Pre-Nano Update and Other Schtuffs

Those who may have noticed, I didn’t post an excerpt on Sunday.  I had every intention of doing that, I was distracted with some shopping and cooking.

The cooking made the missed night well worth it.  First off, I made my homemade spaghetti sauce and that took a while to get perfect.  Plus why I needed to do some shopping.  Secondly, I braised 10 pounds of chicken leg quarters for broth.  That required my attention after dinner was over.

I now have eight pints of some delicious chicken brother to set back for cold weather.  I just may borrow mom’s huge stock pot, buy some quart sized mason jars and set us up with some homemade tomato sauce.  It would be a good idea so all we’d need to add is meat and pasta.  That’ll be another day.

For now, we are staring down the dark and dank throat of NaNoWriMo.  I’m both nervous and excited.  I want to start writing this strange, and I hope, funny novel.  Dark of Duck (I may just drop the ‘of’ and just call it Dark Duck) is supposed to be funny and I’ll be listening to a lot of Mel Brook’s movies and other comedies, including some of my favorite sitcoms.

It’ll be more for the turn of phrases and puns to help hold up the descriptions of the antics of the goofy minions that bungle the orders given by their demon possessed leader.  The MC, the demon-possessed duck, will have other problems, such as a snarky wife who really runs the show, and a flamboyant hero who’ll come traipsing through to thwart his attempts at domination.

I have done some thinking on this, however.  If Dark Duck is to have this much trouble, then he’s got to have either a very young demon or a low-level demon who is more of a mischief-maker down in Hades.  So, we can imagine the conversations these two must have.

Now, should Dark of Duck peter out, I do have back up to complete the 50k word count.  I still have more stories to write to add to last years NaNo novel.  It needs at least four or five more to make it a decent length then a bit of Segway between each story to tie them together while letting them be stand alone stories.

The Sunday excerpts will resume this weekend.  They’ll be mostly from my NaNo novel.  If I remember, I’ll make daily posts about my progress.

Good luck on Nano!  Have fun and don’t sweat the details.  That’s for after NaNo.

Week in Editing #amwriting #writemotivation #fiction #edit #sonl

It has been a busy week.  This past weekend was rather lazy except for the work I did on my Sunday post.  That post was an accomplishment in itself.  I turned two paragraphs into a page, maybe a page and a half, which sounds and definitely works better with the scene.

But, because of that huge revision of the scene, what is now chapter eight will become part of chapter seven.  It continues the conversation, but it’s being shortened from three or four pages down to a page or so.  If Sabrina is part of a secret society, or once was, she wouldn’t be divulging quite so much information, even to someone she considers a friend.  Mindy, her best friend in the Society, even though she doesn’t fully trust her at this point, knows all about what is going on.  Actually, she knows more, but I didn’t say that.

I offer this comparison for everyone.  First, the original two paragraphs:

“You follow me, drug me, twice, and now have me captive. I’m not sure I can trust you, right now, Sabrina, but…” and he let the pause linger while he chose his words very carefully, “… since I don’t have much of a choice, I’ll listen then decide later if I believe you or not.”

With a nod, Sabrina said, “That is all I ask. So that you fully understand why I am doing what I’m doing, I’ll start at the very beginning. It all began during the Great War, when I was just a little girl of about eight years or so…”

Now, the link to the revised conversation; http://candacegauger.wordpress.com/2012/10/21/sunday-excerpt-excerpt-amwriting-fiction-sonl/.  To get the full conversation (most of it anyway) you can find it at this link; http://candacegauger.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/.

These are set to open in another window so you can see and compare better.

To me, the revision sounds better.  Jason isn’t giving in too easily and Sabrina doesn’t sound like a pushover.  She is given a bit more attitude and shows she cares for him as a friend and wants to see him live.  It also shows she’ll do what she needs to do to make sure he understands.

