Anya Bast

27,000 / 85,000 (31.8%)

Progress on The Darkest Kiss.

It’s the first day of the challenge, so I thought I’d post where I am and where I’m going. I’m working on The Darkest Kiss, deadline at the end of September. I usually chart my progress by word count, rather than page count, so I’m figuring out my daily writing commitment this way.

One page = 320 words (on average with my font and page set up)

The Sweaty 70 requires between 4 and 6 pages a day, which means between 1,280 and 1,920 words a day, but my word count goal is actually 3,000 words a day and I’m sticking with that one. 🙂

Today I’ve written 700 words so far. Only 2,300 more to go!

I might occasionally post snippets or quotes from the ms. Here is today’s: “Blood hunger stirred within him, restless for a drink that had nothing to do with the imported bourbon in the glass he held.”

I’m doing it. You should too!

I will be writing The Darkest Kiss (the title might change) for the challenge. It’s a futuristic vampire romance. Yes, this is a new one! My agent and I just accepted an offer from Berkley Heat for this one. 🙂 It will be out in 2008. Squeeeeee!!!!

Between getting The Darkest Kiss finished and completing the proposals for the next two books in the Elemental Witches series, I have my hands full. But that’s good!!

Just FYI —

I love Gail Dayton’s series originally published by Luna. The Compass Rose and The Barbed Rose are the first two books. So I was very, very bummed when Luna decided not published the third book in the trilogy — The Eternal Rose.

Luckily Juno Books picked up the third and it’s out next month! You can pre-order it at Amazon.com now.

Just spreading the word.  I already have my copy ordered. 🙂

Thirteen CDs I Can Listen to All the Way Through (without skipping any tracks)

It’s rare to find a CD that you can listen through from beginning to end without running to the stereo to press “skip”. I managed to think of thirteen.

1. Sting — Nothing Like the Sun
2. Liz Phair — Whitechocolatespaceegg
3. Aqualung — Strange and Beautiful
4. Galactic — Coolin’ Off
5. Velvet Revolver — Contraband
6. The soundtrack to Singles
7. Mary Chapin Carpenter — Partydoll and other favorites
8. U2 — Rattle & Hum
9. Wolfstone — The Half Tail
10. Elizabeth Mitchell — You Are My Little Bird (This is actually kid’s music, but she does it in a way that appeals to adults too.)
11. Evanescence — Fallen
12. Maroon 5 — Songs About Jane
13. Pearl Jam — TenLinks to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. Rhian

2. burntofferings

3. Tempest Knight

4. Tink

5. Delicious Darkness

6. Seeley deBorn

7. Sparky Duck

8. N.J. Walters

9. tvaddictgurl

10. Ann

11. Marissa

12. Lauren Dane

13. Susan Helene Gottfried

14. Lisa Andel

15. spyscribbler

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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This is something I’ve been wanting to blog about for a while. I’ve noticed in recent years on lists and reader’s boards talk of the TSTL heroine. TSTL stands for Too Stupid to Live, btw. 

I have encountered the TSTL heroine many times in my reading life. I know her when I see her. She’s the one haring off without a care, endangering herself, and needing to be saved by the hero. But once in a while I’ll run into someone saying that a particular heroine is TSTL just because, say, she didn’t get permission from the hero to do something.  This has always made me go hmmmm. I’ve talked about this on my discussion board at length.

Here’s the deal, characters have to have the proper motivation to do dangerous things.

For example, if the heroine is in a darkened, tumble-down mansion at midnight and hears something clunking around and groaning in the basement, she would be TSTL if she just flounced down the stairs asking, “Who’s there?” without waiting for the hero (who, I dunno, was out taking a walk or whatever) to come back and accompany her. 

She would not be TSTL if her baby brother was somewhere in the basement, being held captive by whatever was making the clunking and groaning sounds. In the second scenario, she has the proper motivation to venture into the dark by herself (hopefully she takes a weapon!) because someone she loves is at risk. 

