I’m thrilled to say I was able to write my usual 1,000 words this a.m. Something was missing when I couldn’t do that!

I had an interview that just came out on my friend’s yahoo loop. awakeningdesires@yahoogroups.com
Check it out for more up to date career news. If you want the personal details on my surgery, I put those on my personal blog. http://www.ashlynchase.com

It’s not all that I thought it would be. My fear back then were the usual: would anyone like it, would anyone hate it, would I be able to write another one. It turned out that a lot of people like it and still like it and I was able to come up with new stories. Not just new stories, I came up with two other new series while still developing the elves’ world. I introduced myself to a kind of romance that I hadn’t considered writing before (m/m) but I find that I’m rather enjoying. I finally cashed in on some of the many fantasies that I had back when I was a teenager dreaming about my favorite rock star. I got to finally write about elves, my favorite fantasy race. I got to write my take on witches and shifters. Fun stuff.

Now I have different fears. As is the case with so many things in life, it’s a ‘careful what you wish for’ scenario. I wanted to write for a living and now I have that chance. I’m not supporting myself and my family fully, but I’m halfway there. Now, of course, I actually have to write. I’ve got to keep it up. I not only feel the need to think up brand new characters, I’m still playing with the old ones. Heaven Sent ended up being nine books in the original arc, and I’m adding another now plus planning a sequel series. The elves’ sixth book is my next project. It’s the end of the arc that I have planned, but I don’t rule out the possibility of revisiting the world. The Leashed series has just reached a plateau but I’ve got more planned for Meg, Michael and Rudy. But I can’t just lose myself in these alternate worlds. I’ve still got to live in this world. I still get distracted. I get tired. The family wants me to check in with them now and again. Besides, if I don’t check into the real world once and awhile, I’ll lose touch with it completely and my stories do draw on the real stuff from time to time.

So, I’m finding my balance. Wish me luck.

**************************

Free stories by Jet Mykles

Have you set new goals for the year? Are you going to? Tomorrow I’ll post about setting good, achievable goals.

My goals for the new year: 1200-1400 words a day. I’ve also set up quarterly goals instead of just the annual goal so I will pay more attention this year. What about you? What are your goals?

I hope 2008 was a wonderful year for you and wish for 2009 to be one of the best! Thank you for being the best fans a bunch of gals could hope for.

Happy New Year!

Dawn Montgomery

http://www.dawnmontgomery.com/blog

Strangely enough, my list of CYTs is pretty much my list from my GFY stories. Tyler, Kyle, Aaron and Scott are chief among them. OK, Tyler was in his late twenties in Heaven, but that’s still young. Heck, I’ve got a CYT in the elves books and he was close to 200 years old when we first met him–that would be Jarak, btw. Matt and Noah from my two MLR anthologies fall in the CYT category. Rudy from Leashed definitely qualifies. Hell, Darien and Reese would qualify as well. Tristan from my Sacred Bands story qualifies. Heck, there’s a CYT in pretty much all of my m/m stories.

Bugged me for awhile, tbh. The cps write CYTs too, but they’ve got a lot more rugged and buff guys than I do. James and Laura definitely write MEN. Jen’s Nate and Simon are definitely MEN. I felt for awhile that I really should push my guys a little more toward the manly side and away from the cute and/or androgynous (if not downright effeminite). However, I have given up that notion. Why? I’ve decided that’s my thing. I can blame yaoi, but truth is I’ve been a fan of the look for a long time. Tolkien-type elves were always my type. Tall and willowy and just too pretty for words. I’ve also always liked the guys who push the gender boundaries. Guys that didn’t need to be manly men. I guess it’s my schtick. The SO is six-foot-one and slim. I’ve seen pics of my dad when he was young and he was the same. All the guys I’ve liked in my life were similar in build. That’s what I go for so I guess that’s what I’m bound to write.

(Of course, I say that but in the WIP I’ve got a big guy as one of the heros. But he’s like that for a reason)

Anyway, I’ve let myself go with it. That’s probably what you can depend on from me. At least I’m relatively faithful, huh?