I can sum up the current chapter for the curious.  It tells about Sabrina’s youth at the end of the Great War, how she lost all but her cousin Shyleah, and entered the Claw and Fang where she learned to be an assassin before meetings her various beaus.

The first draft had her with seven boyfriends; some which became husbands if briefly.  That’s way too much for such a young lady who doesn’t have a sex fetish or anything  Sabrina is a proper lady in many ways.  The seven were trimmed down to three which were spaced further apart to give her ‘healing time’.

There’s no way she’d talk that much.  She’d keep it short and to the point and give Jason just enough information, plus let him know of the characters he needs to worry about other than his twin brother, Devin.  Which reminds me, I need to make a small revision to add a talk with Gerin where he tells her the particulars of her mission to get her cousin back alive.

There’s a lot to add and change in the next to last draft.  If I can get a few people in my NaNo group to do a full edit to point out areas needing further work and suggestions to tighten and polish it up, I’ll be ready to start querying agents.  (That’s next year at the earliest.  March, I hope)

Sunday Excerpt #excerpt #amwriting #fiction #SoNL

My how a long week flies by when you’re busy.  I’ll write another post since it’ll also have a restaurant review as well.

Now, I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but I started my own hashtag for this book to make finding my excerpts easier.  #Sonl should bring you to my posts, now, and help distinguish quotes or other things concerning this book when I make posts about it on Twitter.  

I do intend on finding an agent and a publisher for this book series.  It won’t be done independently like I am doing Black Friday or my erotic compilation.  My erotic compilation will be done on Smashwords under my usual net name to help make that divide between safe for work and the not so safe work.  More on that later. 

Just to make sure you realize, I didn’t think this chapter was ending quite so soon.  I thought there was at least another page, not two paragraphs.  But, this can be easily fixed.  Right?  I hope so.  Please, tell me what you think of this.

“You follow me, drug me, twice, and now you’re holding me captive! You want me to trust you?  Honestly.  You.  Want /me/.  To fucking trust /you/.  Ha!”  Jason’s voice rose in pitch as his anger grew.  He didn’t try to advance on her.  No.  Even as angry as what he was, he knew she’d have the advantage.  ”Don’t take this wrong way, but I’d trust Devin right now.”  He folded his arms across his chest and glared at her.

She eyed him, letting him shout and get it all out of his system.  His words hurt.  She couldn’t blame him for feeling the way he did.  She’d be the same way if their roles were reversed.

Sabrina kept her expression neutral.  His anger rolled right off as she they didn’t affect her.  If she let him see how much it did hurt her, she may as well shoot herself right there and make it easy for Dean to get what he wanted.  That thought added steel to her spine.  Even Jason’s anger bolstered her courage.

Her silence unnerved him while he waited for her to reply.  He had heard her argue with Felix many times in the last two years and knew she could hold her own, but never had he seen her stay so quiet after someone shouting at her.  This was a different woman than the one he had come to know and respect.

Her eyes didn’t leave him as he relaxed his arms then sat down on the edge of the bed as she had requested a few minutes before.  The silence lasted until she was sure he was seated then let out a breath.  ”You don’t have much of a choice.  Either you trust me and have a quiet life with Sasha, or don’t trust and end up dead in the gutter.  Either way, Jason Foxworth is dead.”

He raised a brow and looked at her intently.  Though his thoughts were visible, she couldn’t make them out clearly.

“Either way, I’m dead?  How is being dead a good thing?”  His question was demanding.  He glared at her, but he kept his hands on the edge of the mattress and gripped tightly.

A slow sigh escaped her parted lips while she watched him.  ”Well, it’s easy.  We fake your death, give you a new identity and a new home.  You’ll have that peaceful life you’ve told me and Felix about without having to step on toes or anything of the like.”

The snort of a laugh wasn’t humor filled or even thankful.  He didn’t believe her.  She knew he didn’t believe her.  It was going to be a long and difficult task to make him be able to believe her and trust her.

