I realised today that I didn't write a review for FADE OUT the other day. I ended up posting a little something, but I wouldn't call it a review. Lol. This is how much I love the Morganville Vampires series. And speaking of books, this is the book I'm reading at the moment. I'm sitting on page 88 at the moment. Not reading it as fast as I would like because I feel so distracted this week. My head's stuck in my own stories/ideas. And when that happens, my reading slows down to a crawl.

I'm actually really enjoying this book. I keep laughing. I think it's really funny. And heck, it's got zombies. ;)

It's been a bit of a mixed day. I've spent a lot of it listening to 30 Seconds to Mars, gearing up for the release of their new album. I can't wait to get my hands on it. I'm a huge fan of 30STM. Can't wait until they come to Oz again. Sadly, I missed them last time. Won't be doing that this time. I must be there. Lol.

Well, I'm going to sneak in a little bit more note-taking. I've got this crazy idea (in an existing world of mine, with characters that I really enjoy writing about) for a novella and need to sort out the ideas before it can become an actual story. :D

Enjoy your weekend!

I don't know what the hell's the matter with me this week but I've had a flaming headache almost every single day. Actually, I think that yesterday was the only day that I didn't have to take a headache tablet.
So what's up? Could be a few things: not getting enough sleep, working out regularly, feeling mentally exhausted, it's almost the end of the year and I usually start feeling a little strange, spending too much time in front of the computer... see, there are a bunch of things that could be causing it. But I think it's just because I don't stop thinking about things. I've constantly got stuff in my brain.

Well, that's not gonna change. :) Lol.

Last night I finished the copyedits for my upcoming (and first) Samhain Publishing release, WITHER. Then this afternoon I double checked the ARC to make sure everything looked good. I think it looks great... thanks to my wonderful editor, and the copyeditor too. Can you believe it? WITHER is just five days away. Yikes! It comes out the same day as the new album by 30 Seconds to Mars. I can't wait to get my hands on This Is War.

By the way, I'm one of the Featured Authors at The Romance Studio, so if you'd like to read a little about WITHER, you can here. :)

Right now I'm taking a break from organising my notes, research, and other stuff. I've got all my Recast and Alyce Kerr stuff all over the place, and want to file it all away in separate display folders. So far I've gotten all the Recast stuff sorted, but need to get to the Alyce stuff. Well, better get going to do just that.

Oh, I posted these on Twitter and thought it might be fun to add them here too:

Quote from CHRISTMAS DAY OF THE DEAD: “That better not be your blood or I’ll have to throw you out there!”

Quote from BETTER OFF ALONE: “Not exactly the dashing prince you were expecting, right?”

Today, I've got a guest post from the very talentednaomi_jay. Her novel, AFTERLIFE, is now available from Damnation Books:

Yasmin Stoker is a ghost tour guide who spends her days showing tourists around Shoregrave’s haunted hotspots. She also happens to be a wraith who spends her nights hunting Revenants, newly-risen flesh-eating vampires. On one of her regular hunts, she witnesses a mysterious ghostly girl pulling the body of a teenage boy underground. Who and what is this girl, and why is she attacking men around the city? Yasmin investigates, but it quickly becomes clear that somebody wants to keep her from finding the killer and they’ll do anything–including ambushing her with ghouls and cacodaemons–to stop her.

With only a persistent private eye and a taciturn vampire (one of the Immaculate, no less) to help her, Yasmin must deal with fanatical necromancers, crazed ghosts, and a sexy history teacher in her quest to solve the mystery. And along the way she uncovers some heartbreaking truths about her own existence.

You can check it out HERE.

Now, here's her very interesting post:

Worldbuilding for the Undead (Or, Do Wraiths Eat Bacon?)

Whilst AFTERLIFE was doing the rounds at my writers' group, one key issue that kept coming up was wraith physiology. My main character, Yasmin Stoker, is a wraith who can take either the form of a human being or mist. And this became a huge sticking point, because everyone wanted to know if she had a fully functioning human body when she's in human form. Does she need to eat, sleep, use the toilet, etc? Does she breathe? If she has lungs, a heart, whatever, where do they go when she turns to mist?

And the answer was mostly, I don't actually know. I wrote the first half of this book for Nanowrimo 2007, so at the time it was just a case of "get the words down, sod it if it doesn't make sense!" So I didn't stop to think about whether or not Yasmin had human needs whilst in human form. I know she sleeps (mostly for narrative convenience; a character who's awake 24 hours a day requires a lot more plot than I had at the time). I know she eats human food, but she doesn't need to - it's a comfort thing. The chapter that really sparked off the debate for my writers’ group was one where Yasmin is in bed eating a bacon sandwich. Do wraiths eat bacon? Inquiring minds wanted to know and I had no answers!

Most of the other undead creatures in the book were pretty well developed by that stage in the writing. I knew my vampires, my Lich Lords, my ghouls; how they functioned, what they needed to survive, and what could hurt them. Yasmin was a bit different and I hadn't really figured out all the answers by the time I finished the first draft. Having spent hours agonising over whether or not she had kidney stones and could digest bacon, I came to the conclusion that I might be overthinking things.

