I was a slug this weekend.
And by slug I mean I didn’t hit my word counts. Now, mind you, they might have been over-ambitious as I’m working on three (count ’em!) three different books in three (count ’em again!) different genres, so I might have been overly-ambitious.
I didn’t do it. I limped along on one, ignored another, and barely got an outline on the third. Ugh. Continue reading
It Is What It Isn’t was my second foray into Fanfiction, and full of those early Captain Swan feels. Set in Season 3 after the return from Neverland, we see Emma trying to balance her newly explored feelings for Hook with Neal being an active part of her life. As if that weren’t hard enough, Hook and Neal become the victims of an unwitting curse, tying them together in a way neither of them saw coming.
In this scene, Neal has asked Hook to give Henry some formal swordplay training, much to Emma’s chagrin…
After a shower and a quick cup of coffee, Emma realized that they’d been swordfighting for over an hour and were most likely thirsty by now. She grabbed the pitcher of lemonade out of the fridge and a couple of solo cups and headed out into the yard.
Holy God.
The man had taken his shirt off and was swordfighting her son wearing only tight black leather pants and boots. She’d never seen him shirtless before, and it was more than a little startling. She’d seen the chest hair, of course, but who’d have guessed he’d have those abs? His arms weren’t a surprise, though. She remembered how strong they’d felt when he was kissing her. He’d pulled her in, almost crushing her as she’d felt his tongue and lips and…
Stop. Just stop it, Emma.
This was getting out of hand. Time to fire a warning shot across a certain pirate’s bow.
Delicate! He made a disgusted sound. This girl
was about as delicate as an axe to the forehead.
2 bit Tuesday
Topic: “Disgust”
I’m putting the finishing touches on Earthsinger so it can go out to my beta readers this week, but it’s been a real test of my patience.
Why? Because pirates have taken over my brain!
Back when I wrote Eight Nights At Sea, I had intended for it to be a stand-alone work, but my readers fell so in love with Aven, Rina’s silent but wonderful brother, and a grain of a thought started to grow: what if Aven went on a quest to find his voice?
And like all good stories, it’s taken root at started to burst out of the manure-ridden soil in my brain. Which is an unfortunate thing right now because I have two more books to finish in this current series first. Aaaargh. Continue reading
Research for a novel can be a double-edged sword. One the one hand, you can really get in-depth about the history and applicability of something or someplace, which helps shape your characters and the events happening around them.
On the other hand, you can get sucked down a research rabbit hole and lose a whole lot of writing time searching for tidbits.
Good research can really make a book, and it’s a fine line between really knowing the history of a person or place and getting bogged down on what’s essentially a small tidbit of information. So here are three research strategies that can help you get the job done: Continue reading
“I am a windsinger.”
“And that means?”
“I breathe in someone’s last breath…
and in it is their story.”
1 Line Wednesday
Theme: “Wind”
In the beginning of Earthsinger, we take the volatile Matt and our ballsy girl Manni, and we stuff them into a truck for a long road trip. By the end of the first day, Matt is ready to throw in the towel, that is, until Manni makes her move… Continue reading
Yes, you read that right! The great Amazon Kindle Select exercise has yielded its results and the time has come to bid it adieu….
Sort of.
Here’s the deal: I get a lot of mileage out of Kindle Unlimited users, but only for the first 6 months or so after a release, and definitely a huge bump when I post a completed series as a set. So I’ve come up with the following parameters: Continue reading
The Memory Keeper was one of my earlier Once Upon A Time fics, and one of my most beloved by my fans. The whole universe that spun off from that tale is one of my favorite places to be and I still have stories to put in it. But for now, let’s go back to the middle of season three, when Emma meets a stranger dressed in pirate garb who seems vaguely familiar.
In this scene, Killian has been invited to a charity masquerade ball to raise money for Emma’s adoption agency. Her date for the evening turns out to be a total dud – which is just fine with a certain pirate with an agenda…. Continue reading
My novellas are a great way to steam up the sand with a summer beach read. At just about 10,000 words each, they’re long enough to tell a story but short enough to get right to the point.
Britt DeLaney 