“You make it sound like you do that regularly.”  His comment had the stinging bite of sarcasm that drove in deep to score at the heart like an armor-piercing arrow.

Holding back an equally biting comment, she flicked her ears back and thumped the side of her chair with her tail.  ”Let’s just say I know what I’m doing, buddy boy.  If you want to die, I can arrange that as well.  Don’t think I won’t hold back if that’s how you want it.”

His eyes went wide.  Jason didn’t expect that sort of reply from her.  Leaning back, he propped himself on the bed then decided to ask, “Okay, how do you expect to kill me without killing me?”

“Easy.” Sabrina let a hint of a smile sneak into her expression.  ”You just have to do exactly what I say until we can fully convince your brother and the Claw and Fang that you are dead.  The rest is up to Mindy and me.”

“Yeah, right.  I believe that.”  Sarcasm was thick in his tone and dripping off every syllable.

Sabrina eyed him for a moment longer then stood and turned to the door.  ”Fine.  If you want to be like that.  Enjoy the last few minutes of your life.  I’ll try to make it as fast and clean as possible.”  She huffed then took a step toward the door.

Seeing that she was very serious, Jason blinked then sat up quickly.  ”Whoa!  I didn’t say I wanted to die!  Get back here, bitch, and face me.”  he stood up and reached for her as she left.  Upon grabbing her upper arm, he growled.  ”Don’t you dare leave this room.”

She stopped when he grabbed her and looked at his hand.  Slowly, she lifted her eyes to meet his.  Her eyes were as dark as storm clouds with the tempest inside building quickly.  ”I suggest you let go of me, fox, before you regret ever touching me.”

What he saw in her eyes and heard in her voice made him let go without saying a word.  Jason regretted that action and was back to sitting on the bed without being asked.  ”Sabrina, please,” he pleaded softly, “I’m sorry.  How else would you expect me to act after all you’ve done to me in the last few days.”

Her hand was on the door knob and the door partly open when he spoke.  His words, the very tone of his voice, were enough to make her pause.  She couldn’t stay mad at him.  He was her friend.  Probably the only friend she could trust at the moment.

“A lot worse than this, to be honest.”  Her voice was soft with a tremor hinting at her emotional state.  ”I didn’t want to do those things, but they kept you alive.  You don’t know how close to being murdered you’ve gotten in the last twenty-four hours. And not by me.”  Slowly, she turned to face him.  ”I don’t want to see you die.  You’ve been my friend all this time.  I protect my friends.”

“I see that,” he mumbled.  He looked down at his lap then back at her.  He focused on her green eyes.  He realized just how expressive they were and how honest she really was.  ”You still have a lot to explain.  If you want me to trust you, I need to know the facts.”

Once again, Sabrina sighed.  Then, nodding, she resumed her seat in the chair after closing the door.  ”Very well.  I’ll tell you everything I can.”

Mid-week Review

Not much to review this time.  I haven’t done any writing or editing since my last post.  I have been either too tired to focus, in too much pain, or just too irritated with the day to be able to write anything coherent unless I want to write a rant.  Rants aren’t good things to post unless they are for a specific forum.  Although, they usually make one feel better after they are written.  Usually.

I have been trying to figure ways to promote not just my book, Black Friday, but also myself.  With so many works in progress waiting to be completed and edited, I need to drum up some excitement from people other than myself.  I want to share these works with the world and prove that not everyone in the furry fandom are perverts.

What I have found are a few blogs who are willing to interview indie authors and help showcase their work.  Sounds interesting.  I am signing up for a couple and we’ll see how things go.  I just hope I don’t make myself sound like a goofball or completely insane.

Some may know me well enough by now that I am eccentric, strange, weird, but rather harmless overall.  I may come off as repetitive and annoying, for that I apologize.  I don’t realize it until well after that fact.  Social?  Not really.  Would anyone believe that just going to work everyday is difficult?   I’d rather be someplace quiet and with fewer people at any given time.  Slow days are a godsend to me.

