More Good News
GOOD NEWS #1
Yes! I am VERY excited to announce that we have sold the UK and ANZ (Australian and New Zealand) rights for MAGIC TO THE BONE and MAGIC IN THE BLOOD to Penguin UK! I’m thrilled that the books have been picked up and hope to have more information soon.
I’ll update release dates, covers, formats and etc, when I know more. Thank you all for your well-wishes!
GOOD NEWS #2
We have decided on the title for the 7th Allie Beckstrom book. Ready?
MAGIC ON THE LINE
What do you think? Pretty good? I like it, and I think it fits the book nicely. So the series order will be:
MAGIC TO THE BONE
MAGIC IN THE BLOOD
MAGIC IN THE SHADOWS
MAGIC ON THE STORM
MAGIC AT THE GATE
MAGIC ON THE HUNT
MAGIC ON THE LINE
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Good News!
NEWS
Sorry people, in my excitement, I meant to say we are in negotiations to sell rights to the UK. And if the deal goes through, there will be other side of the road driving coolness, and electronic sales.
I’m such an idiot sometimes. I really should read my email more carefully. So, instead of the good news shout out, this is a keep your fingers crossed shout out. 
WRITING & BLOG SILENCE
Currently working on the 7th Allie Beckstrom book. Like each book before it, it is writing differently than the others. This one’s heavy on dialogue, which is fun, but presents its own challenges. Quite to my surprise, a character I did not plan into the series elbowed his way into the storyline and is making himself very useful indeed.
Welcome, new character. Have a cup of coffee. Try not to get yourself killed.
Since this is one of the last three books of the series, it has to do a lot of things plot-wise, and character-wise, and oh-m-gee we’re gonna die-wise to stand as its own book and also to build up to the last two books which will close out the big series arc. Writing it is tricky and hard. But I’m having a great time watching this book play out. And I hope, when it’s finished, that it will be a tight, exciting read.
The book needs to be handed in by March, so I’m pounding on the word counts. That’s where the blog silence comes in, I’m afraid. I’ll do my best to check in at least a couple times a week, but I might not be blogging every day (though I always Facebook/Twitter every day–you can find & chat with me there!)–which brings me to….
FRIDAY FRAGMENTS – HOW ABOUT A SHOWER SCENE?
Every Friday, until the first week in April when MAGIC O THE HUNT is released, I’ll post an excerpt or discarded scene from the Allie Beckstrom books.
While making a comment on Facebook/Twitter the other night about my daily writing progress, someone thought I said that I’d written a 1,000 word shower scene. O_o? And then someone else said they really wished I WOULD write a 1,000 word shower scene. o_O! And I said, well, maybe I will write a 1,000 word shower scene.
I’m thinking it would be fun to write it as a snippet I could share instead of a scene that will be published in the books.
What do you think? Want to see a shower scene with some of your favorite characters out of the Allie Beckstrom books?
Oh, really? Which characters do you want to see getting all wet and steamy? Hmmm?
Friday Fragments – 1
MAGIC ON THE HUNT will be in stores in eight weeks! Instead of doing a countdown or some such, I thought it might be cool to post unpublished snippets every Friday.
Now mind you, these fragments aren’t polished for publication and aren’t long scenes. But I think they’re kind of fun to read.
Today I ran across an alternate scene from MAGIC AT THE GATE
If you haven’t read MAGIC AT THE GATE, this is probably where you’ll want to stop reading this blog post, ’cause I’m about to get all spoilery. Thanks for stopping by today! Hope you have a lovely weekend.
…..
…..
…..
All right, now that they’re gone, here we go. In MAGIC AT THE GATE, Allie has to step into death to save Zayvion’s soul. When she steps out of death with Zayvion’s soul in Stone, she lands in St. Johns and Detective Paul Stotts finds her there.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted it to be Stotts who found her, or Davy Silvers, the Hound who is always following her. So I tried the scene first with Davy finding her:
“Is this some kind of sick scavenger hunt?” he asked.
“It’s a mistake,” I said. “I have to get him to Maeve Flynn’s place. Her inn. In Vancouver.”
“I know where it is.” He frowned. Looked over at Stone, who wasn’t moving much. Looked back at me.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know how we’re going to carry that.” He pointed at Stone.
“It will walk.”
Davy flashed me a quick smile. “Of course it will. And I just bought a pound of flying bacon this morning.”
I gave him the dirtiest look I could manage, and held my hand out for him. Davy took my hand. He did more than me to get me standing. I locked my knees.
“Shit,” I whispered. There was a ringing in my ears, and it had nothing to do with my dead dad in my head. I was very close to passing out. Dark sparkly static was closing in on my vision.
Davy tightened his grip on me, his arm around my waist, my arm over his shoulder. “I’m not seeing a lot of walking going on,” he said.
I lifted my foot, put it in front of me. Did the same with the next foot.
“Think you can make it to the car?”
I didn’t waste time answering.
Davy stiffened. “Son of a bitch.”
I didn’t know what was happening. Davy stopped, so I did too. Stone trotted up next to me and made a raspy sound. He grumbled like a bag of rocks, then cooed louder, like he had just figured out how to make that noise. He swiveled his head to look up at Davy and me, cooed again victoriously, then trotted off toward the parking lot.
