So very much done with summer.  I used to love heat.  Hell, I’m still not a fan of being cold.  But, man, this summer is ridiculous.  Tomorrow’s supposed to be near a hundred with the heat index well over.  Thank goodness for AC, much as I loathe it.

But on to better things.  Like, say, writing.

Yesterday, Grey and I finished the fifth Creatures book.  Needs some padding, but it’s a good little story.  And, boy howdy, did it not end up where we thought.  In a good way.  But, yeah.

To keep myself out of trouble when work hasn’t been worky, I’ve been readying a few shorts that Grey and I wrote for submission.  They were in her court, but she got all productive and they’re back in mine.  Such is life.  And we’ve started back up one of our stalled WIPs, and also figured out how to turn around the other major stalled WIP.  So, hopefully…

In other news, we got our cover for the Sins of Affection, the third Creatures of Sin book.  GORGEOUS!  And that’s set for release on August 2nd, I believe.  If I don’t melt this weekend, I’ll play website update and get all that info up and ready for viewing.

So, not too shabby writing-wise this week.  My cracky solo idea is still germinating and I’m going roadtripping with Grey next weekend as she switches kids at Grammy Camp–roadtrips are where we do our best plotting and tend to come up with new ideas.

Stay tuned.

Ooh, I didn’t expect to write THAT. I love it when I manage not to spoiler myself.  –Steven Moffat

Emery and I write by email.  We have two threads going at any given time:  The chapter we’re working on, and what we call the back chat email.  We use back chat to ask questions about something going on in the current scene, discuss future developments or just natter on about the project.  A recent set of conversations went like this:

Emery:  I know we were just going to do David and Chris’ POVs.  And even though this is their story, Carver and Kieran have major roles in their lives.  Or not.  I dunno.

Grey:  I agree, Carver and Kieran do have major roles in this.  But for the most part, they are passive actors.  They aren’t the ones having conflict in this, and if we use their point of view, aside from being too cluttered, I think it will take out some of the suspense, because they’ll both be pretty fine with it.  We can get their POVs across through their interactions with Chris and David, or have something overheard if we really need more.

And then later:

Grey:  And I can’t wait for Carver and Kieran to talk about this.  They’re already going at it in my head.  Not literally.  Well, sort of.

Later still:

Emery:  On another note, too bad we never really set up Carver/Kieran…because having both sneaking around on their respective partners with the other…

Grey:  I have this whole scene where either Kieran goes after him or they run into each other in a bar where Carver is totally blitzed.  Carver figures turn about is fair play and hits on Kieran who goes along with it, getting him all worked up until dropping him with a promise of getting better revenge.

And then:

Grey:  CRAP!!!!!  I just realized, we can’t do Kieran and Carver’s conversation!

Emery:  I realized that the other day.  We could always add POVs earlier–do Car sex from Carver’s, maybe this from Kieran’s?

Grey:  We’re writing the scene no matter what.  We can figure out the POV issue later, or use the C&K scene as a free read.

And THEN:

They did something neither one of us had even considered, making the whole issue moot and giving us a much better scene than what we had planned!

Writing is an organic, living thing.  You can try to make it static with outlines and character blogs and all those writing gimmicks they tell you about in books and creative writing classes, but if you’re in it, writing away, trusting the characters and the plot and just letting it happen, they’ll take you places you never expected.  Our characters do that to us all the time, so that even though we’re writing the book, in many ways it feels like we’re reading it for the first time as we write it.  I can never wait for the next tag to see what’s going to happen next!

Why is it that the short weeks are always so incredibly long feeling?  Holidays are great, particularly when you don’t do anything, but, man, do you pay for it after the fact.  Of course, the hellish heat of this summer doesn’t help matters any.  I hate air conditioning with an undying passion, but I so would not be without it this year.  Ugh.

Now that the whining is out of the way, on to better things.  Such as the fact that Grey and I are probably about halfway through our fifth Creatures book.  I know, seems like we were just working on book four.  Go us!

