Writing Updates (as much daily as I can handle) and Snippets
Wrote about 500 words for the Penumbra tale. Skipped ahead to a scene that was occupying my mind.
Still no Wolf cover. Apologies. Still hoping for a weekend release.
Sister is here, and it's good. We're also getting a LOT of snow, so walking will be fun tomorrow. Definitely Lake Effect at work here.
I'll share a bit of Leander. Have fun:
The woman sighed. “There’s a lot to explain, and I don’t want to do that here and now. You’ll find clothes on the dresser. Meet me in the sitting room.”
He stared after her when she simply marched out of the room. After a while, he shrugged, slipped out of bed and dressed in the clothes she had laid out for him. They were a shockingly good fit and of a much better quality than he was used to. Strange, really. What was going on here?
There was only one way to find answers, so he went in search of Melody. Walking down the stairs to the first floor, he realized that he felt just fine. Maybe even a little stronger than he was used to, and there was a bounce in his steps that he rarely felt. A single day after almost dying?
Okay, so no uploading today. sigh
Cover designer hasn't finished the cover yet, which is fine. But it also means no cover reveal. I do hope I can get all of it done tomorrow, but it will be a close thing.
You see, my sister comes over for the weekend, arriving around noon tomorrow, and while she knows I might have to take time out of the visit for my book, she also has PLANS.
I'm writing a little for Penumbra. Still need a good title for that little prequel (and all the others that might follow).
“Winston. We have at least one Shade in this town, and we really must stop it. We need better leads. I’m sure it has already killed, and I know it’ll kill again.”
“Well, why don’t you go and explain all this to the good detective? I’m sure he’ll hurry up just for you.” Yes, Winston was good at sarcasm. He had plenty of time to perfect it.
“You know we can’t do that.” Melody whirled and stalked away, unable to face that man any longer. Unfortunately, she needed him. Nobody was better than Winston at digging up lost information.
Feeling hugely accomplished: I just formatted A Wolf's Christmas and gave the cover designer the number of pages in the PDF.
Now we wait for the finalized cover. I'm fairly confident I can upload both versions tomorrow.
Phew.
I did it!
I just wrote The End under the Epilogue of the Wolves, after a thorough edit.
Tomorrow, I'll do a final, final read-through and plonk the file into Atticus. Tomorrow evening, I'll have the epub and the print PDF, and can tell my cover designer about the page numbers.
I saw the final cover just now, and it looks awesome! I hope can find the time to do a quick cover reveal. Will upload to all stores on Thursday.
I've done this so many times. And yet, it's still exciting!
Not sure where to put this, but I just found a wonderful new review for one of my books on Amazon.
"This was beautiful. And thrilling. It keeps you on your toes because you just HAVE to know how the story goes on. You'll probably fall in love with the main character. I know I did.
I particularly liked that it wasn't romance heavy but very emotional. You really got to feel for all the characters, even those who are antagonists. It shows what grief can do to people and ultimately that love can overcome nearly everything."
Not a lot of writing - I do need to think about the next chapter of the Penumbra Prequel. There is a side character I need to develop more. (And knowing me, that side char might well become a main char in a sequel.)
On the other hand, I did edit (clean up) about half of the Wolf story. Added footnotes for the German sentences and marked them as German (I hope that will help with the audiobook).
Nothing new from the cover designer yet. I hope I can do a cover reveal tomorrow or Wednesday. Still planning to release on Thursday, but Friday would also be just fine.
So no snippet today, sorry. But help me find a good place to share my Penumbra work... would appreciate pointers.
Not sure what happened to the day.
I ended up writing about 500 words for a prequel for a new vampire series Writer Brain keeps pushing at me. I hope I can keep it to a short novella. Title is "Penumbra". Yes, it makes sense.
I read a comfort book or two, played Spider Solitaire, cooked food (need to improve my sauce-fu) and kind of lost myself.
Let me share the beginning of "Penumbra". (My character kept surprising me, such fun!):
It was raining.
Of course, it was raining. This was bloody New York, after all, and at this time of the year, it was just as likely to snow as it was to rain.
Leander flipped up the collar of his coat for a little more protection before stepping out from under the eaves and onto the sidewalk. He walked fast, with the stride of a man who knew exactly where he was going and why.
In truth, he was just trying to put distance between himself and the body. Discovering it had been a little shock, but he’d grabbed what he had been sent to find and hurried to get away, leaving no trace of his presence.
Leander kept walking, keeping his stride, slipping out of the neighborhood, making sure to shake any tail, ignoring the rain. Something had not been right, something was bothering him, and it wasn’t the body.
It certainly wasn’t the first one he had seen, and more than likely also wasn’t the last. At least this time, there hadn’t been much blood. It was always easier without the blood. Something about that always made his stomach queasy. Not that he would admit that to anyone. He was a damn P.I., and he was good at what he did. Nobody needed to know about his reaction to blood.
Day... never mind. NaNo is basically done.
Didn't write today, but I survived the office day, an unexpected change of plans, had a loooong and very good phone call with an old friend and former colleague and found an awesome new review for West Flows on Amazon DE.
In addition, I got a preview of the cover for A Wolf's Christmas and it's already looking amazing. It needs a tweak or two, and then it'll be brilliant. I'll probably show it off in a couple of days.
