4 Star review from Love Romance Passion.

The review itself was short on detail about why the reviewer liked the book so much, but she did like the special features a lot, which was nice.  She also gave Dar Albert, the cover artist, a lovely thumbs up, too.

___

From the mailbox:

A reader was anxiously asking if there will be any more books after Byzantine Heartbreak, and another reader/reviewer wants to see Brenden’s story…and what are the release dates.

Yes, there will most definitely be more books in the series.  At this point in time I can’t say how many more, but this is not a simple trilogy, by any means.  I consider the series to be open-ended with ambitious, complex story-lines and character arcs.

Look at the cover montage for the series.  There’s two way to do that:  Place each book cover for the series side by side to build up the montage that way.  Or “cheat” and jump to the series information page to see the full montage spread in one view.  Apart from being awed by Dar Albert’s artistic talents, you’ll also notice there’s a lot of room for a lot more covers on that montage.  I planned it that way. :)

Release Dates

As for release dates…well, that’s one of the joys — and pitfalls — of indie publishing.  The advantages, especially to you the reader, is that I can release these books as fast as I can write and edit them, plus or minus a week or two for formatting and for Dar Albert to build covers (and she’s very fast).   The down side is that it does take time to edit, format and upload to all the various retail sites, and those sites won’t hold or delay a release, nor will they guarantee exactly how long it takes to build a sales page for a book.  So there is no way to predict, for example, the exact date and time a book will appear on the Amazon site, even though I know exactly when I upload it to Amazon.  That part of it is out of my control.  The same applies for all the retail sites — Barnes & Noble, etc.

Therefore, all I can say in regard to a release date for future books in the series is that they will be as soon as I’ve written the books — and I’m a pretty fast writer — and that your best best is to either sign up for my newsletter or sign up for the email version of my RSS feed, so it is delivered to your email in-box.  That way, you’ll get an alert about the release of any books, and won’t miss out.

___

I’ve updated the Recommended MMF Romances list.

I’ve added some more titles, and I rearranged the list into sub-genre groups.

___

A reader asked what happened to the Kiss Across Time series, and Kiss Across Chains, the third book in that series, which up and disappeared.

The Time-Crossed Love series was first released under the Teal Ceagh pen name with Ellora’s Cave.  It’s one of my favourite series of all time, and I love and adore Brody and Veris and their extreme alpha-male outlook on life and time.  I was never so happy as I was when I was prompted into writing Kiss Across Swords by readers and reviewers who belly-ached politely asked for more about their histories and…well, just more of them.

I have the third book of the series, Kiss Across Chains, half-written, and ideas for six more in the series.  Like Beloved Bloody Time, this is not going to be a simple trilogy.

But, the first two books of the series remain with Ellora’s Cave for now.  I am working to have the rights returned to me, but until I do, I won’t release the third book in the series.  To do so would only further cement the first two books where they currently sit, and there are things I want to do with the first two books before I release the third (including issue them with uniform covers, expand the first book to make it a longer book, and more.)

So for now, this series must wait in the wings.

___

“I wish I could join a board or something and review your books, they are that great.”

There’s two parts to this:  Reviews and discussion boards.

Reviews. 

There are any number of places you can leave a reader review about my books, if you feel moved to do so.  I encourage you like crazy to do this.

As more and more indie authors start publishing more and more books, one of the few ways readers will be able to figure out which are the good books and which are the duds are through other readers’ reviews — and there will be more and more duds:  It’s part of the price we pay for the flood of cheap, great and really interesting reads on the market.

Your review doesn’t have to be perfect prose.  Just a paragraph or two of simple, clear English saying what you thought about the book, and why you did (or didn’t) enjoy it — what made it work for you?  Keep it impersonal (no attacks on the author themselves), and rate the book, and you’re done.

The absolute best place to leave your review is Amazon.  Even if you didn’t buy your book there.  That’s because huge numbers of people research about what book they want to buy next on Amazon, and then they sometimes buy the book elsewhere because they want a different format, or can buy it cheaper elsewhere, or for other reasons.  But they’ll research on Amazon first, because the information about individual books is so thorough and complete.

So you’ll be doing me all sorts of favours by leaving your review about my book on Amazon.

Discussion Boards

Amazon to the rescue again.  Did you know that every single book on Amazon has its own unique discussion board?

If you scroll down to where the general discussion boards start, way down the bottom of the book’s page, just above those board subject lines, there is a live link to the book’s discussion page.  Most of the time (well, all of the time, for my books!  LOL!) the discussion is empty.  But if you want to start a discussion group for a book (anyone’s book), or join it, you’ll find the link to the book’s discussion group right there.  Click on it, and dive in.

__

The biggest news of the weekend, and the last to arrive in my in-box, was the brand new cover for Delly’s Last Night.  The cover, another Dar Albert spectacular, is mind-blowing.  I don’t know if you’ve ever taken the time to double-click on the covers here on the site, and look at them when they’re at full size or better.  It’s worth it.  Then you really get to appreciate the full stunning detail.  They’re mind-bogglingly beautiful.  And the amazing thing is, Dar builds these covers from scratch.  She creates them out of nothing.  She doesn’t use stock photos except in the background sometimes, when I insist on historical accuracy, or well-known buildings.

Check out the cover for Delly’s Last Night, and click on it to see it at full size.

