Posts Tagged ‘Darkmore’

  1. Fresh Coat Of Paint And New Toys!

    February 15, 2012 by Megs

    For those of you reading this post on Facebook or Livejournal, click through to NomChron itself and check out the new layout! I’m also testing out a couple plugins like getting comments to crosspost between various platforms. So knock yourself out! Say something nice!

    Part of the new layout, is to get a more uniformed look with my business cards. You heard me. Business cards. As I haven’t made some kind of official statement about it yet, but I’m going to the Silken Sands Conference March 16-18. I decided to take the plunge and get some more specific business cards for the event. I’ve very recently changed my erotic romance pseudonym from Morgan Chase to Lex Chase. Let’s be fair, I was kind of freaking tired with being confused with JP Morgan Chase Bank!

    The company I went with was MOO and I’ve had business cards from them before. They’re pricy but they are seriously really nice. Thick stock, laminated finish, crisp images, and easily legible. What I like about MOO is you can have multiple designs in a pack of cards. This time I decided for such a small run I was doing to use photographs of things that meant something to me, as well as tweak the colors for a more faded and color-warped photograph feel. Of course three of them are about my cats. Because. Really.

     

    Click to enbiggen!

     

    In there I have a couple shots of Atlanta, Krispy Kreme, flowers from my garden, and of course Dali, Remmi, and Pootie. The LxC is a logo I cooked up because I couldn’t make LC look interesting and LxC when said aloud sounds like ‘Lexi.’ Lexi was an option I was considering with the pseudonym change, but I don’t look like I could pull off the name in real life. But aren’t they quaint?

    In revision land news, Darkmore has entered the second round of revision while my crit group finishes chowing down on the first round. Now it’s mostly fine tuning at this point like raising flaws in characters, and adding little glimpses of stuff that dovetails into the end. The hardest part is making the voice match between the first half and the last half. I’ll get a chapter how I want it to sound, then pick it over again.

    Things that have started rolling around in my head is picking an better title, but part of me wonders if I can come up with anything with as much staying power. Sevon’s Sins comes to mind. And part of me busts out laughing.

    Now if I can just bang my pitch into shape, life would be grand.

     


    Category Darkmore, News, Real Life | Tags: ,, | No Comments

  2. The End And The New Year

    December 31, 2011 by Megs



    Once again, I grossly miscalculated. This time the miscalculation worked out in my favor! I’m so much closer to the end of the book than I thought! While exciting, it’s going to take some elbow grease on my part. I have to write the last seven chapters from scratch, and unlike when I wrote the final 7k the first time, I don’t intend doing it in a day.

    College is back in session on the 10th, and I intend finishing the first round of revisions on the 5th. It’ll be great having it out of the way! By my initial calculations the revisions would take eight months. I’m pleased that I’m finishing three months ahead of schedule! Once I bucked up and resolved to revise 7k a week things really got going!

    My critique group, provided nothing comes up between now and then, will finish going through it around February 14th. Accidental perfect timing on my part because it’s the exact date of the 20 year anniversary. I might need a cupcake. ;D

    Overall, I like the new direction Darkmore went in. I’ve said before the first draft wasn’t bad it just wasn’t the right. Of course, that’s just conjecture on my part. Darkmore has drifted from straight up romance and naughtiness all the time to a bit more of a action-romance still with the same naughtiness. ;D Instead of things concluding with a mere whisper of a warm fuzzy, I’m hoping that the new conclusion reads with the same emotional punch I’m visualizing. I want people cheering with the new ending instead of settling down with a ‘oh isn’t that nice….’

    I’m also kind of tired of being totally spoiler-free with talking about my stuff. I want to tell the world with all the tasty bits! I realize in the game of publishing that’s not a good idea. Alas!