Solo-wise, nada for me.  Tried resurrecting my zombie story (ha ha), but it’s just not grabbing me (ha ha, take two) and the old stuff I wrote on it ain’t that great upon re-read.  Boo.  There’s always my newest sequel of doom to poke at, but…meh.  Solo-wise, I’m feeling the need to try something new and completely different.  Unfortunately, I haven’t got the foggiest what that might be.  *grumble*  But at least some writing is getting done, right?

Yes, folks, we wrapped up the fourth Creatures book last night.  In addition to that, we have a pretty solid framework plotted—yes, plotted—out already for book five.  And we have a solid idea/game plan for a female/female side series for Creatures.

Hold up, Emery, that’s a whole lot of news for one paragraph.  Care to expound?  Why, sure, Emery, I’d love to.  (I’m an only child; talking to myself comes very naturally.)

Right, first off, finishing off Creatures book four, Sins of Influence.  I love our titles—Grey has a gift with them.  At long last, we finally came up with a solid story to explore the dashing Commander Christopher Montgomery, and his equally dashing lover, Kieran Phillips—who met in our ARe 28 Days of Heart short, Sea of Sin.  (If you haven’t read that, you really should because a) HOT, and b) all proceeds go to the American Heart Association, so good cause!)  It’s a bit under our word goal, but that’s usually remedied fairly easily in the revision process.

After wrapping up book four and exploring Middle Earth (LOTRO), Grey and I hashed out a rough framework for the fifth book, including motivations and threats and all the plotty, generally non-sexy bits (though there was a fair amount of that as well).  Maybe we’re learning after all.  By “we” I mean me.  Grey likes knowing where things are going; I like winging it.  But winging it only gets you so far.  Plotting helps you from hitting a wall, too hard.

And last, but definitely not least, we have Creatures of Sin: Lilith and Eve, followed by whatever Sins of fits the flavor of the book.  Why the differentiation?  Because it seems readers, typically, don’t like to mix up the gender composition of the romances they read.  Which baffles both Grey and I.  If the characters are engaging and the sex is hot, what does it matter if it’s two men or two women, or a man and a woman, or a male/female/male threesome or male/male/female threesome or female/female/male or female/male/female or moresomes?  Is the vajajay really that off-putting that you’re going to avoid a book in a series because it focuses on two women instead of two men?  Okay, I’m all behind the fact that people have different tastes and preferences, but still…baffled.  Maybe my view is skewed because I’ll read anything so long as the writing’s good.  And you know what?  Hot is hot regardless of gender and combination.  *climbs off soap box*  But the short, non-ranty reason is that the books will still be identifiable as part of the Creatures world, but differentiated in such a way that those who wish to can avoid them.  And a little part of me thrills at the idea that Lilith and Eve decided to go off together and leave Adam to bemoan his fate.

So, there you go.  A real, thorough, writing-related update!

“What color are Scotty’s eyes?”

“Did we ever mention where Graeme and Peter went to school?”

“How old is Carver again?”

When you write series, these are the kinds of questions you ask all the damn time.  It’s easy enough to keep track of the details through one book, but by the time you get to the fourth (or seventh!), it’s a lot harder.  Did you actually mention a detail or not?  And if so, where and in which book?  It’s just not always easy to flip back through all those manuscripts trying to find one little detail that might actually never have been referenced there, but might instead be in a side piece you wrote or some napkin scribblings in a restaurant somewhere.

We’ve tried to deal with this by creating a series bible.  For those of you not familiar with the term, a series bible comes from television series production and refers to a mythical tome that the series writers use to keep track of all the little details that develop over time in the shows they write.  I say mythical because several writers I have heard speak have said they didn’t actually have a physical document that kept track of these things.  Which seems foolish.  Wouldn’t that make things easier?

But just because they don’t doesn’t mean we can’t.  Emery is the master of what we call productive procrastination, basically doing something that is writing-driven but isn’t actually writing.  The series bible has been one of those projects.  For the longest time, this was in the shape of an Excel spreadsheet, sorted by character name, book and series and with the various details plugged in.  But again, that gets unwieldy after a certain size, and with 23 projects started, completed or abandoned, that’s a lot of characters to keep track of.

