Musings & more….
I’m working through the final smoothing pass of Oracle 2 before I send it off to the proofreader. Reading out loud, I got through the first five chapters – four before lunch and one after – without major impediment. But, as I was about to tackle chapter six, I realized I desperately needed a treat.
With no time to bake, I ran down to the Country Grocer and picked up Oreos and Fruit Creams.
Thus fortified, I shall now return my full attention to the final draft.
See ya on the other side!
I’m terribly pleased to reveal the cover for I See You (Oracle 2). I absolutely adore it!
RELEASE DATE: DECEMBER 17, 2015
PREORDER NOW AVAILABLE
Both of these gorgeous book covers are the combined genius of Irene Langholm and Elizabeth Mackey. I just love them side by side (and separately).
Memes, excerpts, and giveaways coming throughout November and December.
Author’s Note:
I See You is the second book in the Oracle series, which is set in the same universe as the Dowser series. While it is not necessary to read both series, the ideal reading order is as follows:
Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Dowser 1)
Trinkets, Treasures, and Other Bloody Magic (Dowser 2)
Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic (Dowser 3)
I See Me (Oracle 1)*
Shadows, Maps, and Other Ancient Magic (Dowser 4)
Maps, Artifacts, and Other Arcane Magic (Dowser 5)
I See You (Oracle 2)Other books in both the Oracle and Dowser series to follow. *I See Me (Oracle 1) contains spoilers for Dowser 1, 2, and 3.
Warning: the following excerpt is unedited and unproofed.
A black butterfly flitted through my peripheral vision.
My stomach bottomed out even as I raised my head to follow the butterfly’s flight path. It danced along the eaves of the garage, then up over Beau’s shoulder. He didn’t seem to notice as it stopped to kiss his ear.
In fact, he was standing awfully still, staring at something ahead or maybe across the road. I couldn’t see beyond his broad shoulders.
I glanced down at my left wrist. Yep, it was bare, now tattoo-free.
I stepped forward, just until I could see the huge black SUV with dark-tinted windows parked across the street. Beau was gripping the salad Tupperware so tensely I was fairly sure he was going to permanently dent the plastic.
The butterfly flitted across the road as someone turned off the idling SUV and the driver’s side door opened.
Beau was holding his breath.
A slight, tautly-muscled woman in green capris and a goldenrod printed T-shirt stepped out from the vehicle. The butterfly danced about three inches over her green-dyed, shag-cut hair. She lifted her face as if tracking its movements.
No, she was sniffing the air. And possibly smelling the magic of the butterfly?
Kandy, Jade Godfrey’s werewolf bodyguard, was in Yachats, Oregon.
That couldn’t be good. – I See You, Oracle 2, Chapter 2, second draft
Why yes, I am writing about Rochelle and Beau today. What gave me away?
Happy Sunday!!
The muttering and fretting of the crowd grew, but it was just a wash of useless noise. Beau had drilled me with contingency plans, over and over again. I was supposed to call Audrey if we got separated. I was supposed to make it back to the pack if anything ever happened to him.
I cleared the crush of the crowd, but stayed nearby on the grass in the shadow of the brick building. I dug my phone out of my satchel and pulled up Audrey’s contact info.
Except … if I went to Portland that meant I had to just let whatever was happening here happen.
Beau would be pissed. But how long would it even take Audrey to get here? And then what?
I scrolled from the As to the Bs. It was a short scroll. A shallow flick of my thumb. I had a dozen entries total, at most.
I stared down at the contact I’d selected.
Blackwell.
– I See You, Oracle 2, Chapter 6, First Draft
I put together playlists for each book/story I write, then usually listen to it obsessively while I’m brainstorming and outlining, or even when I feel I need a kick start while writing.
My musical taste is rather eclectic and I don’t like to influence a reader’s impression of a novel, so I don’t often share my playlists. But in the past few weeks I’ve received a few requests to share more of my writing process or things about writing in general.