I stayed up late on Sunday night and formatted the book for release, so now you can buy it, too.  :)

________________________________

Related posts:

1. Working Notes – February 28 – Another Leap Frog A few weeks ago I was bellyaching about how I had produced books so fast that I had missed out on updating you on two...
2. Working Notes – The Book That Wouldn’t Be Short It’s only now I’ve recalled a pithy little line I included in the special features for The Royal Talisman: “I have also been accused of...
3. Working Notes – December 12, 2011 I’m one of those writers who doesn’t believe in writer’s block.  I don’t think it exists as an independent condition.  If a writer can’t bring...
4. Working Notes – Byzantine Heartbreak is Underway. Yeah! It’s been a weird week. For a start, it’s been very cold. Like, 35 degrees Celsius below zero cold. That’s negative 31 in Farenheit for...
5. Working Notes – December 26, 2011 My best wishes to everyone who celebrated Christmas Day yesterday, and for everyone who got the day off from work, I hope you made the...

I’ve got a pain behind my eyes and my shoulders are hunched as I type this.  I’ve spent all weekend — all of it — doing my taxes and filing.  Because last year was such a horrid year, I didn’t keep up with my bookkeeping at all.  So I paid for it now it’s tax season.  I had to give up one of my precious long weekends (I work a compressed work week and get every third Friday off), and instead of working on the current manuscript, Blood Stone, I got to write the latest installment of Tracy’s ongoing saga with the Canadian Revenue Agency.  Oh.  Joy.

But it is done.  Fini.  

And tomorrow when I step on the #63 bus to go to work, I can settled back into Blood Stone with a clear conscience for one more year.

The book is finally moving along.  I picked up the traces I spoke about last week, brushed off the outline and tweaked it here and there to put more spin and emotional juice into it, and started writing.  Unlike last year when I dithered and procrastinated my way through the first three chapters, unable to really commit myself to the book, I’ve dashed off another two chapters without trying too hard.  So whatever was stopping me from writing the book late last year has gone.  I think getting another four books published successfully has helped enormously with that.  So did getting the day job and putting my life into some semblance of order. :)  Then again, maybe it was just 2011, which as a year in general was a vintage for general suckiness and bad events.

Here’s some snippets to whet your appetite.

“Why all the anger, Roman?” he asked softly.  “I did what we agreed.  I stayed away.  You’re as big a surprise to me as I am to you, today.”

Roman’s eyes narrowed.  Thoughtful, or suspicious.  Garrett knew that look of old, and it gave him a strange little jerk, low down in his abdomen.

“I’m not here for you,” Garrett stressed.

Roman’s jaw rippled.  “Then what the fuck are you doing with Kate?  You’re jerking her around.”

Garrett sighed.  “I can’t say.”

Roman half laughed, half snorted in disbelief.  “Since when could you not tell me anything?

Garrett grimaced.  “I can’t tell you this.”

The humour in Roman’s eyes faded.  “What are you into?” he breathed.

Anger touched him.  Garrett clenched his jaw.  “You know, you can’t just rock back into town after a hundred and seventy-nine years and expect to pick up where you left off.  Things change, Roman.  Times change.”

“You haven’t,” Roman said flatly.  “You might be wearing Armani, but you’re still fiery Calum Micheil Garrett of the mighty Bruce clan, and even now your hand is resting next to the hilt of your broadsword, because you’re on the defensive.”

Garrett dropped his right hand down so it was hanging fully extended, annoyed that Roman had noticed the old instinct.  Of course Roman would.  He’d lived through those times, too.

Roman gave a small, almost silent laugh in reaction.

“I don’t suppose you’re about to tell me why you’re hanging about the lovely Ms. Lindenstream, then?” Garrett challenged Roman.  He winced.  His brogue had emerged thicker than he normally allowed.  Roman was pushing his buttons, unravelling his discipline.

Roman’s eyes narrowed.  “Hey, I didn’t just rock up here at all.  I was already here.  This is my town, Calum.  You’re the invader.”

“I take that as a ‘no,’ then.”

“I’d do that,” Roman replied evenly.  He put the heavy sunglasses back on and picked up his jacket.  “You’re not going to back away from Kate, are you?”  His tone made it not a question.

“I can’t, Roman,” Garrett replied truthfully.

“I can’t give you free rein.  It wouldn’t look right, even if I wanted to.”

Garrett sighed, as potential meanings and implications occurred to him.  “Is she…important to you, Roman?”

The protective sunglasses were hiding Roman’s eyes from Garrett, and his eyes were one way Garrett most often could spot the real truth behind Roman’s layers of protective shielding.  So Garrett knew he was about to be handed either a flat-out lie or a prevarication.

Roman glanced away, toward the roof access door.

Escape, Garrett realized.

“I guess you’ll just have to figure that out along with my name for this century,” Roman said, hoisting the jacket over his forearm.

And for fans of Blood Knot, some old friends:

Garrett shook his head as Sebastian took another enormous mouthful, and looked at the man sitting to Sebastian’s left.  Nathanial’s appearance had changed since Garrett had met up with him in Poland, just over a year ago.  The long hair was now short and business-like.  There were streak of very pale blond through it that might be mistaken for grey in the right light.  He wore glasses that seemed to go along with the short hair and the very sincere-looking business suit he had on.  But the glasses did nothing to hide Nathanial’s eyes, which had always drawn one’s gaze.  Now, with his hair cut short and the glasses drawing attention to them, Nial’s eyes seemed to blaze with light and brightness.  They were the blue of the Pacific ocean, and as deep.

“You should have done something about your eyes while you were changing identities,” Garrett murmured.

Nial’s mouth lifted at the corner.  “I wasn’t allowed to.”

Sebastian snorted, and took another spoonful of icecream.  “Neither was I,” he said around his mouthful.

Garrett suppressed his first reaction.  That either of them would let a human dictate how they arrange something as basic, as important, as their current identities, seemed outrageous.

