Wewriwa 05/27/2013

It's that time again, time for the Weekend Writing Warriors Sunday Snippet. I have another 8 sentences from my paranormal romance in progress, Eternity's Price. Last week, Catie and Eli finally got together, admitting their love for each other after he arrived home from going to England to deal with his Sire once and for all. This snippet is from the next night, and is their first date. We're in Eli's viewpoint, and they have been talking about a necklace he had given her to hold onto while he was in England. He was surprised that she had actually been wearing it the whole time instead of just "putting it in a drawer somewhere." Somehow, her explanation of why she wore it devolved into a discussion about their relative ages. The dialogue that starts the snippet is Catie talking.

"This is what I mean about you not getting it. You don't even get what it is that you don't get."
 
He could only stare at her. She wasn't making the slightest bit of sense. Yet that was somehow his fault for not understanding her. He wondered idly if this was a product of their ages, or if it was more of a gender thing. He made a mental note to ask some of his younger friends if this made any more sense to them than it did to him. Maybe William could explain it to him.

Hmm... Yes, let's see if William can explain it. This sounds like a plan. And in two weeks we'll see how well that works. Next week is another scene of Catie hunting - though it will be a bit different than the first time I showed that. In the meantime, don't forget to check out all the other great writers over at www.wewriwa.com

And check back on Wednesday for my weekly ramble. I have a few different ideas for it, so not sure which one it will be about.

Thanks for stopping by. And, as always, comments are always welcome.

Wewriwa 05/19/2013

Welcome back, everyone. It's that time of the week, again. Time for another snippet of Eternity's Price, my paranormal romance WIP. I am in rough draft scenes, so I admit these may not be very polished. In this scene Eli has returned from England, and he's a bit upset about everything. Catie has found him in the streets.   After a fairly long talk, she ended up confessing that she's in love with him, and to her surprise he told her that he loves her too. Catie has expressed concern that he may just be rebounding, and that she may be taking advantage of him. This snippet is his reply.

Eli sighed and stood up, pulling Catie to her feet along with him. He put his arms around her, holding her close. "I promise that you are taking advantage of nothing. I promise that someday I will find a way to prove that to you. For right now you are just going to have to trust me. You are just going to have to trust that I love you. You are going to have to trust that I would never do anything to hurt you, and that I'm well aware that taking what you're offering me and not giving the same thing in return will hurt you. Trust me, Catie."

Aww... he's such a sweetheart. Now the question is, can they really make this work, under the circumstances? Keep coming back to find out. And in the meantime, don't forget to check out all the other great writers over at www.wewriwa.com

And here's some mood music. This scene I actually had two songs on a loop for. So, here they are:

Thanks for stopping by. Tomorrow I'll post the character bio I was supposed to post this weekend, come back to check it out.

The Nature of Fear

I don't usually write about my personal life, but something happened on Sunday that is still freaking me out a bit, so here goes.

There's a bike path probably about a city block or two from my house. Not sure of the distance, because I don't live in the city, so we don't have city blocks to measure with - but I think it's about that far. Anyway, we had planned to go for a walk on the path with the two youngest kids - both two years old. None of the older kids wanted to go, so my mom went inside to ask my dad and brother-in-law to come outside to watch them, while the rest of us went for a walk. Problem was that my nephew went in with her.

Why was this a problem, you ask? Because when they came back out, he decided that he wasn't going to wait for the rest of us and started running up the driveway. We didn't think anything of it, we have a long driveway, and he's allowed to play on it up to a certain point. And he knows that point and is usually very good about staying where he's allowed to be. Except this time... he didn't.

Wewriwa 05/13/2013

Welcome back, everyone. It's that time again, time for another snippet of my paranormal romance Eternity's Price. Last week we saw Eli stand witness to the execution of his Sire. This week's scene takes place around the same time as that scene. Give or take me having not quite worked out details like time zones and such. We're in Catie's viewpoint as she runs into someone she had known when she was mortal. He's been filling her in on certain political issues the city will be facing, soon.