Music is huge motivator for me. I put on earphones, blast the playlist and think … visualize a scene, or a moment, over and over … Rochelle watching Beau as he fixes a car … a vision taking her sight … the terror of seeing the future unfold and not understanding what she sees … not understanding the magic, but always moving forward, always fighting for the tiny breath of paradise she’s found.
Here is a shot of my current desktop.
Now … headphones on … back to work!
On iTunes:
Wild Ones (feat Sia) by Flo Rida
Here’s to the Zeros by Marianas Trench
Am I wrong by Nico & Vinz (Beau’s anthem)
I woke up feeling slightly rudderless this morning. This happens pretty reliably when I’m not deep in a story, when I’m just scratching around the edges of an idea but I haven’t found the hook into the plot. If I entertain it, this feeling can easily lead to fretting over the time it takes me to bring a novel to market, and then being daunted by the sheer amount of words between me and a completed first draft.
So I usually beat it back by blaring music through headphones – a specific playlist for each novel – and digging into character bios and building settings.
Fast forward six hours later, and I’ve written twelve hundred words of the final confrontation and know exactly were the novel is going … as well as the twists that get the characters there.
I love that.
This cracks Oracle 2 wide open for me. I’ll play around with the guts for a couple more days, sorting through scenes, turning points, and putting everything in its place. Then I get to dig deep into the first draft, inciting incident to the denouement.
I thought you might find it interesting to see what a story looks like to me in this stage, so I snapped a picture of my paradigm before I filled out too many spoilers. Please ignore the spelling errors.
This paradigm – or skeleton – of the plot is heavily influenced by Syd Field‘s structure of a screenplay, which I used to follow rather religiously when I wrote the first draft of a screenplay and saw no reason to drop when I transitioned to novels. I add my own bits, most likely cribbed from other sources, such as Save the Cat! and the like, but really it’s just an amalgamation of how story functions for me.
This will be a novel in approx. 70K more words.
One word, sentence, and paragraph at a time.
A breath, a look, and a sigh.
A kiss, a touch, and a smile.
The brave, family, and blood. Always blood and tears. Courage and fear.
Destiny.
Rochelle and Beau, beyond the skeleton of an idea and the smear of a pen.
Rochelle and Beau, beyond luck.
Thank you for joining me on this journey.
There is too much story running around my head this morning … and last night all I could dream about was Jade and Warner and all the conversations they need to have or will have but there isn’t ever enough time for any or all of that because life is always happening … or the world is caving in.
Then there’s the new pieces haunting me … the snippets of a dream I had early this morning that my mind keeps trying to tidy up and make into a narrative, then make into a narrative that would fit into the universe of the Adept. Because otherwise I’m being a bad writer and allowing myself to get distracted from the work.
Yes, story is different than the work. The work – where my fingers should be curled around a shiny Parker fountain pen filled with green ink instead of tapping on my keyboard – is plotted out through Dowser 5, 6, and Oracle 2. The work is those three books, in which most of the story is pretty firmly set.
But the story – and my mind – is with Kandy in a side story I don’t have any time to write. And also it’s captured by this new idea …
Sigh.
The hot chocolate cooling beside me in my piggy travel mug might help bring focus.
And for you? While you patiently wait to see if anything coherent will issue forth from my direction in the nearish future?
For you, I insert a picture of chicks in a box.
These babies are now in their (much bigger) brooder in my laundry room. I’m trying to not constantly check on them, say every fifteen minutes or so. I have grave concerns that one will die from something I could have prevented, or they will eat each other.
Hmmm, this may be contributing to my lack of focus.
And I don’t like my office.
I might have to do something about that later … the office. For now I have simply moved into the dining room.
And the chicks will probably be just fine … if they don’t turn into cannibals the second I apply myself to the work…
ETA: these sweethearts are from Briarwood Poultry. We swooped over to Vancouver Island, had lunch with my Dad, and picked them up in Mill Bay. Five Swedish Flower Hens and six Wheaten Ameraucanas.