Two Mouthy Dames

I wish I had a nice snippet to post, but alas - I am snippet free!

In the meantime, however, I am running a contest to give away copies of Meljean Brook's upcoming release, DEMON BOUND. It is an *excellent* book and my favorite in her series!  Please enter (I'm starting to feel lonely!)!!

I'm going back through my current book and cleaning up some of the text written. I came across this peculiar phrase:

In fact, Josephine’s views on marriage were quite liberal.  Plus, she had no diary.

I'm scratching my head, thinking hard, wondering why a diary makes a difference. And then about halfway down the next page, I realize that's supposed to be dowry. Not diary.

Another writing funny (at least, it's funny to me): the hero's last name is Winterborne. It will probably change sometime between now and the final draft, but for the time being, it's Winterborne.

I keep typing it as 'Winterboner'. Hey, at least he'll keep his wife happy throughout the long December nights, right?

“Very well, then, Emma.” Stephen’s mouth curved in the barest hint of a smile as she looked up at him with wide eyes. “I need you to give me your dress.”

She took an uncertain step backward. “I beg your pardon?”

“Your dress,” he said, gesturing at the changing screen. “Take it off and give it to me.”

She tilted her head, her eyes narrowing. “Why should I?”

“Because it’s wet and you’ll drip all over the only bed in the room. And because if I have your dress, I am assured that you won’t try to escape during the middle of the day.”

“Can’t I just give you my word that I won’t escape? You surely don’t think that I’m eager to spend time with the rabble down in the parlor, do you?”

“Was that a parlor downstairs?” Stephen gave her an amused look and gestured at the screen in the corner. “And no, Miss Mayhew. Emma. So far you have announced to the world that you have been kidnapped. You have screamed for help despite my admonitions otherwise, and you have tried to attack me. Forgive me if I’m not eager to believe you now.”

“I see your point,” she conceded. “What am I to wear?”

“Your stays?” He gave her a lazy smile.

She gave him a calculating look. “And here I thought you said my virtue was safe with you.”

I suck, I know. Here Ilona's being all virtuous and posting her own snippets, and I'm a big sorry lump.

But here's a snippet of what I'm working on. It's not urban fantasy, and it's not even paranormal. Just a fun little side project and a case of mistaken identity. Enjoy!

( In which Josephine is mistaken for Miss Emma MayhewCollapse )

I am bad at posting. But I haven't been working on anything new or spiffy, just lots of clean-ups.

Here's a very brief blurb of something I'm currently working on.

( Victorian thingieCollapse )

A normal girl's name, but not so normal that every other third-grader is named it.

What sort of character is she? She is the kind of girl that would argue with her fairy godmother.

Right now she is Faye (because of my iconloff), but I'm not crazy about Faye. It reminds me of grannies.

You guys have good brains. Help me. ;)

Your teleporting ideas were marvelous. I'm actually in awe of some of your scary minds since I tend to work better on people-concepts rather than science-concepts. Not that teleporting is a science (yet). Anyhow, I digress.

I have to share my secret shame with everyone. The book with the teleporting? Temporarily shelved. You know how sometimes you write a page, and realize it's come out all wrong? So you scrap it, think hard, try again, and realize that even though you reversed the polarity of the warp drive, the Enterprise is still in grave danger? Yeah.

So, book temporarily pushed aside. I'm taking a mini brain-break in which I'm working on something completely balls-out different. You know how if you go to the scented candle-store, and if you sniff too many candles, they make you stick your nose in a jar of fresh coffee-beans to reboot your sense of smell?

Just picture me at the keyboard, shoving coffee-beans up my nose as I write.

PS - Do you think Ilona has forgotten all about us? ;)

And I am still boring! But here, I shall try to entertain.

*tappity tap tap dances*

Kidding. Seriously. I'm still rewriting (for the sixth time) a synopsis and still not happy with it. Ah, the glorious life of a writer, right?

It's time to draw upon the community/borg mind, though. I'm brainstorming an idea. And this idea is cool, but I admit my brain is a little dry.

Let's say you had the power to teleport. Let's say that teleporting had a massive drawback to it. What would that massive drawback be?

Discuss. *deploys the bubble pipe*

I totally suck at this community thing!

I finished my partial for the new novel (for those of you wondering, that's a nice fat synopsis and the first three chapters) and I'm just doing clean-up to make it all purty.

Here's a quick snippet for you:


###

We waited in front of the double doors, as if this were a normal day at the office and Ethan wasn’t wearing some goofy cultist robe and a big honking stick at his waist...

“So what’s the stick for?” I asked as we stepped into the elevator.

He glared at me. “It’s not a stick. It’s a bo.”

“Oh, well excuse me, Napoleon Dynamite.” Men.