For others they have the beginning of the greatest novel ever written…if only it would get done, or several works in progress that need to be ended, polished and submitted…

Some thought NaNo was a failure, others a challenge that tore them apart or lifted them up. I walked with a few people across that finish line, cheering them on (or driving them with a timekeeper’s whip!), and celebrated with others who may not have won, but did something amazing…finally finished a chapter, tore down a writing block, dodged a potential plotting hazard, wrote more words than ever before…You catch my drift.

So here’s the big question…what now?

That’s easy. Keep writing, editing, polishing and submitting manuscripts. No, it’s okay. I hear you scoffing at me, asking me if I’ve lost my mind. How in the world could I ever expect you to keep up NaNo intensity year round?

I don’t.

I expect you to find a groove and stick with it. Let’s say you write 250-300 words a day (2-3 paragraphs). That’s FOUR novellas (25K) a year. Four potential releases! Or TWO category length (55K) novels a year…wow! Or ONE full-length (single title) novel (90K +) a year! That’s amazing, isn’t it? All those little words add up. Whether you’re writing two paragraphs a day or 1,667 a day, remember this…you can’t edit a blank page. Get out there and keep going!

Do you need help/motivation polishing up your manuscript from NaNo? Harlequin Romance has a forum dedicated to post NaNo editing. Romance Divas have areas and workshops in their forum to help. NaNoWriMo has a post NaNo care area for those who are struggling with the “what now?” question.

Either way, I’m proud to continue sweating with you guys if you’re feeling the groove…after a week off, of course. I’m TIRED!

XoXo,

Dawn Montgomery

http://www.dawnmontgomery.com/blog

12 Gingersnaps, 12 chances to win free ebooks for a year…

* Does not include those who wrote in their own unofficial NaNo programs or spinoffs, family members who lost their novel writing relatives for a month, or the poor pets who missed their humans.

I am also a neurotic planner. I storyboard, I write out character sheets for my main characters, I have world notes, etc. This is good UNTIL I need to look up something and I can’t remember which file its in or on which computer. Then I can quickly drive myself to insanity. Okay – MORE insanity. This is even more true right now when my primary writing laptop is awaiting a hardware repair and files are backed up but not in their usual places.

My friend showed me the story binder she keeps for her complex paranormal world and a light went on for me. This is what I need to do.

The binder is divided into a few primary sections:

• Primary Characters
• Secondary Characters
• Villains
• Locations
• World Notes
• Reference and Research Material

She updates the binder when she writes each book. She happens to be a pantser (shhh—she hates that term) so she does it after each book is out of edits.

To me, at least, it makes perfect sense. Here is a home for all the various info I create or collect before I start to write the story. I bet I can even get in the storyboard (or a photo or transcription thereof).

So, since I have three worlds created that need to be tracked, I stopped at the office supply store on the way home and bought a couple of binders and dividers and one of my goals for the times when it’s too busy/noisy for me to concentrate on writing is to set up the binders for my worlds. It’s a great way to keep track of the information and world rules and have it handy to leaf through without hunting through the electronic files for them.

I’ve come back around to a story that involves building an entirely different world. It didn’t really hit me until recently, but before my latest project, I hadn’t built a full world since the Dark Elves. The Leashed world is pretty much modern day with a few changes so that doesn’t count. Heaven Sent is based on the real world, so that doesn’t count.

For the elves, I had to come up with an entirely different way that things worked. There was magic and a medieval sort of setting not to mention a race of elves that lived underground and never saw the sun. So that took some adjustment, to say the least. But it turned out okay.

Now I’m dealing in another fantasy world. This one’s closer to steampunk. I won’t claim to be a huge follower of steampunk so it’s certainly my own version of things. There is technology but it’s more circa the 1800s. Modes of transportation are mainly trains and horses, although I think there may be some rudimentary automobiles. There is magic. One of my main characters is a divinely blessed judge. When in his judgment trance, he can sense truth and lies. So he serves as judge and jury in one. Another key element to my story is a combination drug and spell called ‘hextasy’. When you take it, the sex is ramped up to amazing levels but you can only be satisfied by the one you most desire. Anyone else doesn’t qualify. It can kill you. Thus, one of the bases of my story.