Nial shrugged.  “I intend to make it unnecessary for any of us to have to worry about this sort of trivia in the future, Garrett.  If my wife wants me to keep my eyes the same, it is a small matter, now.  It is not the life or death thing it once was.”

BLOOD STONE  Copyright © TRACY COOPER-POSEY, 2012  All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. Working Notes – September 26: Blood Stone I’ve been getting a huge number of hits on the site lately for Brian Austin Green, and the role he played in Terminator: The Sarah...
2. Working Notes – July 4. Blood Knot II If you’re subscribed to my newsletter, you already know that my writing and publishing schedule has taken a short detour. Blood Knot has suddenly become...
3. Working Notes – October 18, 2011 Blood Stone is progressing slowly.  I’m not pushing to get vast wordage down fast on this one, even though I’m usually keen to make progress...
4. Working Notes – The Book That Wouldn’t Be Short It’s only now I’ve recalled a pithy little line I included in the special features for The Royal Talisman: “I have also been accused of...
5. Working Notes – December 12, 2011 I’m one of those writers who doesn’t believe in writer’s block.  I don’t think it exists as an independent condition.  If a writer can’t bring...

A few weeks ago I was bellyaching about how I had produced books so fast that I had missed out on updating you on two books, between working note installments.  Poor me, life is a bitch, huh?

Guess what?  Done it again.  Well, sort of.  :)

Last working notes, I got to roll in ecstasy because I was smack in the middle of writing Byzantine Heartbreak — which was proving to be a lot longer than I had planned.

Well, I finished that, in a marathon of writing over the long weekend last weekend, which for me was a four-day weekend because of an earned day-off from the day job.  Plus, Mark was away on a wrestling road trip for three of those days, so for three days I did nothing but write.  And sleep a little.  And stop to eat when I thought of it.

Not only did I get the 400-hundred pager finished (first draft), but I also finished two other books.

Yup.

Oh, I didn’t write them from scratch!  I’m not that prolific, although I wish I were!

Here’s the details:

Delly’s Last Night

Was Thief In the Night.  I got rights back for this late last year, and one of the things that several reviewers and readers had mentioned from the original edition was that the book was simply too short.  There had been wistful regrets that the history between Delly and Neil wasn’t shown.  So over the weekend I re-wrote what was a short story, including the backstory of Delly and Neil’s original romance in Golden during the Olympic trials, and modernized the story, tweaked the language, etc.

The story is still novella length, so it can only be released electronically.  I can’t stretch it enough to justify a print edition just on its own, but I have plans for an anthology of all my own stories later in the year within which it will be included.  But now, with the re-write, Delly’s Last Night is now thirty-three percent longer than it was originally.

The story is ready to go.  I’m just waiting for a sales cheque, royalty cheque or bonus money to land so I can pay Dar Albert to build one of her beautiful covers to go with it — that’s all that is stopping me from releasing the story right now.  I’m looking forward to this story actually having a decent cover at last, too.

An Inconvenient Lover

This book was Eyes of a Stranger, and it was the first book I published.  I spent part of my weekend revising, tweaking and updating the story and prepping it for release, as Eyes was removed from circulation last year, also.  An Inconvenient Lover will also be released as my own Author’s Edition, and one of the nice things about this edition is that finally, this story will reach paperback.  It only took thirteen years.

Like Delly’s Last Night, this book is also ready to be released.  I’m just waiting for the money to pay Dar to do the cover — and I can’t wait to see what she does with this cover, either.

Blood Stone

I didn’t start Blood Stone on the weekend, but this is the next book on my list of things to do.  I actually started the book last year, and now I have to pick up the traces and get the buggy moving again.  Given how popular Blood Knot is –  glowing reviews and two Book-of-the-Year nominations — I actually moved Blood Stone up on the list.  I was going to write the third in the Beloved Bloody Time series first.  But I’ll do that one after I’ve finished Blood Stone, instead.

So Blood Stone is the book I’m currently in the midst of writing — except I’m not actually at the point of writing it yet.  I’m still revising my plot and character notes and rebuilding parts of the plot to tighten it and make it squeal, which in some of the best fun you can actually have when writing fiction.  It involves anticipating the effect you’ll have on the reader’s emotional pulse…and their actual pulse.  Your pulse.  If I do it right I can orchestrate an opera of emotions inside your heart and brain and body as you read the book…and maybe reduce you to tears, laughter and sighs.  All while sitting (possibly) on the other side of the globe, and months away in time.

It’s the closest thing to magic in the real world.

__________________________

Related posts:

1. Working Notes – The Book That Wouldn’t Be Short It’s only now I’ve recalled a pithy little line I included in the special features for The Royal Talisman: “I have also been accused of...
2. Working Notes – December 12, 2011 I’m one of those writers who doesn’t believe in writer’s block.  I don’t think it exists as an independent condition.  If a writer can’t bring...
3. Working Notes – Byzantine Heartbreak is Underway. Yeah! It’s been a weird week. For a start, it’s been very cold. Like, 35 degrees Celsius below zero cold. That’s negative 31 in Farenheit for...
4. Working Notes – December 26, 2011 My best wishes to everyone who celebrated Christmas Day yesterday, and for everyone who got the day off from work, I hope you made the...
5. Working Notes – September 26: Blood Stone I’ve been getting a huge number of hits on the site lately for Brian Austin Green, and the role he played in Terminator: The Sarah...

It’s only now I’ve recalled a pithy little line I included in the special features for The Royal Talisman:

“I have also been accused of an inability to write anything short to save my life.”