But how can you ever be sure? How much detail is too much? Are these the tiny details on which an entire book will rise or fall? Or are they the tiny details that readers will overlook because they accept that we're dealing with supernatural creatures?

I started set the rules for Yasmin more firmly in place as I redrafted with my group’s feedback, figuring out how much physical damage she could take, what happens to her bacon sandwiches when she turns to mist, and whether a vampire could kill her. And in the end, I think I resolved all the burning questions. I swear though, if I ever have to spend another writers' group meeting trying to explain why vampire sandwiches are not going to happen, I'm scrapping the whole book. It's bacon all the way.

Bio:

Naomi Clark lives in Cambridge and is a mild-mannered office worker by day, but a slightly crazed writer by night. Her short fiction has appeared in ezines from Midnight Times to Dark Fire Fiction, her debut novel, AFTERLIFE, is available now from Damnation Books. She has a perfectly healthy obsession with giant sea creatures and a preference for vodka-based cocktails. When she's not writing, Naomi is probably either reading or watching 80s cartoon shows, and sometimes she manages to do all three at once.

Visit her livejournal at http://naomi-jay.livejournal.com/

Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/naomi_jay

---

Thanks so much for popping in, Naomi! :)

ALSO DON'T FORGET: Pick up a FREE copy of CHRISTMAS DAY OF THE DEAD by using this promo code: 61DODholiday, and to check out all of the other awesome new releases now at Damnation Books.

PS. HUGE congrats to naomi_jay for her first novel release. AFTERLIFE is here!

...because this was at the top of my list for today, check this out:

56293 / 50000 words. 113% done!

Okay. Now I can truly say that the first draft of this novel is done. I'm very excited about how it turned out. I'm excited that I got the chance to write it. And I'm already taking notes and doing extra research to prepare for the revision process. Of course, I don't intend to do that until next year. Lol. That sounds so far away, huh? But really, what I mean is January, which isn't too far at all. :)

We had a super lazy weekend. It was great. The only times we left the house was to go for our daily walks. We played some X-Box 360, hung out, watched THE HANGOVER (I thought it was lol-hilarious). Oh, and I read this book over the weekend. The Kitty Norville series is one of my faves, and I loved this one. :)

My Damnation Books Author page has been updated. So very cool. There are now three books listed under my name. Yay! And don't forget that you can download one of those books for free with the promo code: 61DODholiday.

Well, I'm hoping that this lingering headache leaves before it's time to go to bed. Waking up with a headache is the worst. :(

This is how my progress bar looks now:

54758 / 50000 words. 110% done!

I've actually finished the story but want to go through the last few chapters again on Monday. In my rush to get everything out of my head, I think some of it is a little skeletal. lol.

<--- Look what I got. :)



And look what's available now...


Christmas in Australia just isn’t what it used to be. Ever since the Earth cracked open, spewing forth demons, it’s become the loneliest holiday. What do you give your zombie neighbors for a gift anyway? Certainly not your brains.

50054 / 50000 words. 100% done!

Yay. I might've met the NaNoWriMo goal, but the story's not finished yet. I'm hoping to finish it tomorrow. I'm so darn close. :)

Good night.

Here's where I stopped today:

45200 / 50000 words. 90% done!

The strangest thing is that I started out pretty slow today. It took me a while to get into the swing of things, and then when it was time to stop, I didn't want to. Very strange, huh? I've just had one of those weird days, where you feel restless and a little annoyed for no reason. We did catch up with DEXTER, though. Man, I love this show. And something that I mentioned to the hubby before we watched the ep, actually turned out to be right. Yay! Lol.

I think it's time to get some sleep now.

...and about a thousand other things. So I haven't had a chance to blog properly.

Still, here's where I'm at on my NaNo novel:

41534 / 50000 words. 83% done!

As you can see, I'm getting really close now. I'm pretty sure that I'll reach the 50k mark by the end of the week, but I'm not sure if that's going to be the end of the story. I have several pages filled with notes left to address -- including a thread that popped out of nowhere but fits in very nicely -- and have only crossed off two things. Lol. Still, I'm certainly not complaining. The more I write, the more I'm enjoying this story. :)

I've also got several interviews, guest blog posts, and review reading that I need to get stuck into. Soon.

*taking a deep breath*

Well, since that includes Friday, I guess it's really a long weekend. Lol.

Anyway. I haven't added a single word to my NaNoWriMo novel since Thursday night, but that's fine because I've actually got a bunch of pages filled with notes that will hopefully get me to the end. All I have to do is sit down to write it, which I intend to start doing tomorrow. I've also got a handful of interviews and/or blog spots that I need to finalize, but those are fun so I'm looking forward to it.

I guess the new week's going to be another busy one.

The weekend so far has been a scorcher, as well as a lot of fun. Oh, and did I mention that I worked on the second round of edits for Wither and finished them up today? Yay. I really enjoy the process. The story's so much better now. :)

Well, I'm going... it's almost time for dinner.

I ran out of time yesterday and didn't get a chance to update my progress bar over here. So, here it is:

36053 / 50000 words. 72% done!

