Dunham series

Sneak peek at STAY

Moriah

June 21, 2009

I’m doing this without my editor’s approval, but hey! I’m feeling rebellious this evening.

Stay is the second book in the Dunham series. It is not entirely necessary for you to read The Proviso before you read Stay, but I do recommend it. Now, neither main character is an actual Dunham by blood or marriage, nor are they Mormons (shocker, I know, but there’s still plenty religion, money, politics, and sex), but there is a method to my madness in the series order. If you have read The Proviso, you might have (or not) picked up on a hint or two that these (very) minor characters might have rather . . . interesting . . . histories that were not explained.

Here’s the official back-of-book blurb:

At 12, Vanessa defied her family to save 17-year-old bad boy Eric from wrongful imprisonment and, possibly, death. She’d hoped for a “thank you” from him, a kiss on the cheek, but before she could grow up and grow curves, he left town.

Fourteen years later, Vanessa is a celebrity chef at the five-star Ozarks resort she built. Eric is the new Chouteau County prosecutor on his way to the White House.

Four hours apart and each tied to their own careers, their worlds have no reason to intersect until a funeral brings Vanessa back to Chouteau County, back to face the man for whom she’d risked so much, the only man she ever wanted—

—the only man she can’t have.

* * * * *

DECEMBER 14, 1994

“People versus Eric Niccolò Cipriani. Charges of statutory rape, sexual assault in the first degree, and forcible rape in the first degree.”

“Ms. Leventen, how does the defendant plead?”

“Not guilty.”

“Hilliard?”

“Remand, your honor. The victim is thirteen.”

“So ordered.”

* * * * *

Tentative release date: November 26, 2009.



The state of the art

Moriah

So today I’m listening to Babs and this line keeps jumping out at me: “Art isn’t easy, even when you’re hot. Advancing art is easy; financing it is not…Every time I start to feel defensive, I remember vinyl is expensive.”

In case no one missed me, I’ll tell you what I’m doing:

1. Damned Day Job. You know, I’m awfully glad to have one right now, so I’ll refrain from bitching. See aforementioned financing art to understand why I feel obliged to tell you that.

2. Had a very short deadline drop in my lap for a project I feel privileged to be part of, so there is much e-mailing and such going on around my office in order to get this yumminess out into the marketplace.

3. Stay is finished sorta. A secondary character (a throwaway, but how come all my redshirts end up demanding their own stories?) garnered some attention from alpha readers who said, “Hey, what happened to him?” The original story with Vanessa and Eric is finished and in the hands of beta readers. Yet again I’ve decided to do something bizarre, which is to say, put two mirror-image stories back-to-back in the same spine.

4. Magdalene is 3/4 finished. I believe Cassie St. James is the woman I’ve most enjoyed writing. Ever.

This balancing the art with the marketing is getting on my nerves, quite frankly. I’m a writer and I love my imaginary friends; I settle in with them and I’m mentally…gone…for days.

Plus, I’m still convinced that an author’s brand is the writing, the stories themselves. How can you have a brand that’s the writing if you only have 1 product?

I like blogging, don’t get me wrong—when I have something to say. I also didn’t like feeling like a slave to my stats, who’s visiting, where they’re coming from, what they’re reading…

Some days, I just don’t have anything to say and you know, I think more people should just not say anything when they have nothing to say. Not every second of every day must be filled with words just because we fear silence.

Still alive!

Moriah

I’m here, I promise!

Got some fairly big projects in the works, some related to publishing, some not, and I need to really concentrate on those. It’s a concession to my ADD, which likes the time to focus on a project, to tunnel right through it, and does not like to rotate through projects on a schedule. Honestly, I get more done that way.

Also, I’m working on my last piece in the cross-blog series David Nygren of The Urban Elitist and I are doing on monetizing fiction, then I need to concentrate on putting up some pieces for Publetariat.

I’m also working on the next book in the Dunham series, Stay, which is taking on proportions I didn’t plan for. Sometimes my imaginary friends are very persuasive, which is to say, they won’t leave me the hell alone. Stay is a little more genre romance-y than The Proviso, and a lot less heavy on the religion. I’m aiming to release it on Valentine’s Day, 2010.

Tune in tomorrow. Same Bat-channel, same Bat-time.

Practicing what we preach

Moriah

In the spirit of our philosophy of making it easy on the customer (well, actually, it was because our shopping cart software got upgraded to do what we wanted it to do), we’re making it even easier for you to purchase The Proviso. We can now offer the 8 e-book file formats individually, for $5.99 each. Yeah, we know times are tough, but geez, an epic novel for six bucks. That’s hours and hours of entertainment. Can’t beat that. We still offer the .zip file with all 8 formats as well as the trade paperback (free shipping!), but now you can get the one you need for a lower price! Just click on the BUY NOW button on the left sidebar underneath The Bewbies.

And don’t forget! For those of you who’ve read the book and would like to know more about those wacky kids (or you’d like to know where the Dunham series is headed next), you can find a whole slew of stuff at theproviso.com. More content. More entertainment. For free.

Faith and hope and elbow grease

Moriah

I’m a permablogger over at Publishing Renaissance (for those of you who don’t know). I’m alternating Thursdays, starting January 1 (yeah, I know, it was 2 days ago). And it’s so cool to be kicking off Publishing Renaissance’s year.

Lately, I’ve been around some blogs that are extraordinarily kinda negative and I notice it brings my production down, in terms of writing the next books in the Dunham series, in terms of the projects B10 Mediaworx has on the table right now (I don’t have enough fingers to count), in terms of my own blogging, in terms of doing what writers are supposed to do once their books are published, in terms of the DDJ, and most importantly, in terms of how I treat my Tax Deductions and Dude. I know I shouldn’t allow myself to be that influenced by negativity that it starts trickling down to my fandamily, but I am.

I’ve never been a positive-thinker type of person, but Dude is and he’s rubbed off on me. I’m also not one of those “think it into existence” people, either. It’s just that I’ve noticed that the more productive I get the more positive I get; the more I hang around negativity, the less productive I get. This isn’t a good situation. I have too many interesting things to do to mess around with things that don’t advance my goals.

One of the interesting things I’m into is, as you know, independent publishing. While I do point out what I feel are the weaknesses of traditional publishing (and I’ll admit to a certain level of frustration and bitterness—I’m only human), I do that to highlight the fact that one can be in charge of one’s own destiny—

—and it’s an incredible feeling, let me tell you.

There are “vanity press” naysayers and name-callers and compulsive “helpers” who aren’t really helping. The fact that they quite often don’t differentiate between “vanity” and “POD” and “self” publishing is, I think, a function of insufficient research or a measure of insulation from the querying masses or resentment for taking a “shortcut” and bypassing the “system.” Depending on the day, that might hurt my feelings, but I keep on keeping on.

Mostly what keeps me going is when I look at the pile of projects that have been brought to us (B10 Mediaworx) that are incredible and fantastic. To know we might have a role in bringing such incredible and fantastic things to the public—things that have never been done before and we would never have conceived of on our own—because I took my destiny in my own hands is…

I have no words to describe it.

We might fail. I might fail.

And that’s okay.

But I have to make the effort, cut through the bullshit, and go forward with courage and optimism. Maybe, just maybe, I can offer someone else a hand up or a piece of information they needed or some encouragement along the way.