Rinelle Grey's Blog, page 12

Well, progress on Reckless Recon has been going pretty well for the last couple of weeks. My frustration with realising I had to change a lot of chapters I’d written, combined with the release of Twin Curse, meant I didn’t get much written for a while, but I’m back on the horse now, and hoping to have the rough draft finished by the end of the month.

I’m currently at 32,000 words, to through a fair chunk. I’ve really been enjoying the direction the story’s taking (sometimes completely unexpectedly, as happens when you’re a pantser), and looking forward to seeing how the ending comes together.

Today I thought I’d share my new beginning. Not strictly changed because of my extra research, but more just because I came up with a cool idea for a new beginning.

“Can’t I just wear sunscreen?”

His mother scowled. “You’re not taking this seriously, Kerit. Don’t you realise that this planet still has virtually no ozone layer? The levels of UV are dangerously high. Any exposed skin will be burnt in less than five minutes. And if it rains…” She shuddered.

Kerit turned and looked in the mirror, grimacing. The baggy, slightly reflective jacket was comfortable enough, and wouldn’t hinder his climbing ability. And thankfully his mother, head scientist in this project, had declared his jeans and climbing boots protection enough. The slightly tinted, full face plexiglas mask felt weird, but he could live with it.

The gloves though, just weren’t going to cut it. He pulled them off.

You can read the first two books, Reckless Rescue and Reckless Rebellion, now, or if you’re already up on the story, and waiting for Reckless Recon, you can sign up to my mailing list to be notified as soon as it’s available.(No spam, I promise, only new release notifications.)

In early December, I released my third book, Twin Curse. Unlike my last novel, Reckless Rebellion, this novel wasn’t part of my current series, or at this stage, any series at all. It was a standalone fantasy romance, so a slightly different genre even. So how did the two releases compare?

Reckless Rebellion made a pretty big difference to my sales, more than tripling them for the first two months of it’s release. The only promo I did was to mention it in a few places, to my mailing list of a whole 27 subscribers, and run a free promo on the first book. I was thrilled with the results.

For Twin Curse, I mentioned it to my mailing list (over 60 subscribers by then!), sent out review copies, mentioned it in as many places as I could, and sat back.

In it’s first month, it sold ten copies. Ten! That’s a fraction of the number Reckless Rebellion sold. In fact, those numbers looked a lot more like the first month of my first ever book. The second month was only slightly better, and only because I caved, and ran a free promo of the book through Select for 3 days.

So in my opinion, for sales, series far far outweigh writing standalones. Of course, there’s always a possibility that writing in different genres (fantasy romance as opposed to sci-fi romance), it would be interesting to see if there was more follow through in the same genre, but I do know that I’m going to put a lot more effort into my series books than my standalones. Not that I won’t write standalones, I have a few partly done, so I’ll definitely finish those, but they do require a lot more promotions than my series books, meaning less writing time!

What have been your experiences? Have any authors seen crossover between standalone books? And readers, do you read other books by the same author even if they’re different storylines?

Yay, the latest update to WordPress has fixed the bugs that made it next to impossible for me to post from my iPad, so that means I should be able to update this blog more frequently. I’m on the move so much in term time, that having mobile activities to do means more gets done!

With that though, I have a question for all my readers. What sort of updates would you like to see? Research about my book? Excerpts as I write? Information and tips for self-publishing? Writing tips?

Today I want to share a great fantasy series with you. I read the first book in Tara Maya’s ‘The Unfinished Song’ series a little while ago, and couldn’t put it down. I had to immediately buy the next book. A really absorbing story. And best of all, the first book’s free!

The Unfinished Song (Book 1): Initiate by Tara Maya

BLURB

DEADLY INITIATION

A DETERMINED GIRL…

Dindi can’t do anything right, maybe because she spends more time dancing with pixies than doing her chores. Her clan hopes to marry her off and settle her down, but she dreams of becoming a Tavaedi, one of the powerful warrior-dancers whose secret magics are revealed only to those who pass a mysterious Test during the Initiation ceremony. The problem? No-one in Dindi’s clan has ever passed the Test. Her grandmother died trying. But Dindi has a plan.