    Also, I’ve busted out my calendar and blocked out my writing schedule for the new year. The table breaks down as follows:

    January 5th Darkmore Revision 1
    January 19 Darkmore Sequel Synopsis
    January – End of April 10-9 Revision 4
    May 12th 10-9 Sequel Synopsis
    May – July Draft Grow
    June 6th Submit Darkmore
    End of July – Mid September Expand Pawn Takes Rook
    October – First Week of December Revise Americana Fairytale
    December 5 Submit 10-9
    December 22 Americana Fairytale Sequel Synopsis

    Table Code Here

    Posting it here for accountability sake, plus I’ll stick it up on its own page so I can have a check off list as I go. I’m happy about it. I’ve managed to fit everything in I wanted to do in 2012. I guess it’ll be the Year of Revision and I can only imagine 2013 will be the Year of Writing.

    Happy New Year everyone! May you accomplish all of your goals!


    Category 10-9, Americana Fairytale, Darkmore, Grow, Novellas | Tags: ,,,,,,, | No Comments

  3. When It Becomes Real

    December 22, 2011 by Megs



    I think I need to commemorate this because I will never see 44.44% ever again. That’s awesome. Darkmore is a teensy bit shy of halfway into the editing process and I’m four chapters away of completely running out of material I salvaged and wander into Make The New Ending Land. Considering I started this in oooh… August I can only cross my fingers I’ll be through it by end of February. I’m giving myself till March 10th as a final due date for the first round of revisions. I’m thankful for my Critique Group because I’ve been able to make more sweeping changes sooner instead of whittling at it layer by layer on my own. It’s because of the questions raised by the Critique Group that I’ve decided to completely rewrite the ending. Likewise, it’s because of the Critique Group, I have to go back to the earlier chapters and work in new details, alter certain character attitudes, and add more to the worldbuilding.

    Overall, I’m happy just to be mostly back on my feet. Editing Darkmore has been utterly peppered with starts and stops from my sudden cases of death. I’ve had the flu twice, I’ve had crippling days of acid reflux twice, and now that my wisdom teeth are gone I dealt with developing dry socket and unwittingly near overdosing on ibuprofen. I’m happy to report my dry socket packings are out as of yesterday and while I’m still a bit tender it’s nowhere near as bad. I’m trying to tough it out a bit and let the clots form but eating is still a bit of an adventurous chore. Right now, I have a delicious brownie from Firehouse Subs sitting in front of me and I’ve only managed eating a quarter of it. Normally, this thing is in my gut in under a minute, but I can barely open my mouth wide enough to bite it. So, I nibble.

    Nonetheless, I am committed to getting this friggin’ book done. It’s become the principle of the thing now, and when it gets to that point it’s time to put on your asbestos lined boots and march into that hell. School’s back in session come January 10th and I’ve got a lot of ground to cover between now and then. The more I make a dent the better off everything will be.

    It’s getting closer to the point of writing a synopsis and query letter, and then it’ll be all the more real. The day Darkmore gets sent off into the submission works is the day it stops being a story I created as an angsty 13-year-old and traded chapters with friends to being something more. It stops being this nebulous thing that lived in my head for two decades and starts being a thing that perfect strangers can see, touch, hold, and read.

    It’s terrifying… And at the same time, absolutely liberating. Honestly, I think seeing Darkmore in print is far more personally monumental for me than 10-9. Trust me when I say that’s saying a lot from the kid that put her nightmares on paper and turned them into heroes so they wouldn’t scare her anymore.


    Category Darkmore, Real Life | Tags: ,,,,, | No Comments

  4. Repeat After Me: Don’t Panic

    November 18, 2011 by Megs



    Now that I’ve recovered from another bout of the flu, I’m at the stage of Darkmore editing that I’m pretty much creating new material all over again. I’ve salvaged all I can, and now I have to write nine chapters from scratch. All in all it’s really not that bad. I think it’s the post-flu productivity and seeing what’s piled up while I was in a coma and it just seems like it’s a mountain when really it’s a molehill. If I really bust ass at it I’ll get those chapters done in nine days no muss no fuss.

    I think it’s because I’m preemptively planning for my December, a month where I get a lot of writing done, not to be a very productive one this year. I’m getting my wisdom teeth out on December 12th and while my mother assures me I’ll only be totally useless for three to four days, I’m pretty sure I won’t be totally okay until Christmas. I’m telling myself not to panic.