I don’t think the heroine in a romance novel always needs the permission or presence of the hero in order to make big decisions that may endanger her life….as long as she has the proper motivation. This goes for the hero, too. (I wonder why we never hear of heroes being TSTL?)  This behavior might make the heroine stubborn or over-protective, but I don’t think it necessarily makes the heroine stupid. The thought that the heroine always needs the approval of the male character to make these decisions kind of bugs me.

I went back to the post in which I begged people for blogging topics and saw that I missed this question… 

I’ve got a question (or more). When is the length of a book decided? Who decides how long a book is going to be … is it the author, the publisher … or the book itself? Has any book you have written taken on a life of it’s own in a way you didn’t expect … and if so, how did you deal with it? Is there a particular length of book you prefer to write? Is it harder to write long stories or short ones … 

To a large degree it’s the book that decides the length, since when the story is done, it’s just done. It spins out naturally and any attempt to make it longer is just padding. Padding ruins the pacing and might even ruin the book. Every scene has to have a goal, motivation and conflict. Every scene needs to advance the plot and further develop the characters, so scenes that don’t do that?…bad. 

But, since I’m a plotter and not a pantster, (a pantster is a writer who doesn’t really plan out the book before they write. They just do it “by the seat of their pants”), I can control how long a book is going to be before I start it. 

For example, for quickies like Edge of Sweetness, I kept the plot fairly simple and made my objectives modest going in. With short stories like that one, the characterization has to be in every single line, every piece of dialogue, every movement that the character makes because there’s so little space to develop them. But when I intend to write that short, I plan for it and don’t let the plot get out of control. 

For longer books, like Water Crystal, the plot was large to begin with and I knew it would take 120,000 words to tell it all. And it did. 

Then some books surprise me. Witch Blood came in about 10k over what I’d intended. That was a case of the book deciding how long it needed to be. Of course, my editor may not concur. *g* Maybe I’ll be cutting it down shortly.

Waaaaahooooooooo!!!!!!

I put the finishing touches on Witch Blood this morning and it is out the door. Whew!! Witch Blood clocks in over 10k longer than Witch Fire, so we’ll see what my editor has to say about that.

*does Dance of Joy*

That’s going to get me some weird Google hits.

My husband pointed out this morning that you can always tell where I’ve been working on my laptop during the day because there is at least one bra and one pair of shoes discarded there. I really hate bras. I’m not much of a shoe fan, either. So whenever I sit down, the first thing I do is shed both. So if one wants to see where I’ve been spending the most time in my house, just look for the bra.

I’m still deep in edits. My deadline is looming. This third revision is taking me longer than I initially thought it would. Plus, I’ve rewritten the end three times, but it looks like it needs one more go. One day, long after the book has run its course, I’ll post them all my web site, like the alternate endings to a movie on DVD. Heh.

My internal monologue goes a little like this, these days…

“Oh my god, why did she just say that?” *delete, rewrite*

“Hmm…this paragraph should go up here, not down there.” *moves para*

“What the hell was I thinking!?!” *delete, rewrite*

“Uhm, yeah, I used the word ‘silk’ in some variation fifteen times on this page.” *delete, gets out Thesaurus*

“That, that…that…what is this love affair I have with the word ‘that’?” *delete, rewrite*

“This sex scene needs more spice.” *delete, rewrite*

And so it goes.

Back to the depths of my revision.

The ever lovely Milady Insanity posted an interview with me yesterday. She also has a review of Witch Fire up. There’s a chance to win a copy, so stop on over and take a peek!

I’m still very deeply buried in revisions for Witch Blood, however I just wanted to pass this along quickly. I caught sight of this over on It’s Not Chick Porn and on a couple other blogs.

Nothing But Red. Please, if you have a moment or two, click on the link and read that.

On April 7, 2007, Du’a Khalil Aswad, a 17 year old Iraqi Yazidi girl, was stoned to death in an honor killing. Her crime is believed to have been consorting with a Muslim, a man she may have intended to marry. A group of onlookers got the whole murder on video, but never bothered to intervene.

Nothing but Red is an anthology being published by lulu.com. It will be released on the anniversary of Du’a Khalil Aswad’s murder. The proceeds will go to Equality Now. For many more details, go to the link above and read.