I have most of the Christmas presents sorted. Yes, there will be two ugly Christmas Sweaters. I just had to... chocolate, maple syrup, and possibly a book (still have to figure out which one).
Even so, let me hear your brilliant ideas about more presents!
(Oh, and I just got my nephew to send me pics of Frankfurt Airport so I can get the Christmas deco right. That will make the editing so much more fun!)
Have today's sunrise in lieu of a snippet.
Day 21 of NaNoWriMo (not making the full 50k, no chance).
But I wrote the final chapter, which is a bedscene, basically, just skipping the actual deed. The Epilogue will be Christmas Eve, with the presents and everything.
And I'm stuck on presents? Who gets what? I need presents for Mark, Fred, Alex, Maria (Alex' mom) and Luka (Alex' friend).
Ideas? Please help me out!
Day 20 of NaNoWriMo, and I feel like I'm done. Didn't write again.
I know what I need to do to finish the story: One more sweet chapter and the epilogue (which will be Christmas Eve). And then I need to go through the thing and sprinkle Christmas stuff all over it. Plus add more emotions and heartbreak just before the showdown.
It's all very doable, but today I went and hibernated again... well, not quite. I sent out an invoice for my proofreading and added a video to my new FediChannel.
So it's not a lost day at all.
Instead of a snippet, would you help me find a better name for the Villain? Can you pick a German name that you'd love to hate?
I need to find a word for those days that feel as if I'm locked in a dark cave or something. No writing. Lots of reading and playing Titan Quest.
In good news, I managed to order the cover for A Wolf's Christmas today, so that's a huge step forward. Should have it next weekend. I'm quite excited about that, because the cover designer has always managed to pick faces that work really well with my characters.
I also set up my video channel on PeerTube, which is the Fediversion of YouTube, just without ads, algorithms and spying on people. It's part of my move away from the TechBro internet, at least much as possible. You can actually subscribe to it! And there is an RSS feed, not that it's worth it for my rare video.
https://makertube.net/c/hannahs_words_and_more/videos
So some stuff happened, just no writing. I'm trying to be okay with that.
I'm building a larger foothold in the Fediverse - just uploaded my first ever video to MakerTube.
It's the first of five fairly short videos I made pretty much exactly three years ago, of me reading one of my reader magnet short stories. Prince Elsen's ride is a quick adventure for a much repressed prince, his dragonrider friend Gerrik and the dragon Fingin. I'll post the other videos soon.
Start here: https://makertube.net/w/wsEKduxwNX64WnBeBBFSBf
Day 18 of NaNoWriMo, and suddenly, the Wolf Novella is almost done. Wrote 1500 words today.
The showdown happened a lot faster than I expected, but Mark had no patience left, and the villain lost his nerves anyway.
Now I have one really sweet chapter left to write and decided that the Epilogue will be Christmas Eve. Looks like the story will clock in a little under 40k.
Day was weird. I did quite a few chores while waiting for our janitor. He never came, and I hate that. I would have liked to go on a long walk... I also had a lovely chat with my sister and then a Zoom with a friend. Good for the soul.
Have some Wolves:
It took ages for the police to sort through everything. Fred was an absolute star and handled all the officials with skill and calm. Alex and I got away with pretending to be dogs, and none of the police even questioned our presence. One of them even patted my head and praised me for defending Maria. I wagged my tail for her, but we spent most of the time lazing around in the kitchen.
Yesterday, I tried a new author with a new romance series. Yes, shifters, yes, MM.
It was okay. Modern setting, with a feudal system, (Dragon King is the king of all shifters), and a nice court intrigue story. Also hilarious Christmas sweaters and a few strong women as side characters.
If you want to check it out, here it is: "Notorious" (Shifter Scoundrels Book 1) by Charlie Cochet and Macy Blake.
Guten Morgen.
Here's the promised post with a snippet of what I wrote yesterday. (It is getting harder to find passages that do not contain spoilers... but I doubt that what I'm sharing is a huge spoiler, especially if you read my series.)
Writer Brain also ambushed me again at night, and I have another new series idea, this time Vampires with a twist. Not quite the never-ending series that the Shifters offer, but similar. A bit darker than my usual stuff, maybe, with a romance subplot and happy for now endings.
Yes, I have an ideas folder. I truly need to live a few hundred years to write all the books I want to write. (Does anyone know a friendly vampire or demigod who could grant me a nice extension of my lifetime?)
Have some Wolf:
It was a relief to have Mark sitting next to me. He still looked like hell and he carried himself as if in great pain, but he was alive and, well, going to be fine.
That kiss kept playing out in my memory.
I knew what it meant. Every Wolf girl did.
It was a surprise and yet it wasn’t.
Being with Mark had always been fun and easy. He treated me like an equal, he celebrated my successes and commiserated with me when I messed up. And I did the same for him.
Playing dog for him was just as much fun.
Cover Reveal!
While I was out with my sister, enjoying an awesome day in the snow, my cover designer finalized the design, and now I'm sharing the cover with you.
I love Fred and Mark. Love how sweet they look, love the background and the fact that she incorporated one of my very own images in it (of the tower with the city gate in it).
Enjoy the Wolves!