Vampires, Novels, and Updates, Oh My!

… sigh. I can’t seem to keep this blog updated to save my life.

As usual, quite a lot has happened since my last post. I’ve been going through a real rough time writing-wise over the past few months. Some of you who’ve been reading The Novelty Girls know that I’ve been having serious issues getting back into writing after taking a couple months off due to real life rearing its ugly mug. I’d end up with my Inner Dickwad running my head in circles every time I tried to work on something.

It didn’t help that I had a lot of trouble getting into what I was working on, either. It’s not surprising with A Touch Necromantic, as I need to do some more development work on it before I can make any headway. I’ve got a lot of characters and conflicts I don’t know much about, as it begins in a different part of the world from Passion.

With Stronger … well … *sigh* That’s a bit harder. The original version flowed so well, but this has been like pulling teeth. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve broken it off to work on something else way too many times over the past year, or if it’s because there’s a problem somewhere in the last several chapters I’m not recognizing.

Bottom line is, I’m having trouble with both of my main projects. This is not good when you’re trying to get back into writing after a long absence.

One night, I sat down and talked to Morgan about it. (I love it that my husband is a writer, too. He understands and often has some damn good insight.) He suggested that if I was having trouble, then maybe I should look at writing something for fun. Something that’s for me more than anything else. But I couldn’t come up with anything that I’ve got on the backburner that really fit the bill for that. The Reaper’s Price is close, but I have some amount of difficulty with erotic fiction these days.

And then it hit me. Arielle and Jackson. More than any other character I’ve ever written, Arielle’s voice flows for me. I love writing her and spending time in her little nook of that world. But I’d been planning on expanding the novella into something longer come fall, when it was closer to the date my contract would come due. (Cobblestone’s contracts are one year in length and renewable by mutual agreement of both parties.)

Life specializes in irony.

Within an hour of that discussion, I received an e-mail from Deanna and Sable at Cobblestone Press. Because they knew I was not happy there, they will be releasing me from my contract effective the end of June. Cobblestone is a great publisher that has a lot of potential to be a serious force in the industry, but … well, to put it simply, we weren’t compatible. Happens in all sorts of relationships. That being said, their actions here have shown a lot of consideration, and I deeply appreciate that.

Where does this leave me?

Hard at work on Twilight: The Novel. I’m not sure if I’m going to keep The Twilight Deception as the title for the novel, or if I’m going to find something else. Anyone got any thoughts there? LOL.

I’ve added almost 4k of new material thus far, and that should go up as I start to get into some amount of a writing routine. I’m a bit sketchy on where the novel is going; I’ve got the rough outline, but I need some more specifics. And probably to complicate things, also; otherwise, this is going to be an awfully short book!

Wish me luck!

Whee!

It’s been a hectic weekend. First off, it’s looking like we need to replace our car sooner than we’d anticipated, so my plans to go to RWA Nationals this year are more than a bit moot, unless Morgan should manage to get a significantly better job in the next couple months (given his recent health, not very likely). Needless to say, I’m pretty bummed about that.

We went to Boskone, a local science fiction and fantasy convention, with a couple friends. Unfortunately, due to a fubar on Boston’s part (parts of the subway line we needed to take were shut down for this weekend only), we didn’t get to the con until 4pm on Saturday, so I missed quite a bit of the panels I’d wanted to see. Still a lot of fun, though, and I got to meet up with some people I hadn’t seen in a year or more.

I might be going to Lunacon next month. Smudge and Pen are going and offered to split a room with me and the male. Morgan has had to take a lot of time off work, so he wouldn’t be able to, but Pen lives close enough that we can probably carpool. It’d be a lot of fun–and hey, it’s in New York, which is one place I haven’t been to yet. Not that I’d do much besides hang around folks at the con, but still!

In other news, I’ve received a few awesome reviews these past couple days. Cocktail Reviews, a new review blog, gave The Twilight Deception five champagne flutes (their second highest rating!) and Wasting the Dawn four flutes. A couple quotes:

“What an utterly fantastic read. I haven’t read a book that has affected me in this way for a while.” — Wilga Hill Boomerang on Twilight.

“Ms. Drake has an exceptional voice and a unique ‘thing’ that just shines from the page.” — White Russian on Wasting.

Annnnnnnnnnnnd…

About a month or so ago, I sent a query to Mrs. Giggles for The Twilight Deception. I happened to check the website today, not so much because I wanted to check, but because I love her site… and she’d posted the review.

She rated it an 83.

For Mrs. Giggles, this is high praise, indeed. I’m still bouncing off the walls. A long-ish quote: “Elisabeth Drake has an interesting alternate world in this story. Vampires and witches are nothing new, but the otherworldly vampires here are not the usual vampires and their ability to pass themselves off as humans even in broad daylight allows some interesting possibilities. The author also knows how to tell a story in an entertaining manner - this short story has excellent build-up and ends most satisfactorily despite the book being only 75 pages long. I don’t feel that the story is rushed to a conclusion.”

I’d hoped she would like it, but… this is Mrs. Giggles. She is known for char-broiling manuscripts. While I’ve had several picky people crit/beta read my work, much less editors, I’m not going to assume that someone won’t think it’s crap anyway. ^_^

So, yeah, bouncing off walls. Whee!

The Twilight Deception contest winner!

Thisyle, please drop me an email at elisabethdrake@gmail.com letting me know what format you’d like. (I have HTML, PDF, lit, and Mobi.)

Congrats, and thanks to all for entering!

The Twilight Deception released today!

The Twilight Deception releases from Cobblestone Press today!

Here’s a brief blurb, if you’re interested:

When the FBI receives word of vampire-related murders, they order tough-as-nails resident witch Arielle Thompson to investigate. But the last thing Arielle expects is to have her butt saved by a friendly vampire who claims he’s tracking the master vamp responsible for the murders.

Despite her wounded pride, Arielle can’t help her inexplicable attraction to this sexy-as-sin vampire who calls himself simply “Jackson.” He reluctantly informs her that their enemy is far more powerful than reports said — and his powerbase is only increasing.

Arielle and Jackson must team up to stop him, before he grows too powerful to defeat.

Click here to read an excerpt.

Wanna buy it? Click here.

In celebration of the release, I’ll be holding a contest for a free copy of The Twilight Deception. Comment to this post with a number from 1-30, and the person closest to the number I’m thinking of wins.

Release Date!

So… I’ve got my release date for The Twilight Deception. ^_^

November 17th.

Yay!