dreamhunter

atthequillsmercy

I’m BACK! >D

After a semi-restful weekend (how restful is a birthday party for a 3 year old, really?) I have traced the headache problems to lack of sleep and lack of sleep to the snoring of my dear ole’ hubbz. Short of kicking him out to sleep on the couch, I’m not gonna sleep well with him in the bed till he sees a doctor or I smother him with a pillow. Whichever comes first.

In writing news, the two small stories I’m working on are moving along well, Dark Horse enjoyed my last review, and I’m excited to start my Short Story Project next month instead of doing NaNoWriMo. Edits for book two are proceeding slowly but steadily and I hope for the preview chapters to be going up on the site soon. As soon as I have them all perfect and pristine, they’ll start going up. 🙂 Are you excited? I sure am. I’ve been picking at book two for YEARS now!

That’s all I’ve got so far. Eventually I’ll catch up with the Pagan Blog thing but probably not this week with Comic Con right around the corner. I would like to get through the whole thing, ya know?

atthequillsmercy

Monday Writing Update

Holy crap, Monday. Pull no punches, why don’t cha? *chugs coffee*

Anyways, after a stressful week, I am hoping to make up for my complete lack of motivation to write and fly through my word count goals for the week. Those goals include but are not limited to:

  • Finish Winter Boot
  • Start one anthology entry
  • Edit 10 pages of Greenhouse
  • Finish another review for Otakus and Geeks

I have been “subtly encouraged: to hurry and finish Greenhouse and honestly? I’m over due with that. I should have finished it months ago. You guys deserve to hear what happens next with Darjeeling and how Auris plans t0 exact his revenge. >} Dun, dun, DUUUUNNN!!!

No, haven’t had enough coffee yet. Somebody bean meh!

atthequillsmercy

CONTEST ANNOUNCEMENT!!!! :D Win a free copy of First Brood: Dreamhunter

Hello there, my friends and fans! 😀

In order to pimp the crap outta my book and get some fan-swag in the process, I am hosting a contest.

To enter, send Lenni some fanart or fanfiction from the First Brood series. You don’t have to buy the book to know the characters. The first nine chapters are here for you to read. Pick a character (or two) or a fun situation and create away! 😀

Here’s what you can win:

Grand Prize (1 person for art, 1 person for fan-fiction) is a free print copy of Dreamhunter.

All participants receive a Vampire Cupcake button for participating.

Now, for the ground rules:

  • ALL SUBMISSIONS MUST BE ELECTRONIC: The point is to get something for free. I’m not gonna make anyone pay for postage. Fan-fiction should be in the body of your email. I would prefer not to get attachments but it’s ok. Just use RTF format. Pictures should be JPEG so I can see them.
  • Keep it to an R rating. I’ll have a different contest for naughty bits. See next rule for why:
  • ALL ART AND FAN-FICTION RECEIVED WILL BE POSTED ON THE SITE WITH CREDIT: On my site there is a Gifts page. I would like to be able to display the entries without having to post warnings all over the place. Artsy nudity is ok. Parts touching other parts is a no-no. Unless expressly told NOT to post it, I will. Right now there is no separate section for NC-17 work. When there is, I will hold a contest for that.
  • All entries must include your name, title of work, which character(s) it is, and what link you’d like the credit to go to.
  • This contest is limited to First Brood characters. With other characters is fine (ex: Auris vs Batman or something) but not anyone from my other stories.
  • Send all entries to lenni@atthequillsmercy.com.
  • One entry per person please. One person should not submit art AND a story. One or the other.
  • Fan-Fiction entries need to be under 10,000 words. I want to have time to read them all.
  • Final date for entries is March 31, 2012. Results will be posted by April 15, 2012 (barring injury or illness of course)

I would love for all my fans to get involved and inspired by my work. ^_^ If my readers would also love to do me a kindness in spreading the word, I would appreciate it. 😉

atthequillsmercy

Updated Book Challenge Count

1. Lightning, by Jean Echenoz

2. The Demon Lover, by Juliet Dark

3. Netsuke, by Nikki Ducornet

4. Smut, by Alan Bennett

5. Never Cry Wolf, by Cynthia Eden

6. Feral, by Joley Skye

Yes, I am aware it seems I’m posting about nothing but this but in the background, I have completed the rough draft of the sequel to this book and I am flying through the typing process as quickly as possible. I am so psyched to get this edited and fleshed out so I can post it, you have NO IDEA! XD

Back to work for me!!

atthequillsmercy

“The Black Jewels Trilogy” by Anne Bishop – The last review of the list.

In this final installment of my journey to read through the 10 Fantasy Sagas That Are Wronger Than Twilight, I review “The Black Jewels Trilogy” by Anne Bishop.

Again, I don’t get all the hoopla. Or I’m just a jaded, irredeemable pervert. Either way, I’m enough of an avid fantasy reader to be able to accept the world I’m in when I’m reading the book. Therefore with that said, the romance between the 2000 year old demon and 20 year old woman (because she IS of age when they get together) doesn’t phase me. Especially when you factor in the character Jaenelle Angelline, the female in question. She is no Bella. She is born Witch; with a capital “W” fated with powers the other characters can barely comprehend. Her fated lover; Daemon, loves her from the moment he meets her but honestly, it’s mostly platonic till she’s of age. And I say “mostly” because he keeps dreaming about how awesome she’ll be when Jeanelle grows up. Not to mention she’s so powerful, everyone around her is scared shitless. Jeanelle is not a silly little girl, she’s a force of nature, her spirit is timeless, ageless, and nobody screws with her without paying for it.

