Here be Magic: Djinn Haven

Showing posts with label Djinn Haven. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

How I Plot a Book

Due to circumstances both in my head and in my environment, the finale of my Muse trilogy has been ridiculously delayed. But a miracle occurred a little over a week ago. I finished it. Finally. It’ll be out in May. (Guess what I’ll be talking about here next time!) Time to move on to the next project – book two of the Djinn Haven series, To Seize a Wayward Spirit.

So, here I am at the beginning again. The beginning is glorious! The beginning is exciting!

The beginning is terrifying.

I am a hardcore plotter. I cannot possibly begin a book without knowing all the plotlines, how they fit together, how the relationships of the main characters will change and grow, the first line, the first scene, and how it ends. (I’m sure the pantser folks are rolling their eyes right about now.)

The turnaround on this book is tight. I have to have it to my editor mid-July. No problem. But I’m also considering a novella project that would have to be finished by around the same time. Now it’s getting tricky.

I’ve allowed myself two weeks to sort out the plots of both projects. If I can’t get solid outlines for both, I’m dropping the novella (which isn’t contracted.) So, a week and a half into those two weeks, here’s how it’s going:

Mickey is my friend. He knows how to distract me.

In a sudden belief that my work isn’t dark enough, I’ve grown a fondness for the television show “Snapped.” Wow. You never know who might go off the deep end and chop up her husband so she can burn the parts at someone else’s house.
I started taking a new swimming class. It combines “elements of yoga and tai chi.” I took this to mean there would be no cardio. Lies. All lies.
Visited two separate lakes yesterday because driving helps me think and water relaxes me. Have you tried the new Bistro Boxes from Starbucks? They’re pretty good. Make sure you add a cakepop to cancel out your healthy choice.
Halfway to the lake, the first scene appeared in my head, word for word. I did not have a recording device handy. I could not write it down because I was driving.
Oh, my gosh. We really need to go to the comic book convention later this month. It’s crucial to my storyline! My husband was totally cool with this.
Hey! I haven’t started building my LEGO Cinderella Castle yet. I promised myself I could build it once the book was finished. This is going to take awhile. The first four stages took most of Saturday. There are fourteen stages.
I cannot believe the laundry is caught up. That’s so weird.
I have come to the conclusion that writing darker fiction wouldn’t suit my brand. I’m trying to write True Blood when my style is more like a supernatural version of Psych. Stick with what’s working.
Well, crap. My cover artist is booked until August. If I’m going to write this novella, it’ll cost extra to rush the cover.
Paused what we were watching on television last night to talk through my plot with my husband. He helped fix the problems I was having. Looks like I might have the plot figured out. Wait. Wait. I need to write a blog post for Here Be Magic first.

So, there you go. You might think I could sit down and whip up an outline out of thin air, but my brain isn’t focused enough for that. Still, I think I’ve got the whole story worked out for Djinn Haven #2. As for the novella, I think Extinguished Cupid might be a go after all. A male cupid who doesn’t believe in love?

I think can handle him.

Rachel writes stories that drop average people into magical situations filled with heart and quirky humor.

She believes in pixie dust, the power of love, good cheese, lucky socks and putting things off until the last minute. Her home is Disneyland, despite her current location in Kansas. Rachel has one husband, two grown kids and a crazy-catlady starter kit.

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Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Old World, New Series

Posted by: R.L. Naquin

It’s been nearly a year since I wrapped up my six-book Monster Haven series. If my main character, Zoey, shows up anywhere else, it’ll be in a short story or as a minor character. Her story is done.

Well, done enough. I admit, I left her pregnant with no word on the flavor of baby she was carrying. Girl? Boy? Reaper? Empath? Time Lord? In Monster Haven, anything is possible.

Characters died. Characters lived happily ever after. The world changed so completely, the Hidden no longer needed to stay hidden. I blew up their world, declared the story finished, and walked away.

Here I am, a year later with a new series in the same world. I’d left our nutty djinn, Kam, to walk the Earth alone, hoping to find herself so she could someday return to the djinn world. In my head, she was a mix of Sam Beckett from "Quantum Leap" and David Banner from the old "Incredible Hulk" series. How about a little sad walking away music for Kam at the end of each book in her series?

Except that Kam doesn’t roll that way. If she’s ever sad, it’ll last about twenty minutes, max, before she’s on to something else. After all, she’s lived over a hundred years. She’s seen things. She’s done things. And all those things buzz around in her head and send her thoughts off on a tangent in the worst, most inopportune times.

So, come join me on a brand new set of adventures. The old, beat-up pickup leaves any minute. Let’s hope it doesn’t break down and leave us stranded in the middle of nowhere. Or if it does, let’s hope the locals can tell us where to find the World’s Biggest Ball of Twine or a collection of Elvis’s underwear.

Kam loves side trips.

It won’t be all wild costumes and disjointed conversations about pie. People are going to die. But there’s no reason we can’t take some time to see the sights while we solve the murders.

(Fake spoiler: Zoey still hasn’t had her baby, so don’t expect Kam to tell you anything.)

Saturday, November 26, 2016

Exclusive Excerpt: To Catch a Stolen Soul

Posted by: R.L. Naquin

It's been nearly a year since the Monster Haven finale came out and Zoey's story wrapped up. But that doesn't mean all the characters are settled. In January, Kam, one of the most popular characters from Monster Haven gets her very own series. Here's a peek into the middle of the book. I'm going to throw you in with no context and no spoilers.