AN EXILED WARRIOR…

Kavio is the most powerful warrior-dancer in Faearth, but when he is exiled from the tribehold for a crime he didn’t commit, he decides to shed his old life. If roving cannibals and hexers don’t kill him first, this is his chance to escape the shadow of his father’s wars and his mother’s curse. But when he rescues a young Initiate girl, he finds himself drawn into as deadly a plot as any he left behind. He must decide whether to walk away or fight for her… assuming she would even accept the help of an exile.

EXCERPT

Blue-skinned rusalki grappled Dindi under the churning surface of the river. She could feel their claws dig into her arms. Their riverweed-like hair entangled her legs when she tried to kick back to the surface. She only managed to gulp a few breaths of air before they pulled her under again.

She hadn’t appreciated how fast and deep the river was. On her second gasp for air, she saw that the current was already dragging her out of sight of the screaming girls on the bank. A whirlpool of froth and fae roiled between two large rocks in the middle of the river. The rusalka and her sisters tugged Dindi toward it. Other water fae joined the rusalki. Long snouted pookas, turtle-like kappas and hairy-armed gwyllions all swam around her, leading her to the whirlpool, where even more fae swirled in the whitewater.

“Join our circle, Dindi!” the fae voices gurgled under the water. “Dance with us forever!”

“No!” She kicked and swam and stole another gasp for air before they snagged her again. There were so many of them now, all pulling her down, all singing to the tune of the rushing river. She tried to shout, “Dispel!” but swallowed water instead. Her head hit a rock, disorienting her. She sank, this time sure she wouldn’t be coming up again.

“Dispel!” It was a man’s voice.

Strong arms encircled her and lifted her until her arms and head broke the surface. Her rescuer swam with her toward the shore. He overpowered the current, he shrugged aside the hands of the water faeries stroking his hair and arms. When he reached the shallows, he scooped Dindi into his arms and carried her the rest of the way to the grassy bank. He set her down gently.

She coughed out some water while he supported her back.

“Better?” he asked.

She nodded. He was young–only a few years older than she. The aura of confidence and competence he radiated made him seem older. Without knowing quite why, she was certain he was a Tavaedi.

“Good.” He had a gorgeous smile. A wisp of his dark bangs dangled over one eye. He brushed his dripping hair back over his head.

Dindi’s hand touched skin–he was not wearing any shirt. Both of them were sopping wet. On him, that meant trickles of water coursed over a bedrock of muscle. As for her, the thin white wrap clung transparently to her body like a wet leaf. She blushed.

“It might have been easier to swim if you had let go of that,” he teased. He touched her hand, which was closed around something. “What were you holding onto so tightly that it mattered more than drowning?”

LINKS

Tara’s blog http://bestfantasynovel.com/blog/

Tara’s Twitter http://bit.ly/162sCtE

The Unfinished Song on Facebook http://on.fb.me/1400mMq

Amazon http://amzn.to/15ciwYc

Barnes and Noble http://bit.ly/13yM5Dr

Kobo http://bit.ly/1aFhg1P

iTunes http://bit.ly/1baddhN

Smashwords http://bit.ly/17zK8Xn

Initiate is free everywhere except on Barnes and Noble (where it’s $0.99). You can download a free .epub version via Smashwords.

Well, it’s a New Year. A whole new year in which to achieve things. I’m hoping 2014 will be the big year, when I start making more self-publishing than it costs!

2013 was a pretty good year. I published 3 books, which I wouldn’t have predicted at the start of the year. I sold 675 books, and gave away a lot more, over 10,000! Never would have imagined that either. I’ve made a few hundred dollars, but it’s cost me more than that in editing, so no true profit yet.