Bella is well… Not.

This story was well worth the 1216 page slog and HUGE book I had to carry around for a couple weeks. If you like sprawling fantasy worlds with humor, angst, and good ole fashion magical fun, grab this book. It’s awesome. 🙂 I didn’t find the romance disturbing at all!

Touched by Venom however? I hadda give it up. I returned the book without finishing it because, quite frankly, I didn’t enjoy reading it. It wasn’t the dragon venom aphrodisiac, it was the jargon dropping and slogging through this story which showed no signs of going anywhere. And I don’t have time to read books which are a chore to pick up as you can see from my Shelfari list of books I want to read. That list doesn’t grow so much as mutate and I have a devil of a time keeping up.

In one of my more random reads, I have found a much more disturbing romance than any of the ones I’ve read on that list; Savage Dawn by Cassie Edwards. The premise can be summed up by this simple phrase: “My, Chief Eagle Wolf, that’s some sexy measles you’ve got there.” That’s right, folks, our plucky Caucasian girl, Nichole, who is so garsh derned plucky she’s lost in the West after her parent’s t0wn gets massacred and comes upon Eagle Wolf who is covered in red spots and sick with fever. He thinks it’s small pox but Nichole deduces it’s only measles. But not before checking him out. While he’s sick. Before she even makes the decision to try and help him. Yup… Sexy measles.

And there are Mormons. They seem so random, I skipped the parts I read with them in it. I totally returned this book after the umpteenth time each of our lovers bemoans the fact the other will not be accepted by their respective societies. Didn’t even make it halfway through before I returned it.

In more current news, I have finished the rough edits on Grey City and have resumed writing Greenhouse, sequel to Dreamhunter. I’m making that my focus for now. I’m itching to have both Brood books out at the same time. ^_^ It feels good to be working with my vamps again. I can tell they missed me. 😉

atthequillsmercy

And now, we wait.

I sent in the query for the lesbian thriller anthology today. Even though you’re supposed to query with the idea first before beginning work on the story, I personally felt better having it nearly complete beforehand. Even if the idea is a bust with the editor, I still have a story I can use elsewhere. I have a few final edits to make but I’m holding off to hear from the editor.

I’ve been getting back to work on GH and having a complete ball with it. It’s SO much fun working on it again, I can’t even tell you. XD Of course getting another 5 star review on Dreamhunter doesn’t hurt, either. 😉

I also have become enamored with this video:

As a fan of Gaga and Judas Priest, I had a complete fangirlgasm. It’s really well done. 0.0

Won’t some generous fan make a fanvid or fanfic of my characters one day? A girl can dream… 😉

atthequillsmercy

De-lurking? Maybe…

Since I seem to be meeting so many interesting people on Twitter, I’m going to really try and comment on more of their blogs. I’ve added a good chunk of my Twitter follower’s blogs to my Google reader and if you see a comment from some crazy chick named "Lenni" do not me alarmed. It’s my lame assed attempt to be social.

Other than that, I am still working on my second novel for the First Brood series and the lesbian thriller for that anthology query. I am also thinking about posting the rejected steampunk lesbian story I wrote. I still get a kick about an anthology out there for a concept I was already working on, but it’s awesome that it’s out there even if I’m not a part of it. ^_^

I think a LOT about types of characters which are underrepresented or represented poorly. Where are the bisexual, biracial, career women who are in stable relationships? And I don’t think of this just cause I wanna see more people like myself, I really think there’s a terrible stigma against bisexuals to this day. It sucks, but it’s there.

So, I guess that’s my indie writer’s advice of the day: If you don’t see enough of it? Write it. XD

Now, back to work for me. 😉

atthequillsmercy

Wow… 0.0

I randomly logged into Create Space to work on getting Dreamhunter on Kindle (pauses for cheers of joy) and I see that I have a message.

I sold a book. To somebody I don’t know.

I’m sure this has happened before since I’ve sold a grand total of 20 or so copies of DH and I know about 8-10 of them personally (and minus the 4 copies I’ve purchased myself), but I’m still nervous that someone I don’t know has my baby in their hands. I really hope they like it. *chews fingernails*

My ankle is healing nicely and I’m spending the time reading and writing. Mostly, I’ve been working on Greenhouse but of course there are other stories floating around. I’m brainstorming the third book in the First Brood series already but that doesn’t have a title yet.

I’m a little wonky today since last night was hubbsters 30th birthday dinner. I nursed one cherry blossom martini the whole night while he got shitfaced. I also went home early so I could steal Monkeygirl cuddles and he went to a bar and got so drunk (I hear) that people were able to draw on him without his knowledge. I demand pictures, people!! XD

Since it is a rainy and crappy day, I’m sure it’ll be quiet so I can write.

Now that I’ve said that, I’m sure it won’t happen. :p

atthequillsmercy

Keeping the faith – Why I keep going

There are moments where I wonder why I bother to keep writing. Aside for knowing I will go completely insane if I don’t get all these ideas out of my head, it’s really easy to feel you ware writing for nobody but yourself and the 5 people around you who care enough to support your delusion vision. You want to give up

Then fate comes along.

Another patron told me today how much he loved my book and is looking forward to the sequel. 🙂 He told me in completely honest terms that a book never outright made him squeal for more like a true otaku and I get the feeling he’ll be on my ass to get the other one finished asap. XD

I also scrounged up all the notebooks from my short story project and will be updating the site with them over the next few weeks. Not particularly on a schedule just as they get typed and edited.

And here I was feeling all useless and such. 🙂