Fans of the Monster Haven series by R.L. Naquin will love this beguiling spin-off, featuring a trapped djinn caught in a hot mess of lost souls, fast food and otherwordly murder.

Kam is a soul chaser for the Hidden Government, a much harder job now that the Hidden look like everyone else. Broke, out of magic and sick of playing waitress in a pirate-themed dive bar, Kam jumps at a chance for an out-of-town mission.

A reaper-and his loaded soul stone-have gone missing. The stone contains souls that might get permanently stuck if Kam doesn't find it, like, yesterday. She tracks the reaper down to a food truck outside Kansas City, only to find a dead reaper and no soul stone in sight. Which means that someone who should be dead killed the reaper and is running around with a powerful magic item. Not good.

And apparently the killer is targeting food-truck owners that also happen to be Hidden. So the only thing to do is open her own truck and go undercover-goodbye Kam the Djinn, hello Mobile Food Entrepreneur-and hope that she and her new runaway friend won't be the next targets…...

Coming January 9th!

Preorder: Amazon B&N iBooks Kobo

*****

I stood in the middle of our motel room in a long red velvet gown, hair up, dripping in costume jewelry, my hands and arms encased in full-length gloves.

Ash sat on the bed, legs crossed, regarding me as if I’d escaped a freak show. “Have you lost your mind? Is that…” She frowned. “Is that the Pretty Woman dress Julia Roberts wore?”

“Too much?” I did a slow twirl and touched my gloved hand to my throat.

She grunted. “Try again. Something a little more casual.”

I closed my eyes and tapped into my magic. The dress—which had started life as a tank top and cutoff shorts—shrank and altered until it was a tight black dress with a slit up the side. I glanced down at my new nosebleed black sandals with crisscrossing straps. My hair was now curled and cascading down my back.

“How about this?” I held my arms out.

“Dinner, right? He just said dinner. Why are you dressed for a proposal?”

My face felt hot. “I don’t know. I haven’t been on a lot of dates lately. What do people wear for dinner these days?”

“Well, not that.” She waved her hand at me. “That’s a cocktail dress. You went from a ball gown to a cocktail dress. You’re on the right track. Keep going.”

I groaned and tried again. The next one was a sundress, totally inappropriate for the weather, then a sweater set that looked too much like I was somebody’s mom. Three outfits later, I grew frustrated and found myself in jeans and a dark green cotton shirt that skimmed above the waist enough to flash the slightest bit of skin.

“There,” Ash said, clapping. “Now add a pair of medium-heeled sandals and tasteful jewelry.”

I closed my eyes and made adjustments. “How’s that?”

“Perfect.” She frowned. “How much magic have you got left?”

I moved my gold bangle and took a look. Both gems were dark. “I think I overdid it.” I hated when my magic was tapped out. It made me feel vulnerable somehow. I had no self-discipline. “Dried up.”

She gave me a wary look. “After this, maybe we should shop for clothes instead of changing one thing into another.”

I shrugged it off. Never in my life had my magic helped me out of a truly bad situation. I always managed that with my brain or a good kick in the nuts. Magic was fun and occasionally useful, but being a djinn had mostly gotten me into trouble in life, not helped.

Saturday, April 2, 2016

The Genie Is out of the Bottle

Posted by: R.L. Naquin

Zoey’s story in Monster Haven has been done for a year. It wrapped up with book six, Phoenix in My Fortune. Not so with Zoey’s friend Kam, the escaped djinn. She stuck with Zoey for four books (I’d only planned for her to be in book three and maybe book six, but she grew on me). In the end, she went off into the world on her own when most of the other character’s stories in Monster Haven wrapped up.

Well, four years after I dreamed her into existence, Kam is finally getting her own story told. I’ve signed a three-book contract with Carina Press for Kam’s Djinn Haven spinoff series.

Kam’s out there working as a freelance soul chaser, solving mysteries, beating up bad guys, running from the past she never shared with us before, and trying to reverse the disfigurement that caused her to lose a third of her magic.

You guys, Kam is so much fun to write. I loved writing Zoey, but she was the straight man. Kam’s hilarious. She has no filters, and her life experience is limited to random episodes over the last one-hundred years when she escaped captivity. Kam will use the word “gams” in the same sentence as “rad” without batting an eye.

The first book in the series is called To Catch a Stolen Soul. I don’t have a tentative release date for it, yet. I’ll let you know when I do. Some of the other titles I’m playing with for future entries are To Save a Lonely Aegis, To Chase a Fallen Reaper, and To Love an Angry Monster. Those aren’t set in stone, but I have ideas for all of them. And unlike Monster Haven, Djinn Haven isn’t set up to necessarily end at any set point. And the romance storyline? Way more complicated than what we had with Monster Haven. Kam’s hiding something. She’s been hiding something for a hundred years.

So. I hope I’ve dropped enough teasers to get you interested. I still have one more Mt. Olympus Employment Agency: Muse book to bring you before I switch over to Kam’s first book. And Kam’s only coming once a year for now while I continue writing Mt. Olympus books. (What’s next? Furies? Oracles? Fates? I’m not sure yet.)

I’m also going on vacation for a little while because, damn, I’m worn out. So, hang with me a bit longer. I have a lot more stories to tell you of monsters, mythical creatures, gods and goddesses, and urban legends.

I haven’t used up all my words yet.