I have big plans for 2014. The goal is to publish 4 more books. Two in my sci-fi series, A Barren Planet Romance, one non-fiction, and one other, which will probably be a fantasy of some sort. I’m planning some big promo when Reckless Recon, the third book in my series is released, and hoping to see some real movement on it.

It’s going to be a busy year!

What are your plans for 2014?

Descriptions are one of those things I struggle with. I rarely appreciate them in novels, and tend to skim over them to see if there’s anything important to the characters or story! So it’s not surprising that my first drafts are rather sparse on the descriptions.

Luckily I have had some great editors, who know just when to ask for extra details, meaning my final drafts are a little less bare. But every now and then, when writing, the scene is so clear in my mind that the description comes easily.

This description is rather simple and short, but hopefully it sets the mood for what is to come. Just to set the scene, they are on a sailing boat (which I described earlier in the scene!)

Elsian had outdone herself. Lyall pulled out a red and white checked rug and spread it out on the wooden deck. Then he arranged the white china plates and the cutlery on it and served a piece of Elsian’s special apple pie for each of them. He hesitated for a moment over the bottle of wine she’d included. He didn’t often drink, but he poured them each a glass anyway. This could be classified as a special occasion.

They ate in companionable silence. After the pie, there were strawberries and cream, followed by little individually wrapped chocolates. Finally, when they could eat no more, they leaned against the railing and looked back towards the harbour, finishing off the last of the wine.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Brianna asked finally.

“Is it that obvious?” Lyall asked ruefully.

Brianna turned and smiled at him sadly, and though he was sad for the expression, it gave him some hope that she was beginning to care about him.

“Will you miss me?” he asked impulsively.

“Lyall,” she protested.

“Brianna,” he put a hand on her arm and looked seriously at her.

She seemed uncomfortable but didn’t pull away. Finally, she sighed. “Of course I’ll miss you,” she said gruffly.

Lyall couldn’t help but smile. “I’m glad.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be.” She punched him playfully, but with a hint of a sting. “Are you planning on coming back?” she asked more seriously.

He sighed. “It’s complicated. I want to, but I don’t know if I can.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means; I don’t know.”

“Great.”

They were silent for a moment, then Brianna opened up a little for the first time. “Back in my village, there’s a boy I was supposed to marry.”

“Supposed to?”

“Yeah, supposed to. But I couldn’t, so I ran away instead.”

“Do you think you’ll ever go back?”

She laughed. “I don’t know.”

“Touché.” Lyall smiled.

He should have been upset that she had someone waiting for her, that she didn’t seem certain about anything, but in actual fact, he felt more positive than he had since they had met. So positive, in fact, that he did something completely reckless.

He leaned across and kissed her.

Are you the type who loves to have detailed descriptions, or do you tend to skim over them?

It’s easy to think that fiction books, even more so sci-fi or fantasy, which are, after all, from made up worlds, don’t involve much research. And it’s true, compared to something like historical fiction, they don’t. I don’t need to research what style the dresses were in a particular year, or where a particular building stood and when it was built.

But sometimes, an entire sci-fi story can hinge on getting the research right. And sci-fi fans can be just as critical of incorrect science as historical fiction readers can be about styles or word usage!

Reckless Recon has been giving me some headaches in the research department. I established in my first two books that the planet my characters are heading for, Semala, was destroyed by a meteor twenty years ago, and is still uninhabitable. The only real research I needed up until now was to know if this was possible. Now that my characters are there, I need to know what it’s going to be like on the surface, what happened to the city that used to be there, and what happened to the people in that city. And all this requires details of meteor impacts, and the likely effects of them. (Information which changes over time, as science comes up with and tests new theories, since we haven’t witnessed a meteor impact on that scale ourselves).

Yes, there is a margin of error in these theories, and room to modify them a little. But there’s no getting away from the fact that a meteor likely to cause that sort of planet wide destruction would have done extensive damage to the town near the impact site.

There goes the 15,000 words I’d already written!