Enough about that.  You’ll see more when these interviews happen.  They will be a couple of months in the future.  I still need to find ways to promote myself around Tulsa and Oklahoma in general so that maybe I can start selling more books.  My sales are so low, they may as well be non-existent and I have no spare money to use the Xlibris sales and promotions.

Would anyone be willing to donate if I started a Kickstarter to raise the funds needed?  I’ve debated it just to afford the revisions and edits and even paying a couple of people I know to read Black Friday to point out those areas and suggest corrections or revisions. I’m talking, copy, like, and content edits to really make it shine.  The reviews I had on it said they liked the story, but the typos and other small errors detracted.

I’m rather looking toward BNC and another in my local group since their advice has been such a huge help with the first chapter of SoNL.  I’ll handle the cover art which needs some tweaking.  A bit of shading so you can see the creature on the front.  For those who have seen it here you can see it could use some work, but not a whole lot.

Volunteers are welcome if you want to see Black Friday improve or even help with Society of Night and Lies.  Comment, email, or even send me a tweet.  I’ll respond as soon as I can.

How about y’all?  Your week been going well?  I hope your writing and editing has been going better than mine.

Sunday Excerpt #excerpt #amwriting #fiction

As tired and exhausted as what I am, I won’t neglect my Sunday Excerpt posts.  These are as much for me as they are for you, my audience.  After this chapter of Society of Night and Lies, I’ll probably switch over to another story or two.  With all I have being worked on, there will be plenty to showcase and entertain.

Last week, Jason woke up from his enforced nap and briefly met Mindy.  Now, Sabrina is back and is now tending to him while her friend rests in another room.  Jason has woken up again and isn’t too happy about his predicament.  She’ll have her work cut out for her as she tries to gain his trust after all she has done to him to save his life.

“Nothing, actually, Jason.” She approached the end of the bed. “I suggest calming down and get used to the fact that you are going to be stuck here for a while.”

Narrowing his eyes, he glared at her. “Really now.”  He didn’t sound impressed and his whole stance agreed with his tone. So confident in himself, he scoffed at her then decided to just ask in his own way. “Seems you know me, but, I don’t know you. Who are you?”  His anger, though controlled, could be seen in the way his fingers moved and his nostrils flared.  Not even his ears moved far from where they lay against his skull.

“I’m a friend. The rest, well, you’ll find out soon enough. Now, calm down.” Her voice took on the sternness of someone who was accustomed to being in control. “Better yet, sit down before you fall.” She leaned on the foot board and let the tips of her claws lightly scrape the old wood.

“I’m not going to calm down, bitch. No way in hell! Tell me who you are before I kick your teeth out,” He wasn’t bluffing and Sabrina knew it. She saw how well he could fight the night he and Kid Kitsune faced off.

Sighing, Sabrina rolled her eyes, though that could not be seen by the shadow cast by her hood. In a moment of thought, she decided to humor him to keep him from making a loud scene and waking up her friend in the other room. “Very well, if you insist, foxy.” Black furred hands reached up and pushed back the hood until her light green eyes were visible and the familiar white whiskers appeared. To make light of the situation, she smiled, letting the tips of her teeth show stark against her black muzzle. “Never thought it would be me that caught you. Hmmmm, Jason?”  Though there was a note of humor in her voice, her eyes were guarded and waiting for his next move.

Jason was shocked to see a friend beneath the hood; one he didn’t expect to see any time soon. Least of all someone he thought couldn’t do what he had been put through. His jaw fell open as soon he saw her face and the rueful expression she possessed then plopped down on the edge of the bed. “Who…? How…? What are you doing here, Sabrina?” His shock was short lived, but he still couldn’t believe it.