Good thing a hanging didn’t depend on the turn of that phrase.  Because I blithely included in the description for the Beloved Bloody Time series this disaster of a sentence:

“The books are short.”

Was it me that really said that?

What was I thinking?   I must have been on catnip at the time.

Anyway, here’s the very good news:  I’m closing in on the finish line for Byzantine Heartbreak, the second book of the series.  I can see the checkered flag from here, and if I can finish up my blog posts for the week fast enough, I might even finish the first draft this weekend.

That’s somewhat iffy, though, as Mark is wrestling here in Edmonton this weekend, so I’m going to be spending the day at the arena, and even though I spend the day with my laptop on my knees, I don’t usually get a lot of writing done.  I do get a lot of talking done, though!

But, back to my sad tale of my inadequacies as an author.

Byzantine Heartbreak was supposed to be short.  A fast, snappy read to match Bannockburn Binding, full of hot love scenes, action, tension and suspense.

Well, it’s got all that and more.  It’s just got a lot more of it than I’d anticipated.  Like…nearly twice as much.

Oops.

But, more good news.  One of the glories of self publishing is that I can take these sorts of snafus in stride.  I wrote a book twice as long as it was planned to be?  No problems.  We’ll just publish a book twice as long!  (‘We’, you understand, being ‘me, myself & I’.)

I imagine the length will shorten down a bit once I edit and tidy up the prose.  But at the moment it’s a plus-sized novel and I’m estimating it will be around the 400 page mark by the time I’m done.   That’s a hefty tome by anyone’s standard.  I think, even with hard pruning, it’s still going to be a long novel.

I’m not going to cut it in half or anything drastic like that just to maintain a series uniformity or, heaven forbid, a market price.  The story needs to take up whatever room it needs to be told well.  I have that freedom now.  So you get a fully developed story and characters, and you don’t get short-changed.

Here’s a snippet.  Warning: frank language ahead!

An Excerpt From: BYZANTINE HEARTBREAK
Copyright © TRACY COOPER-POSEY, 2012
All Rights Reserved

“Why’d’you say that?” Ryan asked.  “He’s a good man.”

“’cause he’s a vamp hater,” Cáel replied.  He shook his head.  “A great man, ‘cept for he’s flawed.”

Ryan was staring at him.  “That’s…he comes off like he’s Henry Kissinger.  How could you know that?”

Cáel shrugged.  “We were lovers for nearly a year.  Then I found out.”  He shuddered and drank.  He reached for the bottle to refill, and realized that Ryan was still staring at him.

“Lovers?  You?” Ryan said.

“Think you’ve got a corner on the market, Irishman?”  Cáel topped up Ryan’s glass.  “Not everyone goes for poetic lilts, you know.”

Ryan half-laughed.  He picked up his drink.  “So…what is this, then?  Are we on a date?”

Cáel’s stomach seemed to drop out from his body with a sickening, electrifying rush.  It had nothing to do with the whiskey.  He let his hand drop away from the glass and looked at Ryan, wishing his heart would quieten.  “Do you want it to be?”

Ryan was sitting motionless in the chair, the forgotten whiskey glass held in mid-air.  His eyes were narrowed, all emotion shielded.  After a moment, he gave a tiny shrug, and his mouth lifted in a little smile.  “You’ve gotta know, Stelios, I haven’t had a lover for centuries.  Not since—“

“Bullshit,” Cáel replied.

Ryan’s eyes widened, losing their guarded expression.  The surprise was quite clear.  He put his glass back on the bar.

Cáel didn’t give him time to pull his defense shield back together.  “You’ve had plenty of liaisons and partners, and a ton of sex, and that’s just in the 23rd century that Lyle Bean could find out about.  Do you want me to actually name names?”

Ryan opened his mouth to speak.

Cáel jumped in again.  “It doesn’t matter, anyway.  Because you’re hiding behind a distinction.  You don’t mind hot sweaty sex with whoever appeals to you whenever you feel like it, but what you really mean when you say you haven’t had a lover in centuries is that you haven’t fallen in love.  You haven’t had a relationship that lasted longer than a week.  You haven’t had the guts to try, and that’s pretty sad, isn’t it?”

Ryan was breathing hard, his eyes narrowed with anger.  But that was natural reaction.  Cáel had just kicked him in the guts.  Now he had to get him past the moment.

Cáel knocked back his drink and put the glass on the bar with a rap.  “Let’s get rid of the tap-dancing, because we both know how to do it too well, and we could talk me into a too-early grave with diplomatic waltzing.”  He took a breath, to steady himself.  “Do I want to fuck you, Ryan?  Yes.”

____________

Related posts:

1. Working Notes – December 26, 2011 My best wishes to everyone who celebrated Christmas Day yesterday, and for everyone who got the day off from work, I hope you made the...
2. Working Notes – Byzantine Heartbreak is Underway. Yeah! It’s been a weird week. For a start, it’s been very cold. Like, 35 degrees Celsius below zero cold. That’s negative 31 in Farenheit for...
3. Working Notes – December 12, 2011 I’m one of those writers who doesn’t believe in writer’s block.  I don’t think it exists as an independent condition.  If a writer can’t bring...
4. Working Notes – October 24, 2012: Snippit to Tease You Kate’s body tightened again at the idea that he had spared her a moment’s attention, and she frowned at her own vapidness.  “Sudden business trip?”...
5. Working Notes – September 26: Blood Stone I’ve been getting a huge number of hits on the site lately for Brian Austin Green, and the role he played in Terminator: The Sarah...