This week she hit on the brilliant idea of creating a wiki for our books.  I’m thrilled with this idea, as not only will it be easy to search, but it will also be easy to crosslink to relevant people, places and objects that are significant to each of them.  It’s going to take a lot of time to set up, but once it’s done, I think it will be a great tool for our writing.

And we’ll be able to stop arguing about how big the age gap is between Carver and David.  Finally.

Emery’s first piece of wisdom for the day:  Smoothies, however tasty, are a BAD idea when one works in an icebox.  Not a literal icebox, mind, but I have yet to work in an office anywhere that doesn’t go subzero in the summers.  Winters aren’t so hot either, ha ha.  Smoothies bad, sweaters good.

Auntie Emery’s second treat for you:  http://www.maureenjohnsonbooks.com/2010/06/08/manifesto/.  Pretty much sums up my feelings on promotion and sums it up far more eloquently than my rambly style allows for.  If there’s one thing Grey and I butt heads over more than my pantsing vs. her plotting, it’s promotion.  I dig my heels in like nobody’s business.  Now, before you get the wrong idea, she’s not exactly gung ho about the marketing aspect either, but she’s willing to give it a go, whereas I’m all NONONONONONO!!!!  Yes, I understand that you have to get your name out there or no one’s going to buy your book, but it just makes me feel, well, dirty.  Discussion groups and forums strike me as too self-serving and too incestuous to do what they’re purported to do.  If I want to talk about myself, I have a blog—okay, two and a half.  Awards submissions are a waste of money and pointless anxiety.  And book signings…okay, I like book signings, mainly for the chance to chat with other authors and the odd person who takes an interest in something I wrote.  I like conventions for that same reasons, though book signings are a bit more budget friendly.

And in writing news:  Grey and I are still moving forward with our fourth Creatures book.  Though it’s a bit slow in writing with figuring out the plotty bits, but forward is forward.  And when your solo stuff is *crickets* you’ll take whatever the muse gives you.

Emery and I have been reading some interesting discussions about misogyny in M/M fiction this week.  Some of it is as blatant as the horrible bitch ex-wife/boss/whatever, but some of it’s more subtle and yet more pernicious, following the idea that the woman in question actually deserves “better” than the man involved, and so moves on and out of the story, leaving a clear field for a men-only story.  This rightfully got us thinking about our own stories, and the women in them.

We like women.  Probably a good thing, since we both happen to be female.  But we like writing them as well, enjoy creating strong, believable yet imperfect female characters to play off the men.  We are comfortable with the fact that not all male/female relationships are inherently sexual.  Yes, Virginia, it is possible for men and women to “just be friends”, even straight men and women.  That’s why Scotty exists, because Carver needed a sounding board and an awesomesauce chick with a brain seemed like the perfect foil for him. 

And gay men and straight women flirt.  It happens.  Really.  I’m fortunate enough to be friends with a number of gay men as part of a larger, tight knit, mixed sexuality community.  None of the guys are insecure about their sexuality, all of them are out and open, and many of them I would put up to my own sons as role models.  And some of them flirt outrageously.  With the women in the community.  Women they aren’t interested in sleeping with and who aren’t interested in sleeping with them, but who nevertheless flirt right back.  Flirting and fucking aren’t the same thing.  And so you get Alexandra, a character we got a bit of grief over but who we adore.  She’s strong, she’s playful and she and Carver have an odd rapport that includes a bit of sexual teasing.  Carver’s not sexually attracted to her, and Alexandra isn’t looking for more.  They’re just playing, and it’s safe.  The presence of a female character who is actually sexual is not a threat to the M/M story line.