“Protecting you, my friend.” Her voice had a hint of annoyed resignation for the demanding tone she heard in his voice. She took off the cloak and laid it across the back of the chair by the door before addressing him again. “To answer the rest, my real name is Gabriela Vettel. As to how, it wasn’t very hard to track you down and follow your movements all over town. Catching you was easier still. Making sure certain people think you’re dead wasn’t very simple.” Then she leveled her gaze on him, the stern crook of her brow and the missing smile made her seem all the more serious.  ”Especially with you all over town like you were last night.”

His mouth hung open again as the fox absorbed what he was told. While he tried to put together a single thought, he worked his jaw and clenched and unclenched his fingers. That was quite a bit to take in since he thought she was someone completely different.

Sabrina grinned while she watched his brain try to put it all together then she spoke softly. “I’ll explain what I can, but I’ll have to start from the very beginning. Needless to say, there are a lot of people who want to see you dead. Your brother is just one of them, but he’s the least of your worries right now.”

“How is Devin the least of my worries? He’s the main one that wants me dead, and vice versa I might add.” Jason said matter-of-factly before standing and running a hand through his hair.  He started to pace then thought better of it and sat on the edge of the bed facing her.

“I’ll explain what I can All I ask is that you trust me.” Sabrina schooled her expression to be as neutral as possible while she waited for his answer. 

Chocolate Kind of Week plus #writemotivation checkin

Make that two weeks that require chocolate.  There’s not enough chocolate in this town to soothe what I feel from the hell I’ve been through since my boss went on vacation last week.

I won’t bore anyone with the details but lets just say when the boss is away, the brats will play.  I’ve been stuck on the register all day each day I’ve worked with no breaks except for my lunch or I insist on taking my 15 minute breaks and give them no choice.  I don’t mind running a register, but not all frikkin’ day.

We are supposed to rotate!

Today… oh today was the topper.  Power went out for about three hours or so.  It came back a few minutes after I went to lunch.  During that time, people, naturally, were not allowed in the store to shop since security wouldn’t be able to keep up with the thefts.  Complaints from that.  We could not do a thing except put the drug order away and sort the bundles for scanning and filing on the prescriptions.

Once the power is back on and everything boots up, there is a pile of e-scripts to input and a ton of trouble shoots to work through along with a line of people demanding their meds we couldn’t fill or work during the down time.

The fun part is answering call after call of people asking if we were open and the power was back on.  Here’s a clue: I ANSWERED THE PHONE!  My sarcastic streak was screaming to be set loose on these people.

I got my OT for the week in today.  Two hours extra just to finish the input and troubleshooting.  I’ll probably go in at open tomorrow so I can finish the scanning, ten-day returns, and apply the truck orders from today then try to get those bundles filed away before my boss gets back from his vacation.

It’s enough to make me want to scream bloody murder and smack some skulls on the counter to make sure they are paying attention to what I say.  Things can be simplified only so far before we decide the patient is a lost cause and needs to be awakened.

I haven’t been able to write at all because of being too tired to focus or just so frustrated anything I’d write would be a veiled rant at the stupid people and co-workers.  I don’t want to do that with my writing or to anyone who reads my blogs.

That’s the reason for the chocolate.  Wouldn’t you agree some nicedark chocolate and a quiet day are in order after all of that?

Now, for my check in.

All I managed to do for September was finish my edits up to chapter six in Society of Night and Lies and read about Scene and Structure.  I couldn’t write a single word on Black Friday 2.  It looks doubtful I’ll be able to accomplish much of anything for this month either until John comes back.

He will get an ear full the second I can get him alone.  This isn’t fair to me or anyone else in the pharmacy.

I do apologize for that rant.  It does explain why I haven’t posted much beyond my Sunday Excerpt post.  Things should return to normal after next week.  I hope.

Come see my Facebook Page athttp://www.facebook.com/FantasticFurryRealms!  As I can, I’m adding content.  I’ll have excerpts of my works in progress posted there eventually.  SoNL has recently been added to the excerpt there.  More soon!

Sunday Excerpt #excerpt #amwriting #fiction

For those who are wondering what is going to happen next, you are about to see.  Sunday has come again and that means a new excerpt to read.