Constantinople from the Sea of Marmara, with the dome of the world famous Hagia Sophia in the background. It was the largest single domed structure built in the western world at the time. It would be rebuilt twice because of riots and fire.

It’s been a weird week. For a start, it’s been very cold. Like, 35 degrees Celsius below zero cold. That’s negative 31 in Farenheit for all you Imperial-thinking people.

I got Mukluks for Christmas — real authentic ones.  But even at -35, they let the cold in and my feet started to chill up.  I joke at work that I look like an old fashioned babushka:  mukluks, a full length coat, a shawl wrapped around my head, my fur (faux-fur) collar turned up around my ears, and layers and layers of clothes beneath, as I hurry along with my head down.

Only in Canada.

I catch the bus to and from work, so standing around waiting for that bus in the morning is the most miserable thing in the world.  And for some reason, the street where I wait for my bus is always a wind tunnel, even though it’s a perfectly normal suburban neighbourhood street.  Even the slightest breeze at those temperatures is a serious thing.

The location where I catch the bus to come home is just as bad and for some reason, the bus has been late every day this week…except for the two days when I was delayed a few minutes, and then it came early and I missed it, and was forced to wait a horrible 25 minutes on that freezing street for the next (and only) bus to come along.

So it’s been an interesting week.  It takes five minutes sitting on the bus just to get your fingers to unthaw enough to be able to type, let alone get your brain cranked up enough to start writing coherent thoughts.  The cup of double-brewed hot Irish Breakfast tea I take with me in a thermos cup that I get to sip as soon as I sit down is so welcome!

It must be weather-related, too, but the bus has been strangely over-crowded this week.  Every seat full and standing room only, which makes writing a challenge.

Nevertheless, I got all my blog posts caught up, and I started in on Byzantine Heartbreak, the second in the Beloved Blood Time series.  That was my goal for this week, and I’m pleased to say I pulled it off despite the weird challenges.

Here’s a snippet from this week’s scribbles:

An Excerpt From: BYZANTINE HEARTBREAK
Copyright © TRACY COOPER-POSEY, 2012
All Rights Reserved

“What is it?” Ryan nudged gently.

Nayara blinked, her gaze refocusing on him.  “I…it’s…nothing, Ryan.”

“What thought just occurred to you?”

She gave another tiny shrug.  “Nothing.”

Ryan sat his full weight on the window ledge and crossed his arms.  “You’re not really going to try lying to me, are you?”

He watched her hesitate and realized she was weighing up doing exactly that:  lying to him.  Stunned, he wondered what it was she was considering hiding from him.

“Give it up, Nayara.  Now I know you’ve remembered, I’ll dig it out of you with whatever tools I can think to use, if I have to,” he said softly.  “Especially if I think the station is in danger, and you’ve already suggested it might be.”

“No,” she said quickly.  “It’s not.  Not at all.  It’s just the opposite.  I’ve remembered, and it’s stupid.  It’s actually embarrassing.  It’s personal.”  She bit her lip, glanced at him, then her glance skittered away and he saw she really was feeling awkward.

“Since when could you not tell me anything?” he asked.

Her gaze swung back to meet his eyes squarely and she just looked at him.  No coyness.  There was challenge there.

Suddenly, Ryan realized what she would not share.

His gut tightened.  “You like someone,” he said, fighting to keep his expression neutral.

“No, I don’t know if I like them.  I barely know them outside of business,” she said, and Ryan could see that she was picking her words with care.  “Sometimes I find them most irritating.”  She frowned.

“Do you at least want to give me the gender so you don’t have to keep circling around the pronoun?” Ryan asked.

Nayara’s smile was wise.  “So you can build fantasies around me?  Hoping it is a woman, Ryan?”

Hating it’s anyone at all, he thought.  He made himself smile.  “Why not?”

__________________

Related posts:

1. Working Notes – December 26, 2011 My best wishes to everyone who celebrated Christmas Day yesterday, and for everyone who got the day off from work, I hope you made the...
2. Working Notes – December 12, 2011 I’m one of those writers who doesn’t believe in writer’s block.  I don’t think it exists as an independent condition.  If a writer can’t bring...
3. Working Notes – October 18, 2011 Blood Stone is progressing slowly.  I’m not pushing to get vast wordage down fast on this one, even though I’m usually keen to make progress...
4. Working Notes – September 26: Blood Stone I’ve been getting a huge number of hits on the site lately for Brian Austin Green, and the role he played in Terminator: The Sarah...
5. Working Notes – July 4. Blood Knot II If you’re subscribed to my newsletter, you already know that my writing and publishing schedule has taken a short detour. Blood Knot has suddenly become...

Time is theirs to keep. But it comes with a price.

Out any day now.

(Just as soon as I get the book formatted, basically.)

What do you think?

Book’s page.

In the early 23rd Century, vampires learned how to travel back in time, and created a time-tsunami that threated life as we know it, until they corrected their mistake.  They created the Chronometric Conservation Agency, which is tasked with preserving history and therefore protecting humanity’s future.  The Touring arm of the Agency offers trips back into the real past, with vampire guides, called travellers.

When Natalia (Tally) Marta, vampire and traveller, takes her client to visit the seige of Stirling Castle in 1314, she is caught and held hostage for ransom by Robert MacKenzie, a Bruce clansman.  Rob finds himself drawn to the willful, stubborn and very different English lady he has captured and the relationship becomes an intimate, highly-charged sexual pairing.  Swiftly, Tally and Rob realize their bond is more than sexual, that the emotions stirring their hearts are true.