    Tomorrow, I start work for a currently untitled anthology submission, and I’m going to try my luck once again. The point is I kind of have to get the draft down by December 11th. December 5th if I can swing it and give it time to cool off while I get my teeth yanked out of my head and focus on hardcore editing afterwards. I’m going to aim for the 12k limit since I think the story can stretch for that long. I actually might have to trim a bit since I think my concept is honestly too big to squish into 12k.

    At first I wasn’t totally married to the idea but this morning the missing puzzle piece that gave it an extra oomph came to me. So I’m fairly good to go on it. Truth be told I had planned to try for the anthology when it was initially announced months ago. I just didn’t have an idea until 48 hours ago. We’ll see how this pans out.

    I’m conditioning myself to practice reverse psychology with the piece. I’m going to go in telling myself I have an absolute snowball’s chance in hell. That way I’ll make me work extra hard. Pretend like if it’s the last story I ever write I better make it count. If it gets kicked out, I’m not going to fret over it and just keep trying. I’m kind of becoming a regular pro at riding the rails of the rejection train. I think my skin is getting a little bit thicker with each kickback. I’m kind of wondering if I won’t know what to do with myself should that ‘Yes’ finally come. I think it might involve lots of rolling on the floor and my cats thinking I’m having a seizure.

    Anyway, once I conquer this college final paper on Cormac McCarthy it’ll be absolute smooth sailing. If I pass my classes this year it’ll be a small miracle. This semester I just didn’t care. I’ll admit it. But that’s a whole other pile of drama for another time.


    Category Darkmore, Real Life, Short Stories | Tags: ,, | No Comments

  5. Singing The Melody Of My Greatest Hit

    November 6, 2011 by Megs



    The melody of my greatest hit in question is ‘I’m So Far Off My Outline.’ I’m up to Chapter 15 and while events are occurring at their appointed time, I’ve made such a gigantic mess I’ve chosen to plow through and not backpedal.

    In a moment of brilliance, I’ve discovered a light at the end of the tunnel. You see, Darkmore has six different outlines. And I kept all of them. The outline I have been working off is called Outline 5-A. Because Outline 5 wasn’t doing it for me. In pretty much ignoring everything Outline 5-A said at this current point in the story but remembering it sounded vaguely like another outline I had done, I went digging.

    And I found the file called Outline 6. And everything I had reworked was all there as well as a road map on what to do next. Halle-freaking-lujah!

    Problem: In initially keeping 60% of the book, which honestly is kind of unheard of anyway, I’m now basically keeping about 20%. But that small smidgeon I kept has been reordered and all the dialogue rewritten.

    And I’m actually okay with this. I realize I’m forging it into something stronger and less… wimpy. I’ve raised the stakes exponentially for all sides because it makes no sense for a battle to be largely one sided. It makes no sense for Sevon to magically outwit the villain and the villain to accept his fate like a placid sheep. It has to be a fight. It has to leave a mark. Sevon, Jack, and everyone else that assists them have to be forever changed by the enormity of what they’ve done. They can’t just pull out a roll of Mentos, smile, and that makes everything All Okay™.

    Editing is not about playing it safe. It’s not about correcting the spelling, adding a comma, and calling it a day. It’s about killing your darlings and forging their corpses in the literary bellows into a weapon that cleaves the imagination into thousands of possibilities.

    I have Ace of Cakes Rock Star Duff Goldman in my head that says “Never play it carefully and safe. Dumb and dangerous is the way to go.”

    Let’s get dangerous. Rock on.


    Category Darkmore, Writing Tips | Tags: ,,, | No Comments

  6. Finally! A Dent!

    October 23, 2011 by Megs



    I had forgotten I used to post progress meters of editing as well. It’s back! And I like that I can actually see some honest to goodness progress instead of the bleak grind of my Word Doc. When all is said and done, 45 chapters of Darkmore’s first round of revision is only an estimate. I have 36 planned but it depends what I split up, what I combine, and what I cut all together.

    I’ve made myself the goal to edit 7k a week, 1k a day. Similar to my writing habits of writing 7k a week from scratch. I haven’t been able to write consistently for about a month and it’s been making me pretty batshit. I’ve decided that if I’m going to keep the pace I need to get up earlier before my day gets bogged down with other necessities like school, homework, and going to the gym. Because at the end of the day, my brain is too scattered to concentrate. Monday through Friday I’m up at 8:30 and my butt is in my chair till noon. Saturday and Sunday I ‘sleep in’ until 9 and pretty much play things by ear. I still have time for all prior commitments and it’s done wonders for the cantankerous mood that had me by the throat for the last month.