Looking back, I think I ended last week’s excerpt a paragraph or two too early.  My apologies if this one seems a tad disjointed.  It wasn’t intentional.  My main concern is keeping these excerpts short to tantalize.

As hinted, this one is picking up where we left off last week.  Mindy is taking care of Jason as he wakes up from his forced nap.  Then, Sabrina comes back from her meeting with Reyna and gets to talk with her captive.

He sounded like he was in pain when she finally peeked around the door.  Mindy’s heart went out to him, but she couldn’t let any of that show.  Not now.  Not when there was so much at stake.  Sabrina wasn’t the only one being controlled by the Society.  But, she couldn’t think about that right now.

Listening to him groan again, she slipped into the room with the steaming cup and the bottle of aspirin.  She barely made a sound as she walked over to the bed and set down the cup.  After clearing her throat, she spoke softly and masked her accent.  ”Lay still, my friend.  You’ll make the migraineworse if you thrash and look at the light.”  Then, once she was sure she had his attention, she added, “I’ve brought you something to help lessen the pain.”

The look Jason gave her was just shy of pure malice.  He bared his teeth at her and flattened his ears against his skull.  She stood in shadow with just a little of the dim light from the hall highlighting the silver-gray of her tail and the dull sheen of the damp coat she still wore.  ”I don’t fucking want what you got, bitch.”

Mindy shrugged.  He could deal with the headache his own way.  She did what she was asked to do.  There was no way she was going to force the antidote on him.  As she turned to leaved, she spoke airily, “Your loss.  When you decide you want to end the headache, there’s aspirin and tea on the table.  Enjoy!”

Whether it was a hidden streak of malice or by accident, she let the door shut loudly which elicited a snarl of pain from Jason.  She stood and listened, smirking to herself before heading back to the living room.

It was only three in the morning.  Barely.  As much as she wanted to get some sleep, she had her own work to do and not a lot of time to do it.  Just thinking about it made her wish she hadn’t found Sabrina in the practice room.  But she just knew that her feline friend could help her, too.  She hoped, she could.

###

Hours later, Sabrina returned. Her entrance was quiet, with the exception of the click of the locks as the bolts slid into place. The apartment was quiet.  Only the faint tick of the clock and the sounds of the neighbors waking up were heard over the soft snoring from Mindy where she dozed on the couch.

Peace and quiet at long last. She thought as she sat down at the table and gazed out the window at the cloudy sky. I hate having to put my friends to the test like this, but I have to figure out who I can trust the most. I don’t know if I can trust her. And Reyna… I’m not so sure about her, now, either.

“Nothing is what it seems,” she whispered to herself.  Sabrina glanced at her sleeping friend, wondering if she could trust her as much as she used to.

Thinking about her past, and all she had lost, she nearly choked.  She did own Gerin a lot.  He gave her a place to call home, a family, if she wanted to call them that, and education, and a job.  Of sorts.  Assassination wasn't exactly a job she wanted even if most of the ones she killed deserved it.  What she found with Felix made her happy.

Another sound in the apartment brought Sabrina out of her thoughts. In the bedroom, Jason had finally awakened and was wrestling with the sheet that was covering him. Somehow, it had become entangled in his legs and was keeping him from standing. Just as she got to the door to peek in, the fox fell back onto the bed and was cursing at the sheets wrapped around his legs. The sight of it was funny, but this was no time for levity.

Before entering, Sabrina made sure to pull her hood up so her face was hidden by the shadows it cast then pushed the door open. The reception she received wasn’t surprising. Jason was furious at being drugged and caught in a set of sheets of all things. Somehow, it seemed quite humorous to her, and a chuckle escaped before she could stop it.

“What are you laughing at?” He asked with a growl while tugging the sheet free from his feet and standing. His eyes flashed with his obvious anger while he patted his person to find his weapons. They weren’t there. Mindy thought ahead and removed them.  She knew he’d look for them when he woke up.