Christian Lee Hamilton, vampire, one of the last true southern gentlemen, and Tally’s ex-lover, knows the 1314 time marker enough to jump back and help Tally return home. His arrival at Bannockburn adds complications, for Christian finds himself drawn to Rob MacKenzie as much as Tally is.  But neither of them can stay in the past forever.  To do so means certain death.

_______________

Related posts:

1. Working Notes – December 12, 2011 I’m one of those writers who doesn’t believe in writer’s block.  I don’t think it exists as an independent condition.  If a writer can’t bring...
2. BLOOD KNOT Nominated Best Erotic Paranormal Romance 2011 My erotic urban fantasy MMF romance, Blood Knot, has been nominated for vampire book of the year by the reviewers at The Romance Reviews. Now...
3. What Is Urban Fantasy, Anyway? Urban Fantasy in the Romance field Defined. It seems like everywhere you turn, these days, you bump into Urban Fantasy. If you’re still trying to figure out what the hell it is,...
4. What Exactly IS Urban Fantasy and How Does it Fit the Romance Landscape? Urban Fantasy has crept into our subconscious and our romance reading via the back door. We started off loving paranormal romance and that is still...
5. Time Travel – The Great Escape Today I am pleased to host Sarah J. McNeal, paranormal and fantasy author, who has just released her time travel novel, Harmonica Joe’s Reluctant Bride,...

I’m one of those writers who doesn’t believe in writer’s block.  I don’t think it exists as an independent condition.  If a writer can’t bring herself to write, then there’s an underlying reason for the “block”.  Resolve that base reason, and the writer will be able to write again.

But there isn’t a disease that blocks writers from writing for no good reason.

I also have never been “blocked,” until this year.

All the marketing experts and industry wisdom, and readers and my sales, everything, insists that the best thing I can do as a writer is to pump out book after book after book, as many as possible, all the same series.  Readers like to read books in a series.  They like to get to know the characters and follow their on-going adventures.  (Right?)

Because of this very sound reasoning, and because I don’t like to let readers (you) down, since March this year I have been faced with writing the sequel to Blood Knot.

2011 has been my annus horribilis (as Queen Elizabeth put it).  It began on Christmas Day in 2010, with the death of my brother, and has rolled onwards with family crises, health crises, and financial crises, until now, here I sit in November with hopefully, the last of it behind me.  I can’t think of what else could possibly go wrong, and I’m not going to tempt fate by speculating on what might.

Throughout all that I started off on a wrong foot.  I began writing a brand new series, Branded Rose.  But then I got some very good advice from a few different sources, and switched over to writing the sequel to Blood Knot, which eventually became Blood Stone.

Now, I’m a fairly prolific writer.  Even with a full time job, I usually manage to crank out about four or five full books a year.

But by early November, I was still sitting on Chapter Three of Blood Stone, and I had to force myself to sit down and write.

Not good.

I stopped for reassessment.  All my “crises” were behind me.  I was (relatively) healthy, and the lights were all green.  There was no reason why I shouldn’t be able to zip through the book, finish it, and get it out for readers, pronto.  Just like usual.

Except…I wasn’t.

The only underlying reason I could think of for not writing the book was the book itself.  For some reason in the back of my brain where I couldn’t reach it, I just didn’t want to write this book.

There was only one way to find out if that was the problem:  Try writing a different book.

I thumbed through my dog-eared and drooled-over collection of series and novel ideas.  Some of them I have been itching to write for years.  Some of them are half-written.  Some series have two or three books already completed, and just need the rest written to be put out there as a complete series.  My collection of ideas is a junk yard of bits and peices, scraps and bodies, skeletons and parts.  For a writer, it’s a goldmine, if you like digging through ideas and story starters and fragments of story, character profiles, etc.

But I didn’t just jump for the series I most wanted to write.  If this was to be a fair experiment, I had to pick a series according to what I thought my readers would want to read the most, and try writing that.

So I did.  I found amongst all my series and novel ideas a series that had all the hallmarks of a great read:  Erotic romance, MMF storylines, urban fantasy, paranormal elements, vampires, and time travel — therefore, historical settings, too.

The series has been retitled:  Beloved Bloody Time.

I brushed off the dust, reworked the storylines and romances, and started writing.

And ohmigod, I can’t stop!

It’s only been ten days since I started working on the first book in the series, Bannockburn Binding, and I’m already more than halfway through the book.  And it’s fun!

So I think my plan is to put out a few books in this series, and then I will go back and tackle Blood Stone.  Or maybe I’ll be suddenly inspired one day and start working on Blood Stone just for the hell of it, and the block will be gone.

For now, I’m writing at full tilt again…and it feels very good indeed.

_____

Update.  I wrote this post and scheduled it about ten days ago.  As of November 26, I finished the book (first draft).  It took me a whole whopping 16 days, and when I couldn’t access my laptop or desktop, I was scribbling notes in my notebook for yet another series idea that is banging inside my head.  I think the dam has burst, well and truly.  Interestingly, I wasn’t actively partipating in National Novel Writing Month, but as I started the book on November 9th and finished on November 26th, I actually did manage to write a book for the month of November, and completed the NaNoWriMo objective, quite by coincidence. 

Tomorrow I’ll be starting Book Two in the series.  :)

______

Here’s a snippet from Bannockburn Binding, and the blurb.

_______________

In the early 23rd Century, vampires learned how to travel back in time, and created a time-tsunami that threated life as we know it, until they corrected their mistake.  They created the Chronometric Conservation Agency, which is tasked with preserving history and therefore protecting humanity’s future.  The Touring arm of the Agency offers trips back into the real past, with vampire guides, called travellers.