It’s fun (thank god!) but it’s probably going to be long. I’m at 20K now and I might be a third of the way through it. I’m not sure. The story and the characters keep on changing on me. Not drastically–well, mostly–but enough to keep altering things. I got a whole new character in the mix who wasn’t supposed to be have but a bit part but… well… he reminds me of Luc from Heaven Sent. He all of a sudden presented himself and said “hey, didn’t you know that I…” <<sigh>> add to it that the cps have fallen for him and there you go.

So anyway, the new story is currently called Judgment but that’ll likely change pretty soon.  The cps pointed out that it was very reminiscent of a Heaven Sent title so it might get confusing. I might end up calling it “Sursein Judgment” or just “Sursein” after the god that blessed the judge character mentioned above. We’ll see.

So what is it?  Do we write for the love of our publishers?  Hell no.  I may be wrong, but I think I’ve noticed a trend of money making the world go around and that includes the publishing industry.  My publisher might love me if I made her a rich woman, but I’m not in that 5% yet…so no.  I’m not one of the fortunate authors “singled out” for special treatment because I could afford to put my boss in a yacht.

So where are we getting our love from?  Simple.  Readers.  Who else have no obligation to love us, but do, simply because we shared something we created and they loved it? Readers, reviewers, fans…call them what you will, that’s who keeps us going.    

I received a fan letter two days after Love Cuffs was released. I recently asked the reader if I could share her letter and she gave me an enthusiastic ‘yes,’ so here it is.

Unsolicited fan letter

Hi; I just finished reading Love Cuffs and wanted you and your writing partner Dalton Diaz to know how much I enjoyed it.  It was just about the most entertaining and funny story I’ve read to date; certainly up there with the likes of Amarinda Jones who also writes humorous erotic fiction (a favorite Authoress of mine).  I almost didn’t read it Love Cuffs either and boy, would I have missed out on one fabulous tale.  I normally don’t read stores written in the first-person and that is what almost kept me from reading Love Cuffs BUT thankfully the subject of the story attracted me and I dove-in!

It’s a wonderfully humorous story and I loved it from beginning to end.  You (Ashlyn) and Dalton did a fantastic writing job and I’ll be looking for more of your stories in the future.  I did notice that there are already stories out by you and I’ll be checking into those shortly. 

Thank you for such a find story.  It’s always a pleasure to find new favorite writers. 

Take care.

Colleen

Goleta, CA

Thank you, Colleen. It’s words like yours that keep us putting our words together in semi-coherent ways for the love of it, and you make it worth everything we go through to share the love with you.  I don’t know where I’d be without kind words from my readers.  There are so many people out there ready to tear you down without blinking, but a letter like this can make all the difference in my day, week, month and career! 

So when we’re not making as much money as we know we’re worth, what makes up for it?  You do, readers!  You do.

Ash

I liked answering so much, I thought I’d share here too.

I don’t really think about it in terms of tricks or anything. I think of it in terms of characters. Each person is unique and each couple is unique. I figure out pretty quickly what turns my characters on and why they’re attracted to the other. Then I use that. For me, that manages to always keep it fresh. To use the Heaven Sent boys as examples, Darien looks at sex from a different angle than Johnnie, and not just because he ends up being a bottom. He’d far prefer being caught than doing the stalking and we all know Johnnie much prefers the hunt. But even Darien and Tyler are different and they both started off het and got convinced that gay was the way to go. They think differently, so they act differently, so the sex is different. At least, that’s how I’ve always looked at it.

Even when it’s kind of the “same scene”–eg sex in a bed or in an alley–the circumstances are invariably different. Where were they before this? Have they slept together yet? Is this one of their first time? Is it day or night? Are there other people in the “house”? Even little things like is the bed made or is the window open can make a scene that’s pretty much the same as another into a unique thing.

Even in the few times that I did come up with the scene first–as in, “oh man, I want to write a scene using that toy!” (yes, it’s happened)–I immediately think of what kind of person would want to use the thing. What happened to give them the kink? Or was it a new thing that just kind of landed in their lap? Is their chosen partner for or against? Expecting it or surprised? Again, it goes back to the characters where all I said above applies.