But enough about my being an old woman in a twenty-nine-year-old’s body—yes, I watch Murder, She Wrote and like it, and I have a cat and have no intention of ever getting into a long-term relationship.  Envy me.

Me, me, me.  Should save it for my own blog, eh?

Right, so, the resurrected WIP Grey and I have been working on is almost done.  With any luck, we’ll finish today.  It’s a great story with wonderful characters, but I’ve been in one of my moods, dragging my feet and making Grey do more than her fair share on this story.  I’m fortunate she’s as understanding as she is, kicking my ass where appropriate and not letting me give up.  If only the same could work on my solo stuff.

Once we’re done with Tanner and Keith, we have a couple Western-ish set historicals in the works.  Really should sit down and write up the notes.  Gaming is good for brainstorming, except we tend to not write down what we’ve come up with.  Something will have stuck, though.

On the solo front, Landa’s back to languishing, my zombie vs. werewolf romance is limping along, and the second Morton’s Pointe book is trying to come back to life (in its fifth or sixth or god knows what form).  So, solo is a mess, co-writing is good when I stop whining.  In other words, the usual state of affairs.

But.

[Spoilers for Affection and upcoming plot points below]

The two main voices of the people who reviewed it were both horrified it was a ménage.  They liked the book anyway, but both said that they hated ménages because someone always gets thrown out in the end.  Well, our collective jaws hit the desks twelve miles apart.  Because we both write a LOT of ménages, both individually and together, and this was the first time we haven’t had all three end up together in some form or another.  For two days I’ve been fighting the urge to create a sock puppet account to go in there and defend ourselves.  Have you read our Arcana Ancien series?  Have you read Sanctity of Marriage or Modus Vivendi?  We LOVE Lucas.  It killed us to not be able to leave him with the boys in the end.  But we needed them free for one other complication that’s coming two books down the line.  We aren’t done with Lucas.  Not by a long shot.  We aren’t done with David and Carver, either.  Nor are we done with Chris and Kieran, and I suspect Robin is still out there, waiting for his turn, although he’s a key player in absentia in an upcoming book.  I want to explain all this.

But I can’t.

Not just because I don’t want to give away future plans.  Each book has to stand or fall on its own merits, not on what will or won’t be coming in future books.  And every one of those readers has the right to their opinions.  I regret that they’ve had such disappointment with ménages, because I love a well-written one myself, but that’s coming from their experiences, and I can’t argue with that.  And frankly, if I tried, I’d only come off looking like an asshole.  It reminds me of the West Wing episode where Josh gets into flame wars with the forum members of his own fan club until CJ threatens to insert his keyboard where the sun don’t shine if he doesn’t knock it off.  Yeah, it’s like that.

So instead we sit on our hands (or not, as we have other books to write), grateful that people are reading the books at all and willing to take the time to actually talk about them.  And wondering if they’ll like what we’re doing next.

Oh, Commander…

I did manage to get about 2k written on Landa book two.  So, yay?  Today, I didn’t write and instead updated my Google site solo database with my character lists and current story docs.  Productive procrastination, baby, ftw!  Sadly, none of my Sherlock bunnies are nibbling.  Boo.

So, really, not much to report.  Can’t wait for Grey to return to the world of the living.  At least she’s had enough of a cell signal to text a bit and tease me with some writing snippets.

My other goal, aside from avoiding trouble, is to finish the George, Nicholas, Wilhelm book this weekend.  It’s good and interesting, but, man, am I ready to move on.  Maybe part of my Sherlock-riffic Amazon order will be waiting for me.  Then I can get my Sherlock fix without reading ahead in the Conan Doyle canon.

So Emery and I play tag.

Writing tag is where we pick a genre or subject and one of us issues a challenge.  The other then has to answer that challenge in a hundred words, more or less, and then gets to issue the next challenge.  Back and forth it goes, one hundred words at a time, keeping our brains flexible, our writing tight and our spirits entertained.  This time around has been the new Sherlock series, which is a fun challenge, trying to stay true to not one but two canons.  Getting the voices right is the biggest challenge, especially with some of the situations we get challenged with.  It’s been a good two days, and I think the rest has been beneficial.  After finishing two novels in six weeks and editing a third, our own material has been a little harder to access.  Doing something just for fun is great therapy for that.

And now I’m off with my fam for a week in the woods, leaving Emery to her own devices.  I’m taking my ubiquitous notebook and pen, so hopefully I’ll get some work done, but I’m planning to do a lot more reading than writing.  Must fill up the brain with new, glittering words.  And hopefully I’ll come back to find Emery has made some good progress on her zombie werewolf story.

Or a longer Sherlock fic…

Despite reminders from myself, Grey, and my handy calendar, I still managed to forget to post yesterday.  Bad Emery.  But I was on vacation!  That’s a valid excuse, isn’t it?  No, not really when I a) didn’t go anywhere, and b) was on the computer for the bulk of the day.  So, bad Emery.

What’s new in the land of writing?  Grey and I are crawling forward on our one resurrected WIP, as well as our respective solo werewolf projects.  Yeah, not something I thought either of us would ever be writing about.  But like they say, never say never.  Especially when it comes to writing or knitting.  Boy howdy.

The temps have been all over the board again here in Philly, from Shoot Me Now to Hey, This Isn’t So Bad.  Today is fortunately the latter.  LOVE being able to have my windows open and no AC.

Other than that, more laziness for me while Grey does her last Grammy Camp pick up.  Suppose I should at least tag to make it up to her, huh?

Book 3 in the Creatures of Sin series

Available from Amber Quill Press August 3, 2010

Lucas McAndrews is handsome, charming and smart, all of which make his job as a sought after gigolo that much easier.  But when he and a friend are assaulted out of nowhere, Lucas calls the one man he has no reason to expect help from.

Carver Eliot.

Two years ago, Lucas almost destroyed Carver’s career, but Carver has a hard time holding a grudge.  Lucas had been a great lay, and in the end had brought him to David Logan, his lover and partner.  So when Lucas calls, Carver’s only hesitation is in telling David.  To his surprise, it’s David who invites Lucas into their home, challenging Carver’s restraint and the fundamentals of their relationship.

But Carver isn’t the only one tempted, as David must face the limits of his experience and the needs of his body and heart. Ghosts of the past and threats of the present are soon the least of Carver and David’s worries as Lucas wins his way into their bed.

In the end, the only question is who will end up with whom, and who ends up dead.

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.

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!

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?

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!