When Natalia (Tally) Marta, vampire and traveller, takes her client to visit the seige of Stirling Castle in 1314, she is caught and held hostage for ransom by Robert MacKenzie, a Bruce clansman.  Rob finds himself drawn to the willful, stubborn and very different English lady he has captured and the relationship becomes an intimate, highly-charged sexual pairing.  Swiftly, Tally and Rob realize their bond is more than sexual, that the emotions stirring their hearts are true.

Christian Lee Hamilton, vampire, one of the last true southern gentlemen, and Tally’s ex-lover, knows the 1314 time marker enough to jump back and help Tally return home. His arrival at Bannockburn adds complications, for Christian finds himself drawn to Rob MacKenzie as much as Tally is.  But neither of them can stay in the past forever.  To do so means certain death.

__

Rob managed to stay away from his tent until sunset, then he could stand it no longer.  He found a platter that was near to clean and heaped piping hot stew upon it, grabbed a hunk of honey bread and even managed to scrounge up a spoon.  He took it all back to the tent, with a lantern in the other hand.

She was slumped against the tent pole, her face against her arms.  His heart leapt into his mouth at the paleness of her.  “Natalie, lass,”  he murmured.  “I’ve food for ye.”

She didn’t move and his fear bloomed larger.  After all, she had been doing naught but picking mushrooms.  If he’d killed her….

He sat his burdens down and cut her hands free with his dagger.  She fell against him, a dead weight.

“Ye should’ve called out sooner, lassie,” he told her, knowing she probably couldn’t hear him.  He began to massage her upper arms and shoulders, where most of the strain would have been.

She flashed to life, her knee driving into the front of his kilt, aiming for parts that no maiden should have been aware of.  Her arms stiffened, the elbows driving into his chest.  Her right elbow landed true and his shoulder instantly numbed, leaving his left arm useless.

She squirmed out of his reach and lunged for the dagger he’d left on the skins behind him.

Both furious and amazed, he threw himself on top of her, reaching over her head to pin her forearm to the floor, even as her fingers closed on the haft of the knife.  With his left arm useless, he could only pin her down until his weight and her own struggles exhausted her.

“Wriggle all ye like,” he told her harshly.  “It’ll do naught but tire ye, and make your meal cold.  I have no intention of letting ye take the knife.”  He shook his fingers as feeling started to return to his arm.  “And the longer ye wriggle the sooner my other hand will recover.”

She lay still, silent.  Waiting.

As soon as he was able, he reached with his left hand and tossed the knife far out of the way.  Then he flipped her on her back.

Instantly, she heaved upwards with her head, intending to smash her forehead into his and blind him.  But he had been ready for such a trick and was out of reach, so she did nothing but strain her already stressed shoulders.  She fell back on the skins with a cry of pain, her eyes closing.

It was much too close to a more intimate positioning than Rob cared to consider.  He cleared his throat.  “Ye cannot win any match against me, Natalie.”  His words emerged ragged and harsh.  “D’ye not see?  Will ye not give it up and let me treat ye civilly?”

She was breathing deeply, but the eyes slitted open, showing dark brown and black.  “Give me back my manservant.”

“I canna.”

She turned her head away.  “Then I cannot, either.”

“Look at me,”  he demanded harshly.  When she remained still, he brought both slender wrists under his left hand and gripped her chin to bring her head around.  She merely closed her eyes.

So Rob kissed her, intending merely to shock her into opening her eyes.  And they did open wide, but that was all he noticed before the sensations of kissing her swamped his senses.  Her mouth was soft, pliable and tasted like ripe peaches.  Everything about her was soft, warm, delicate.  His tongue slipped between her lips.  Sips of honey, he thought.

It was the last coherent thought he had.  His body took over.  He let it happen.  The drive to have more of the taste of her, to take more, was overwhelming.  He let his body press against hers, feeling her with every inch of his length where she lay beneath him.

And her tongue met his.

Her soft moan as she melted against him made the internal flame blaze up, demanding more and more.  Silvery excitement shot through him.

Abruptly, with a cold dash of alarm, he realized what he was doing.  What they were doing.

He wrenched himself away and she, too, slithered back until she was up against the tent pole, her arms against her chest defensively.  Her veil had dislodged, reveal pale golden hair tied back in a thick skein at her back.  The brown eyes were very round.  “What…do you think you are doing?”

It was the proper question any maiden would ask.

Rob spoke carefully.  “I am a block-headed fool.  I must be, for the only other truth is that you and I both know what we were just doing.”

She bit her lip.

The small sign of doubt was more endearing than anything else she had said or done this day.  “We cannot,”  she said and it had a hopeless, final quality to it.

“Aye and I would not, not with you.”  He got up, the heaviness in his limbs making his actions awkward.

“Because I am English,”  she said, her voice harsh.

He picked up his dagger and slid it back into his boot.  “Because ye are my captive.  Only the English spoil their winnings, lassie, but ye could say more on that than I.”  He pointed to the platter, which was still steaming.  His hand shook.  “That is for you.  I suggest you eat it, for there’s naught else to be had this night.”  He threw the rope aside.  “I’ll not tie ye again, so I must guard ye instead.  Don’t try to go under the back of this tent, either.  It’s dark now.  Anyone caught wandering the camp who can’t answer the day’s challenge will be run through.”

And he got himself out of his tent while he still could and let the leather fall across the opening.  He hoped it would be barricade enough.

