Review

There’s a review up for If Wishes Were Horses at Literary Nymphs

As everyone knows my current WIP is The Bargain, I feel that I should add I haven’t forgotten Lily and Darvan, I just needed to take a little break before getting back to them.

WIP Update

I’m guilty of not doing one of these for a while, so below is a list of how things are going at the moment.

The Bargain (Working Title)

 m/m,     current wordcount 12,214/50,000

(Yes the expected end wordcount has gone up just a little bit). This is my vampire/werewolf road trip story, and my main WIP at the moment. A very small teaser can be found here. At the moment it’s looking like a two part story and I’m hoping to have part 1 completed and submitted to crit group by the end of October. The Bargain is set in the same Universe as the Land of the Fey, but centuries later.

 

Robert (working title)

m/m fantasy, word count 0/50,000, outlining

Yep, I suck at thinking up titles. This is my NaNo piece and is what I’ll be concentrating on in November. Probably working on The Bargain Part 2 at the same time.

 

Land of the Fey

Raven

m/f, current word count 12,250/50,000

I’ve written and submitted several chapters of Lily and Darvan’s story to crit group. I know the major plot arc of the story but at the moment the beginning as written isn’t working. So it’s back to the drawing board for a rewrite.

Fox Prince

m/f

Genys and Reynard’s story. It’s possible Reynard’s story may be completed before Lily’s. Fox Prince will give a much broader overview of the Fey World and the larger situation at the time of the Civil War. It will also explain why Genys allowed Alaric to be wounded.

Other Works

Silvertree

m/m sci/fi, current word count – 8000/50,000, on hold

The beginning of this needs rewriting. LOL – mainly because I’ve nicked a big chunk of it and am going to incorporate it into my NaNo story. So leaving this one with a big piece of plot missing.

The Tithing

m/f, current word count – 50,000/50,000

Awaiting revision. This was my 2006 NaNo novel. It needs tightening up and slightly replotting in places but I’d really like to look at this again before the end of the year. It’s a vampire fantasy kind of set in the same Universe as the Land of the Fey

So that’s the situation at the moment.

Review

Up at Uniquely Pleasureable

If Wishes Were Horses Review

I hope if anyone else out there struggled with the politics and larger story in If Wishes Were Horses that they’ll be pleased to know I will be writing more Land of the Fey stories.

Sonnet on a Sunday / Lily

94

They that have power to hurt, and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;
They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces,
And husband nature’s riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others, but stewards of their excellence.
The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself, it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.

 

So we’ve skipped ahead, (just a few ). I can’t remember where I first read this poem, but it was in the front of a crime novel, several years ago. It’s the couplet at the end that stayed with me, and that’s really where Lily got her name from. Even if the rest of the poem goes over your head, the last two lines are pretty clear.

Lily is also a bit of an anti-Mavis, the fairy from the Willo the Wisp cartoon who always seemed to be skipping through the forest, (but Lily has slightly more of an Edna edge ).

Couple More Reviews

I’m very pleased that the response to If Wishes Were Horses has been so positive, (touching wood).

Review on Elisa-Rolle’s LJ

Review at Two Lips Reviews

Will post my Thursday 13 in a while.

Heading Back into the Writing Cave

So the sharp-eyed amongst you will have noticed I’ve edited my progress meters to more accurately reflect what I’m working on at the moment.

I’ve started work on Raven, and am continuing to work on The Bargain. As I’m not sure when I’ll get round to revising The Tithing I’ve taken it off my WIP list for the moment.

I may not be posting quite as regularly as I have been. Though I’ll keep you up to date with my writing progress and any exciting news as it happens. Once a week I’m going to try and post about a character or something along those lines. The first one will be about Valerian. And if ever I can squeeze it in I want to write a short story about when Lily first met Alaric. Appropriately enough it will be called When Lily met Alaric.

Songs to Write With

I meant to post this a while ago but it was one of those posts that just never got posted.

Quite a lot of the time when I’m writing I have a song that plays in the back of my mind for a character. Of course as the story progresses and the characters evolve this song may change and some characters have more than one song. And some songs or pieces of music inspire more than one character or situation. Anyway, songs for If Wishes Were Horses, which you may or may not agree with.

Alaric – Hello by Evanescence

Valerian – Insatiable by Darren Hayes

Lily – Bitch by Meredith Brooks (LOL)

Another Review for If Wishes Were Horses

At Fallen Angel Reviews:-

http://www.fallenangelreviews.com:80/2008/July/Teresa-IfWishesWereHorses.htm

I’m Back

So I made it back from holiday  – refreshed and recuperated and ready to get stuck back in.

I completed the outline for Raven, currently it’s looking to come in at a minimum of 50,000 words. So a little bit longer than If Wishes Were Horses.

I also completed a second outline for a completely unrelated story following a remark I overheard about adjoining bedrooms. LOL – inspiration comes from everywhere.

So my task over the next couple of weeks is to get the first draft of The Bargain (now looking like a working title) completed and then I’ll start working on Raven. Hope to have a teaser from The Bargain up some time this week.

Land of the Fey 2

So after a great deal of procrastination, I’ve come to the conclusion that was probably obvious to everyone else. The next Land of the Fey story will be Lily’s.

:slaps forehead:

One of the biggest hurdles I have as a writer is how easily sidetracked I get. For instance in IWWH I know the backstory and motivations of every character*. Whenever a character does something I want to know why – and often the why is very interesting. Which is why I’ve been pulled towards wanting to do Genys and Reynard’s story. Genys is quite a powerful character, she never appears on page in IWWH, but it is her actions that are the pivot for Alaric and Valerian’s relationship. She makes an incredibly hard decision, sticks to it and because of that everything changes. So I will definitely be writing her story at some point.

Back to Lily. I’m giving her story the WIP title of Raven. So you’ll see that changed in the sidebar. Currently working on getting the outline down, the whole story is in my head, I know exactly what happens. But I just need to get the major points down so I stay roughly on track.

* – With two exceptions. Jerin and Marek. Jerin is strong and silent, and probably has a very interesting story to tell, but he’s keeping it close to his chest. And Marek is very young compared to the others, very earnest and hasn’t really done much yet.