Not bad, huh? I've actually met my weekly goal tonight. And since I'll be working on edits tomorrow, this is a great thing. Man, I'm so tired now.

Oh, and before I go, here are the two books I've finished reading this week:



They're both Hachette books, and they're awesome! Click on the pics to read my reviews. :)

See ya!

Well, today I managed to get caught up on my NaNoWriMo novel. Not sure how long that'll last, but hey, I'm still excited. Here's the progress meter:

29101 / 50000 words. 58% done!

If I can cross the 30k mark tomorrow, that will be cool.

Hey, have you seen the cover for my upcoming Damnation Books short story, BETTER OFF ALONE yet? Well, if you haven't, you can HERE. :) Very cool!

I'm off to read now. I'm reading an excellent book called HATER by David Moody. My gosh! What an awesome story.

See ya!

Just a quick post today. Wanted to add this lovely progress bar to LJ:

25025 / 50000 words. 50% done!

Isn't it pretty? And look, I'm halfway there! A little behind on the personal goal, but getting there. I even managed to squeeze in a little bit of other stuff. It was a blazing hot day here in Sydney, but I loved it. Bring on summer, I say. ;)

That's right. I decided not to work on my NaNoWriMo novel today. I'm just too tired after the edits. I've fallen behind on my NaNo word count and didn't meet this week's goal, but plan to catch up on Monday.
Did I mention that my hubby is taking part in Movember? He's going for what they call the trucker. Much better than the porn star. Lol. Even though, I have to say, most men wind up looking like porn stars when they start to grow a mo. I think it's hilarious. :D

Anyway. I had a great Friday the 13th. I managed to get an interview done and emailed, plus cleaned the floors. That took quite a while, but the floors feel great now.

Okay, I better get going now. Have a great weekend.

And I'm exhausted. I spent the last two days -- okay, and half of today -- working on my latest lot of edits. It was a hard edit that took a while to get through, but I don't mind. I enjoy editing. It might be hard and very tiring, but I love the process of chipping away at the story until it shines. Very cool process. But I'm not done. This was only the first round.

Of course, this means that I haven't added any words to my NaNoWriMo novel. It's still sitting @20,383 words. I opened up the Word doc and tried to get stuck into it but couldn't concentrate. I think it's best if I don't bother tonight. I need a small break, and will get stuck into it tomorrow. Besides, if I can reach 24k by the end of tomorrow, I'll still be on target to get to 50k by the end of the month. Just need to read the last chapter I wrote to get back into the swing of things.

Have you seen the latest 30 Seconds to Mars video yet? You can watch Kings and Queens here. I can't wait for this album to be released. And you know what? It comes out on the same day as my story, Wither. Very cool.

Have you checked out my two new Damnation Books covers? If not, here's one and here's the other. :) Very cool!

I didn't work on my NaNoWriMo novel over the weekend, but I was busy working on two rounds of edits for a short story I've got coming soon in December. It was a lot of fun to return to it and make it a much better tale. And thanks to my editor, we did just that.

Today, I got stuck into my WIP. Here's where I'm at as of two minutes ago:

 

20383 / 50000 words. 41% done!

It's great to have reached this word count because it leaves me 1,217 words away from my Thursday target. And since I'll be working on another lot of edits tomorrow, I don't think I'll be adding any new words. But that's fine, I'm excited about the editing.

Well, hope you have a great one! Bye.

The Drowning City: home to exiles and expatriates, pirates and smugglers. And violent revolutionaries who will stop at nothing to overthrow the corrupt Imperial government.

For Isyllt Iskaldur, necromancer and spy, the brewing revolution is a chance to prove herself to her crown. All she has to do is find and finance the revolutionaries, and help topple the palaces of Symir. But she is torn between her new friends and her duties, and the longer she stays in this monsoon-drenched city, the more intrigue she uncovers - even the dead are plotting.

As the waters rise and the dams crack, Isyllt must choose between her mission and the city she came to save.

Of course, the destiny of Isyllt, Zhirin, and Xinai take them to different and even sad places. The three of them suffer immense heartache, physical pain, and betrayal along the way, and aren't all on the same side either. But each woman's journey was honest, raw and true. I loved this book!

There are so many things that could've gone wrong in this book -- competing narrators, confusing loyalties, intricate politics, huge idea without substance, strange names jarring the story, too much mythology involving ghosts, spirits, and water creatures... but you know what? That didn't happen. Everything made sense. Everything clicked together to form a terrific, complex story that I enjoyed so much I know I'll be thinking about it for weeks to come. It's a fantasy that breaks into a new barrier.

The Drowning City is an amazing, interesting and very well written story that blends a variety of weird and wonderful creatures. It's what a fantasy book should be: riveting, ambitious, and succesful in it's delivery and execution. The main characters are deep, and so is the supporting cast. I can't wait to read the next one.

I've been seduced by this world, and I'm looking forward to visiting again. Only this time, it'll be in a different city.

The Drowning City, September 2009, ISBN 1841498149, Orbit Paperback

Week one is done. I'm so tired! My target for today was 12k and instead I did this much:

 

15720 / 50000 words. 31% done!

Very happy with the word count and story progess. I've found my groove. :)

Have a great weekend!