___________________

Related posts:

1. Working Notes – October 18, 2011 Blood Stone is progressing slowly.  I’m not pushing to get vast wordage down fast on this one, even though I’m usually keen to make progress...
2. Working Notes – October 24, 2012: Snippit to Tease You Kate’s body tightened again at the idea that he had spared her a moment’s attention, and she frowned at her own vapidness.  “Sudden business trip?”...
3. Working Notes – September 26: Blood Stone I’ve been getting a huge number of hits on the site lately for Brian Austin Green, and the role he played in Terminator: The Sarah...
4. Working Notes – November 7, 2011 Happy Birthday, Barbara Ann Cooper.  My Mum. My Mum lives in Australia, and believe it or not, she reads every single one of my posts,...
5. Working Notes – July 4. Blood Knot II If you’re subscribed to my newsletter, you already know that my writing and publishing schedule has taken a short detour. Blood Knot has suddenly become...

Kate’s body tightened again at the idea that he had spared her a moment’s attention, and she frowned at her own vapidness.  “Sudden business trip?” she asked, keeping her tone as light and uninterested as she could manage.

“Something like that.”  Adrian’s tone matched hers.  Then it shifted and became deeper.  Sexier.  “I hope you didn’t stay lonely while I’ve been gone?”

Kate couldn’t help the tiny little in-drawn breath.  But it was infinitesimal, and Adrian shouldn’t have been able to hear it.

“You didn’t,” he breathed.  Kate could hear approval and arousal in those two words, and her body tingled in response.  “Who was the lucky guy?” Adrian asked.

“None of your business,” she shot back.

He gave an almost silent laugh.  “He can’t be very good if you were still awake at three a.m.  Ask for your money back, Kate.”

“You’re being figurative, I hope.  Or should I just lay hundred-dollar bills on the mattress when I want to have sex with you?”

His eyes seemed to grow darker.  His gaze seemed to sear past all her internal shields and see her.

She held her breath, realizing what door she had just opened up.

His voice pierced her just as his gaze did.  It thrummed deep in her chest.  “You’d need more money than you could raise to pay for a night with me, Kate Lindenstream,” he told her.

____________________

Related posts:

1. Working Notes – October 18, 2011 Blood Stone is progressing slowly.  I’m not pushing to get vast wordage down fast on this one, even though I’m usually keen to make progress...
2. Working Notes – September 26: Blood Stone I’ve been getting a huge number of hits on the site lately for Brian Austin Green, and the role he played in Terminator: The Sarah...
3. Working Notes – July 4. Blood Knot II If you’re subscribed to my newsletter, you already know that my writing and publishing schedule has taken a short detour. Blood Knot has suddenly become...
4. If You’re Really Alert… For the super energetic Saturday morning browsers, a little bonus.  I’ve just put up a page for the sequel to Blood Knot.  You’ll find some...
5. Working Notes – April 27 I’m still working hard on my next book, the paranormal romance, Branded Rose. I was sidetracked for a while by the launch of Fatal Wild Child....

Blood Stone is progressing slowly.  I’m not pushing to get vast wordage down fast on this one, even though I’m usually keen to make progress as quickly as possible, because there’s so much new in my life just now that everything is so…well, unsettled.  So I’m content with baby steps.

The new job is also hugely time consuming and demands vast tracts of my attention in a way that none of my previous jobs ever did.  There’s not a lot left over after that.  But I’m barely a month in on the job, and technically still wet behind the ears.  So, again, I’m still giving myself time to settle down and get the hang of things before I get worried about slow rates of progress, etc.

But you’ll be pleased to know that ground has been broken on the sequel, and Kate Lindenstream and Garrett have had their first little go-round.  If you’d like a sneak peak, I’ve added an excerpt to the book’s page.  I’ve also uploaded a couple of inspirational images here, showing you how I see Garrett when I’m writing scenes that feature him.  The first one is Garrett as he once was, way back when.  This was how Garrett might have looked, once upon a time, when Garrett and Roman first met.  (Yes, they have a history.)

And this second image is more like Garrett looks today — especially once the events of the story start to unfold and things really start to ramp up.  Garrett finds he’s doesn’t have 100% control of things, like he prefers, after all…

Related posts:

1. Working Notes – July 4. Blood Knot II If you’re subscribed to my newsletter, you already know that my writing and publishing schedule has taken a short detour. Blood Knot has suddenly become...
2. Working Notes – September 26: Blood Stone I’ve been getting a huge number of hits on the site lately for Brian Austin Green, and the role he played in Terminator: The Sarah...
3. What I’m Reading – October 7, 2011 I think the last time I shared what I was reading, I’d just got my new cellphone and was finally revelling in the joys of...
4. If You’re Really Alert… For the super energetic Saturday morning browsers, a little bonus.  I’ve just put up a page for the sequel to Blood Knot.  You’ll find some...
5. Working Notes – April 27 I’m still working hard on my next book, the paranormal romance, Branded Rose. I was sidetracked for a while by the launch of Fatal Wild Child....

A quick follow-up to my announcement the other day about book title rights that have been returned to me, and therefore won’t be available for sale — just for a short while! — while I repackage and beef them up and put them back out there.

Several other books have been returned to me and I’ve taken the “for sale” sign off their pages:

Black Heart
Red Leopard
Solstice Surrender
Masquerade’s Mate
Dangerous Beauty
Forbidden

If you’re interested in obtaining a copy of the new edition of any of these titles (I’ll be releasing in e-book and print for the novel-sized titles), sign up for my newsletter, so that you get a notice of the release of the new edition, or subscribe to my RSS feed via your favourite Newsreader or via Email, to catch any announcement I make on the blog.

____________

Related posts:

1. Working Notes – September 26: Blood Stone I’ve been getting a huge number of hits on the site lately for Brian Austin Green, and the role he played in Terminator: The Sarah...