Well, OK, not gone completely. But I do have a lot of re-writing and tweaking ahead of me. The good news is that they story overall will be better for it.

I did also find this awesome site in the process, that will let you choose the size, velocity and other details of your meteor, then tell you what the damage will be. You can even pick a city on the satellite map, and centre your crater over it to see how large it would be! Hours of fun.

One thing I love about writing is all the things I’ve discovered as a result. I love researching novel facts. I just have to be careful not to get so caught up that I neglect actually writing the book!

Do you like researching obscure topics? Do you notice if an author gets certain facts wrong in stories, or can you overlook them so long as the story is good?

Last week I left our characters ready to defend against some attacking trolls. Today, I thought I’d give you a taste of that battle.

Brianna is ready to fight. But do they have any hope against enemies such as these?

Adrenalin surged through her veins.

Behind her, she heard Mianna’s panicked voice calling and a child wailing. Brianna’s resolve hardened. No trolls would make it through the line to chase the frightened children tonight. Not if she could help it.

“Ugrrrrhhh.” A troll raced directly towards her. His sword, twice the length of her own, swung down, moonlight glinting off the blade.

She tucked and rolled, springing straight back onto her feet and swinging her sword at his thighs in one smooth motion.

The edge of her sword cut into his tough flesh, slicing a gash the width of her hand.

The troll didn’t seem to notice. He swung at the visitor, who had surged into the battle. His leather armour was no match for the troll sword. Red blossomed on his shoulder, but he didn’t stop. He followed through on his strike, his height enough to send the blade arching up into the troll’s thigh, where it stayed, lodged hard.

This time, the troll roared in pain. He bent and cuffed the man with his hand, sending him tumbling backwards. The visitor didn’t move again.

Brianna let out her rage in a battle cry and launched herself at the troll’s back. The tip of her sword aimed at the space just under his ribs, one of the few vulnerable points.

The troll roared again, reaching around blindly to try to claw her off his back. Brianna held on with all her strength, squirming to keep out of reach of his hands. She twisted her sword with all her strength.

He bucked to one side, succeeding in throwing her clear, though not in dislodging her sword, which stuck out of his back like an arrow. As he wavered on his feet, Corlin and Ambria rushed in, slashing at his body wherever they could reach.

Swinging his fists wildly, the troll teetered towards where Brianna lay, the wind knocked out of her. His bulk loomed over her, and she scrambled to pull herself out of the way before he fell. A thud reverberated through the soil as he crashed to the ground behind her. She let out her breath in a gasp of relief.

Struggling to her feet, she stared at him for a few moments, but the troll didn’t move. Brianna reached for her sword, bracing her foot against his body to pull it free, then looked around for the next troll.

Twin Curse is out! You can grab your copy here.

If you’re here looking for the extras, you can find those here, and don’t forget to comment on whether you think I should write a sequel or not.

Today I’m participating in the Fantastical Blog Hop, over at Indie Blog Hops. There are some great books (including a copy of Twin Curse!) and a $70 Amazon gift card being offered, to make sure you check it out for your chance to win!

Fantasy is one of my favourite genres. And these days, it has expanded to be so much more than it was when I first discovered it. It can range from dragons to shapeshifters, unicorns and fairies to trolls and elves. And the setting can be old world swords and sorcery, to modern urban settings with a twist.

The variability to fantasy isn’t completely new though. You only have to look as far back as Anne McCaffrey’s Dragons of Pern series, to see how she mixed fantasy and science fiction. Or look at the differences between Tolkein’s worlds and those of Robert Jordan or Marion Zimmer Bradley.

That’s what I love about fantasy, how different two books in the same genre can be. As an author, that leaves me lots of scope to play around with characters and settings, to get just the situation I want!

My own novel that comes out in two days, Twin Curse, is the sword and sorcery variety. You can read the blurb, or  read the first chapter now!

Today I’m giving away a $10 Amazon gift card right here. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post, telling me what type of fantasy story you like best. Winners will be drawn by a random number generator.