    Considering with Darkmore, I had to redraft the first quarter of the book and it was a hell of a grind. I’m finally at the chapters of the story that I’m keeping largely intact and just editing for context to fit into the revamped beginning. A lot of dialogue’s been cut, rewritten, or had other characters say a different character’s lines. A lot of Sevon’s opinions or decisions were flopped around at this point in the story to make sense with the whole.

    The best part about it is I don’t hate it anymore. When I was writing the beginning I was like ‘My God! I’m such a useless hack! I don’t know what I’m doing! I need a tub of Haggen-Daz STAT.‘ Now… Thanks to my beloved crit group of The Traveling Gypsy Writers on Facebook, I realize no really I don’t suck that bad. Hurray! :D

    And NaNoWriMo is only nine days away aaaaauuuugh. I’ve decided to suck it up and just edit Darkmore for it. Cheating? No. Why do you say that? I’m not cheating. Noooooo… But I’m going to vow to myself next book I’m doing is Grow. That bastard is getting written one way or another!

    You heard it here first! Tune in next time!


    Category Darkmore, Grow, News | Tags: ,,,,, | No Comments

  7. Piling Things On My Plate

    September 21, 2011 by Megs

    NaNoWriMo is six weeks away and I am the first to admit I am completely unprepared. I have notes on a dry erase board of telling me to check into X, Y, and Z that have been there since the summer. The book I’m doing this time called Grow, is an idea I’ve had in my head for four years, and it was initially meant as a gift for my mother. I had a false start with it back then, well, in all fairness I had come up with the idea two hours before NaNoWriMo 2008 kicked off at midnight November 1st.  I was full of false bravado of “Oh hey, I can do that!” A little easier said than done back then.
    My mother and I still once in a while discuss Grow. It’s kind of a once in a blue moon thing. When I had started school this semester she said to me point-blank “When are you going to finish Grow?” and I said confidently “This Fall.”

    Grow is similar to 10-9 in the years from Conception to Completion. 10-9 was the famous six years of false starts, rewrites, lack of confidence, and then just finally getting down to it. 10-9′s completion was also fueled by a friend’s comment that said “Let’s face it. You’ll never finish it. It’s your life.” Filled with righteous indignation I immediately thought, “Oh I’ll show you, Mr. Smarty Pants!”

    I spit out 10-9 from December 2009 to May 2010. I held up the box of the draft to my friend and he grinned. “Gotcha,” he said. And thus began my long history of writing things on dares. Because I can do it. And I will win.
    Grow began humbly, but it was the first flash of my mother discovering I could tell stories. In a way, Grow molded into something that brought us together. Somehow, the impetus of wanting to share this with my mother should be the thing that makes me bust ass on it. But it isn’t. I have yet to be dared to finish it. I have yet to have the gauntlet thrown in my direction.

    Thus, I’m unprepared. But isn’t that how NaNo goes anyway? It’s like surfing. You body surf the waves to learn the tides. Polite company calls that drowning. So NaNo you pretty much drown for a while until you figure out how to get on your surfboard of plot and claim the half-pipe.

    As for 10-9, who’s still sitting on a shelf after Awesome Rejection Critique… I know what must be done. I was struck with a fit of temporary insanity and just sending it on to the next publishing house without any revisions suggested by the critique made hoping they would take it as-is. Here’s the kicker. The Awesome Rejection Critique came from a company I had sent it to them twice. They did express that they could be interested in 10-9 down the road once I had clarified some bits and they had another look at it. Key word is could. Not a promise of acceptance.

    So my master plan is to do the edits, and ship it back in for three times the charm. Maybe lucky number three will be what does it.

    On top of that… I’m creeping bit by bit through editing Darkmore which is also for the same company. I’ve revised nearly 20k. That’s progress I suppose. I need a magical Time Management Fairy. Or 100-hour days would be spiffy.