Introducing: Adam

Full Name: Adam Cotiso

Age: Unknown

Apparent Age: 33

Height: 6'5"   Weight: 210

Family: Sicarii

Born so long ago that even HE doesn't remember exactly how old he is, in what would eventually become Serbia. He was born a peasant, but trained to become a warrior. He eventually caught the eye of a vampire named Lucien who turned him when he was about 33. The training he received from Lucien turned him from an average warrior to a highly skilled assassin. This training included some special vampiric abilities that are fiercely guarded secrets known only to the Sicarii.

Eventually he met a mage named Nicolaus Areleos and became close friends with him. When Nicolaus accidentally shot his younger sister with an arrow while hunting, he turned to Adam for help. Adam turned Polly into a vampire in order to save her. Fifteen years later, Polly had a vision of the end of the world, and she, Nicolaus, and the other mages asked Adam for help in averting it. He agreed to help and was thus set down a path that led him to Sangue Collina. He arrived about 10 years ago, wanting to be in place before the crisis started.

He stays in the shadows, for the most part. Almost everything he does is for the sake of playing his part in Nicolaus's plan. A plan that seems to include sacrificing the few for the sake of the many. The question is exactly who and how many will end up sacrificed? And that is a question that even Adam doesn't know the answer to.

About the picture: Adam is a very scary dude. He's big. He's strong, even for a vampire. He radiates a rather menacing vibe. If I was writing a screenplay, this part would be pretty much written for Vin Diesel. And this picture just seems to capture Adam's "do not fuck with me" attitude so perfectly. Attribution: "Vin Diesel" by Vindieseloff under license CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The end of camp nano

Well, Camp Nano ended on Tuesday. I'm quite proud of myself, I met my goal. I wrote 31,166 words in April, bringing my total word count on this thing up to 44,756. I don't know how coherent most of it is, but it is there. In the process of doing this I've learned a few things about myself, my writing process, and the book itself that I find quite interesting. So, here's some of what I've learned:

1.) I write best in 15 to 30 minute spurts, especially if I'm using a timer that I can't pause. I can set the timer, tune everything else out and just go to town with it. I think my record is 430 words in 15 minutes.
2.) I've become less of a perfectionist this month than I have been. This thing is riddled with typos and I quite frankly do not care. This is oddly freeing. It was still automatic to go back and fix some things as I was typing, but I wasn't nearly as picky about it as I usually am. Not to mention that I'm not sure how much sense it actually makes in some places. This whole "just puke it out and fix it later" thing is very new to me. But I've been more productive than usual, and I'll take that trade-off.
3.) Characters will develop their own minds and randomly take the thing in a direction I never planned. Some things I've learned about them:
  3a.) Vampires are projective telepaths. I did not know this until Eli stood in a field and "called" Ana.
  3b.) Catie is an empath. My muse is currently pondering the possibilities inherent in having one of the MC's of a romance novel being an empath. (My muse disturbs me, sometimes.)
  3c.) One of my secondary characters seems to have a thing for Catie. This makes me want to slap him. He was NOT supposed to have feelings for her. I did NOT set out to write a love triangle.
4.) I have learned that I am not the one trick-pony I was afraid I might be. I now have ideas for 4 more books in this universe - two of which are direct spin-offs from Eternity's Price.
5.) I am actually perfectly capable of writing 5,000 words in one day if I set my mind to it.

All in all, this was a great experience. I just hope that I can keep it going to meet my final goal of having the rough draft done by the end of July. Wish me luck.

And that is my semi-coherent ramble for today. I'll post Adam's bio later today to finish catching up.

Wewriwa 05/05/2013

Welcome back, everyone. It's that time, again. Time for another snippet of my paranormal romance in progress, Eternity's Price. Last week was Catie's reaction to Eli leaving for England for a fight to the death with his Sire. Fighting against your own Sire is generally not a good idea. Vampires get stronger with age, so there's that whole "anything you can do, I can do better" thing. But, Eli has  an ace up his sleeve - the element of surprise, and the fact that he's not alone. This snippet is from right after he's used that element of surprise to stake her (an act that only paralyzes them, rather than killing them). Eli is talking. And we're coming in mid-speech. I just really like the end of his little speech.