“How you like your bacon now?” I mumbled.
I liked the scene, and thought it worked pretty well. But when I tried it with Stotts, it all fell together in a much more dramatic and interesting manner. Plus, by having Stotts finds her, it nicely set up the next scene with him witnessing them trying to get Zayvion’s soul out of Stone and back into Zay’s body.
So the Davy scene was cut and the Stotts scene was a go.
Thanks for reading this Friday’s fragment! I’ll have another bit up next Friday. Maybe an excerpt of what Zayvion was doing while he was in death. Or maybe a kissing scene. Or something with Shamus. Who knows what I’ll find when I start digging.
Deadline Dames
Today’s my day to post on the Deadline Dames. I’m talking about writing fast, and fears. (and coffee, though less about coffee and more about writing fast.)
Brainstorm – pre-outline – outline – write – panic!
So, the panic is starting to set in. Book 7 of the Allie Beckstrom series is due in about five weeks, and I am not at all where I want to be word-wise. Hopefully, this weekend will get me caught up.
I tell people I outline–just one quick sentence for each chapter to show:
1. Main conflict of chapter
2. Main action of chapter
3. Character emotional state/change
4. Rising conflict into next chapter
5. Stuff I need to remember/plot lines I’m threading forward
For example, here’s what I wrote for chapter one of book six, MAGIC ON THE HUNT (if you’ve read the excerpt at the end of MAGIC AT THE GATE, this won’t be a spoiler. If you haven’t, you might want to scroll down.)
Happy Allie and Zay at her place. Dane walks in with gun and goons.
That covers the first six pages of chapter one. The other seventeen pages of chapter one is me working that event to its conclusion. Since I knew what was going to happen (who would do what, and what information would be revealed in the chapter) I didn’t bother writing it down.
Which sounds like a pretty haphazard way of recording things. But it isn’t. And here’s why.
I pre-outline. This is the step after brainstorming and before actual outlining.
Hold on. I think I need to back up.
I guess step one for me is brainstorming:
I sit around and make notes about what has happened in past books, what needs to happen, what each character wants to happen, and what my end goals for the characters and books are going to be. That’s all stuff for the big series arc. For the one-book arc, I also work out what the main conflict will be in this book, which characters will need to deal with the conflict, and how that will change them (keeping in mind the big series arc) and how it will move them and the big arc forward. I also decide on the ending of this one book.
Then my brilliant first reader, Dean (who happens to be my brother) shows up, and we drink a lot of coffee and discuss the books and toss wild ideas at each other and poke holes in the big-arc plot and the current book plot arc. I always acknowledge my first readers in my books because, people, they are INVALUABLE to me. I am so glad I have someone who will take the time to listen to me blather and “what if” about Allie and her crew. I am even luckier to have someone who will throw other fantastic “what if’s” and ideas back at me. My first readers rock. (Dean rocks for not only first reading, but also brainstorming with me.)
Step two is pre-outlining/scenes and events:
This is where I take all my notes from brainstorming along with new ideas that have come to me since the brainstorming, and start building a list of scenes and events that need to happen. Some of those scenes will fit in this book. Some will be held for later books. Some will never come to fruition. No, I’m not sure which scenes will fall into which category. A lot of this is done on gut instinct and an ear to the ground for story telling and the emotional arc of the big series plot. (i.e. I simply begin and adjust as needed. Writing is often a leap of faith. I leap.)
Step three is outlining:
I take a blank piece of legal paper and number the lines from 1-20 because I like the tidy idea of a book fitting into twenty chapters (even though that rarely works out, lol.) Each chapter gets a one-line description. I almost always have chapters one through ten or twelve worked out, then a sort of vague idea of the next couple chapters, and then chapters eighteen, nineteen and twenty worked out.
As I’m writing the book, I glance ahead at the one-line descriptions to make sure I’m setting things up for the next conflict or set of actions. This is also part of what keeps me going. I get excited about writing the next funny scene, or getting to have a favorite character on stage, or tackling an upcoming tricky fight.
But writing is a fluid craft for me. As the story actually hits the page, things change, better ideas show up, old plot threads get tied down, or tangle in interesting ways. I am not so married to my outline that I’ll throw out a good idea simply because I didn’t think of it while I was in brainstorming, pre-outlining, or outlining stage.
Which means I break the details of my outline while I’m writing the book all the time. Sometimes I even break the one-book plot arc, though I never change the ending. This is just how it works for me. I don’t have any idea if other people do it this way.
When the book/chapters are no longer lining up to the outline, I stop and readjust the outline. It’s only one line per chapter, so it’s not like I’m redrafting thousands of words. Usually all I do is cross out a word and add another, or draw arrows to rearrange how the action is really lining up in the written version. And, as always, the ending chapter/scene always remains the same.
Eventually, I’ll get tired of the messy paper, and type the outline into my computer and make adjustments there as I go.
And that brings me to today. Time to finish adjusting the outline and get a chapter or two written. It’s also time to brew coffee and pour myself a nice big cup, because one thing I know for sure: coffee and a steadily growing word count always work to keep the deadline panic away. 