    Category 10-9, Darkmore, Grow, Real Life | Tags: ,,,,,,,, | No Comments

  8. Can You See The Light?

    August 31, 2011 by Megs

    I'm Gunna Make You Cry HURRAY :D

    When I feel disheartened in the revision process, I look at my little five-minute caricature doodle of Sevon and all is well.

    Revision is actually not moving at a glacial pace like I figured it would. I’ve joined a critique group and we’re actually quite awesome with a good vibe. I pretty much revise a chapter a week, hand it in, get comments, and have another go. With thirty-two chapters to wade through, I will be done in eight months at this rate. Eeeer. Maybe it still is a bit of a glacial pace.

    Honestly, when I look at it in terms of wordcount I’ve already revised 10k of words. So that’s no small feat. Thankfully, Chapter Two AKA The Former Chapter Fourteen largely survived unscathed and contextually actually fit rather nice and snug in its new place.

    I think it’s because I’m tackling the hard stuff first. I know for fact I have to rewrite the beginning. That’s just a lot of ‘beginning’ to waddle through. Okay. Not the beginning per se, but the first quarter is a more apt description.

    I’m starting to face similar challenges again. Darkmore is coming across too ‘young-ish’ sounding and not ‘dark and adult-ish’ enough. It’s like the darker scenes read perfectly dark and adult, but they’re scattered in a lighter sounding prose. If that makes sense. The crit group reports the dark vs. light ratio is a little askew. Possibly too light, and needs more grunge and nasty vibes. The book’s about vampires you know. My intent is to show sexy vampires, but show they’re still monsters that eat people and think nothing of it.

    I want it accessible to those that read the adult romance genre, but not be too seedy, violent, or repulsive. Perhaps, playing it safe is where I’m going wrong. As Former Ace of Cakes star Duff Goldman says, “Don’t be smart and safe. Be dumb and dangerous.”

    The world the story came from much darker roots and was from a place of hurt, self-loathing, and anger. When you look at the world itself and the concepts, it’s fairly rock solid. So I chose to lighten it up a bit. Mostly for my sanity.

    When I used to write stories in the Darkmore universe as a child, I’d feel emotionally drained. If I remember correctly with the stories from my childhood… The bad guys won, several of the good guys died, and the anti-hero who was so desperately trying to escape his father’s influence caved to his father’s wishes.

    If I remember, the thing was kind of this crackpot statement of it didn’t matter your upbringing, nurturing, or education of life, you are going to end up being exactly who you were meant to be. There was no evolution of character, no changing you fate. At birth, no matter what came after, at the end of the road, you were who your destiny foreordained. I basically took the concept of Free Will out of the equation back then.

    Back then I was a moody high school goth that was misunderstood by everyone and had no faith in myself. Back then, I was hurting and I wanted to express my hurt.

    Now, my self-esteem has improved and my self-respect has grown with it. My favorite color now is green instead of black. Now… Darkmore is about true love when it’s least expected, it’s about meeting someone you just click with, and it’s about when you hit rock bottom, you gotta pick yourself back up and try harder. It’s about being a better person and having a person that inspires you to be a better person.

    With sexy, bloodsucking, people-eating vampires.

    What makes a monster and what makes man?


    Category Babbling, Darkmore, Real Life | Tags: ,,,, | No Comments

  9. Brought To You By Canada Dry and Ritz

    August 9, 2011 by Megs

    Now A Word From Our Sponsor

    On Friday, I got the stomach flu. Here I am on Tuesday evening still getting over it.

    Thankfully, I had just enough clarity to finish the first round of Darkmore markups. Save the beginning that pretty much needs a clean sweep, and the ending that has to be totally redone, I’m pleased that at least 70% of the book is not an utter disaster and salvageable.

    Once again in my marking of the pages, I feel Darkmore might have crossed a line in being a little too naughty. Of course, considering the publisher I’m aiming it towards, this is not a big deal. But taste has prevailed to lighten up on the frequency that Sevon loses her clothes. I must be getting old. *laughs*

    Just because the frequency is adjusted, the intensity will likewise be adjusted for the moments that remain.