The world most of our characters inhabit are equal parts male and female.  The idea that you could write a M/M story and not have a female presence is alien to us.  We understand that our readers are looking for the same sex interactions, but sometimes it’s hard to write to those expectations.  Scotty is a prime example of this.  Here is a smart, sassy, sexy lady with a great boyfriend and an inappropriate attraction for her female partner.  But we can never play with that relationship, because the readers of the Creatures of Sin series aren’t looking for F/F or F/F/M stories.  (To be fair, we’ve also wanted to hook Miranda up with Alexandra, but again with the F/F issue.)  We’re professional writers, so will we or nil we, we do take our readers’ preferences into consideration.  But there will always be strong women in all our stories.  Because there are so many strong women in the world.

The week before long/holiday weekends always drag.  Everyone slips into vacation mode and no one wants to work.  But five o’clock will roll around eventually and then it’s three days of blissful nothing.  Save my cat waking me up at an obscene hour to be fed.

In the writing arena, Grey and I submitted the third Creatures book and are forging ahead at a fairly good pace on the fourth Creatures book.  Even better the plot may have found us instead of vise versa.  It’s always nice when it works out like that.

Solo-wise, we’re both still in holding patterns.  I started picking at my second Landa book, but that petered out.  At least I think I finally figured out what’s wrong with my languishing, frequently restarted WIPs—no First Plot Point.  Completely new concept (to me) that I happened across in my blog feeds.  Essentially it’s that little something something that kicks everything into motion.  My published books have easily identifiable FPPs, and their languishing sequels don’t.  In other words, it’s a new means of productive procrastination.

As for this weekend, Grey might be taking her kids to the Shore, and I’m taking it easy with my cat and enjoying the quiet of Philly on a summery long weekend.

WE’RE WRITING!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the dam has burst and the words are flowing like… Well, okay, no. The dam has cracked and we’re getting words on page for the next Creatures of Sin book. It’s not going quickly, although we did get two and a half chapters done this week, and I foresee a plot roadblock looming in the future, but our rule of thumb is to just write until we can’t and then beat on it until we can again. The important thing was *starting*. Which is true of anything, really. Until you start, you can’t know what the challenges are going to be, what needs to be surmounted, what new discoveries you’ll make. When I was learning to drive school bus, we were taught that you can’t steer unless you’re moving. I think that’s true of writing, too. So now we’re moving. No more whining about not writing! At least for a little while…

In the meantime, we’ve got the third CoS book ready to send off to Amber Quill (if I ever get around to working on the blurbs for it) and there’s a short story in our queue vegetating before we submit that as well. So it’s not all grim. And Emery has new body art and I’m going strawberry picking this weekend. Lots of opportunities for inspiration!

No new writing yet, but Grey and I have been brainstorming on our next Creatures book while polishing up the third book to send off to Amber Quill.  That’s progress, right?  We’re also trying to resurrect one of our languishing WIPs; unfortunately, works been a bear this week and sort of put a damper on that, at least from my end.

I can’t say I haven’t been writing.  Between the end of last week and the first part of this week I did a couple thousand words…on fanfiction.  I’m actually more than pleased with the results, and it was the first time in awhile that I got that good writing buzz.  I’ve missed that immensely.  It would have been nice if it were on one of my original WIPs, but writing is writing and when it feels so damned good it doesn’t matter to me what form it takes.  Do I feel a bit guilty for neglecting my own characters?  Of course.  Then again, not really.  Have I mentioned how good I felt after?  I’m talking word flying across the page with that kind of magic that only hits so often and leaves you in desperate need a of cigarette after, whether you smoke or not.  Like my solo blog says, good writing gets me off.

Other than that, Grey is turning into quite the gardening pro and has taken up spinning in addition to being a kick ass knitter.  As for myself, I’m stumbling through new dance steps and enjoying every moment.  And yes, I’m going to the Friday social party at the dance studio because a) I don’t want my instructor to yell at me again, and b) it really is good for me to get out of the house (even if I do still prefer to curl up in front of the computer and poke the internets/watch old Murder, She Wrote eps, etc.).

Aside from that, it’s finally Friday.  Halle-frickin’-lujah.