    The way I think of it, and I could be a total mutant in this, is to me… A story is like a video game. And now everyone that doesn’t play video games goes buh? It’s like this… In a video game you spend hours or even a day or two building your experience or trying to defeat a dungeon or boss or what have you. At the end of this grind, you are rewarded with a breathtaking artistic animation of your characters doing awesome stuff. This animation lasts only a few minutes, and then it’s back to grinding through dungeons to earn another one.

    A novel is not that much different. You ‘grind’ through chapters of plot, or spots that make you think too much, or spots that if the characters don’t shut up and suck face you’re going to hit the bottle… And then poof. They kiss. They disrobe. And then you get to see the characters do stuff.

    From an erotic romance writer perspective, that it my ‘reward’ for ‘grinding’ through the plot. For different genres, the reward is different things. For a thriller, it might be a shoot ‘em up car chase. For a mystery, it might be the intrepid hero having a breakthrough moment in the case. For a fantasy, it might be the elven heroine returning to her glorious homeland.

    I also get that with too many ‘rewards’ especially with the genre I write, takes on a whole other skeezy connotation. Too much, and you’ve got one extreme. Too little to none at all? Could actually work just fine. You just need a plot intriguing enough that people don’t notice what’s missing. Or on the other hand… Promise the reward and not give it? That’s just cruel and cheap.

    A reader bought your book. That reader wants to see the characters do stuff, or get in car chases, or find the clue, or visit the fantastic homeland.

    Reward your readers once in a while and toss ‘em a bone. Just don’t toss ‘em too many. Make ‘em work for it. They have to level up their Limit Breaks first.


    Category Darkmore, Writing Tips | Tags: ,,,,,, | No Comments

  10. Hacking and Slashing

    August 3, 2011 by Megs

    Darkmore: Flags of Disaster

    Oi. Darkmore. I remember reading this draft once and distinctly recalling not wanting to throw it in a fire! I really do!

    Now, I want to throw it in a fire.

    Okay, maybe not to watch it die a miserable death, but to forge it in the bellows into a stronger work. Yeah. That’s it. You believe me, right?

    I can recall 10-9 being this much of a disaster once, but that was so long ago I forgot how painful the process was. I recall the final polish being not so terrible. Of course, 10-9 is one of those things that sort of fixes itself. If there’s a problem with it, give me five minutes and I’ll have a solution. Putting that solution to work takes a bit of elbow grease.

    With Darkmore, I have my solution. I kind of feel like I wasted a few days looking for it because I kept telling myself to do one thing only my brain decided I meant another thing. The one thing in question was to consult the original outline. I initially decided to read the draft, make a running outline, and compare. No. What I should have done was booted up that outline first thing so I would have known what to obliterate with a tac nuke.

    Chapter Three and Four have ceased to be. Chapter Ten is the new Chapter Three, Chapter Sixteen is the new Chapter Ten, Chapter Seventeen is the new Chapter Eleven. And other sundries of massive switcheroos.

    With the crit on 10-9, I’ve discovered I am a total fiend for delaying things. The protagonists have to go through a hell of a lot of stuff before they meet and so on. Americana Fairytale doesn’t have this issue oddly enough. Being a romance writer, the two lovers must be on the playing field as soon as possible which is what I learned via the 10-9 crit. There’s a reason most folks only ask for the first three chapters or the first fifty pages. Because everyone is pretty much good to go in the plot at that point.

    My new thing with Darkmore is what’s going on with those ‘other guys’ of the supporting cast. So I’ve added in a couple of subplots to give a little more depth that these people have lives and relationships outside of my heroine Sevon. One such relationship I’m really excited to see how it pans out and if it comes across as a love that has spanned ages like I see it in my head.

    All in all, save tweaking every single scene in various levels of ‘gentle tweak’ to ‘jackhammer’ I have to write twelve chapters from scratch. Some are total rewrites of scenes, and some are all new scenes, and some is new material to make the shuffle of previously written chapters make sense in their new placement in the narrative.

    I’m only a third of the way in, and I’m sure more flags of disaster will surely get stuck on those red marked pages.


    Category 10-9, Darkmore | Tags: ,,,, | No Comments

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