Win-a-Book Wednesday with...

R.L. Naquin

Rachel’s head is packed with an outrageous amount of useless Disney trivia. She is terrified of thunder, but not of lightning, and often recites the Disneyland dedication speech during storms to keep herself calm. She finds it appalling that nobody from Disney has called yet with her castle move-in date.

Originally from Northern California, she has a tendency to move every few years, resulting in a total of seven different states and a six-year stint in England. Currently, she’s planning her next grand adventure. Rachel has one heroic husband, two genius kids, a crazy-catlady starter kit, and an imaginary dog named Waffles.

She doesn’t have time for a real dog.

I stopped believing in monsters long ago. But I knew I wasn’t imagining things when I found one in my kitchen baking muffins. I’d seen him before: lurking in my closet, scaring the crap out of my five-year-old self. Turns out that was a misunderstanding, and now Maurice needs a place to stay. How could I say no? 

After all, I’ve always been a magnet for the emotionally needy, and not just in my work as a wedding planner. Being able to sense the feelings of others can be a major pain. Don’t get me wrong, I like helping people—and non-people. But this ability has turned me into a gourmet feast for an incubus, a demon that feeds off emotional energy. Now, brides are dropping dead all over town, and my home has become a safe house for the supernatural. 

I must learn to focus my powers and defeat the demon before he snacks on another innocent woman and comes looking for the main course…

This is the first book in my urban fantasy Monster Haven series. The first three books in the series are out now, and book four is already up for pre-order, although it won't be released until April 21st. I'm working on the last two to finish off the series.

If you think you know what to expect in these books, allow me to draw your attention to the cover. See what's in her hand? Yeah. It's a toilet brush. Because every urban fantasy heroine needs a kick-ass weapon, right?

Have you already read Monster in My Closet, but not the second or third book? Enter anyway! If you win, I'll be happy to swap it out for a later book in the series. I'm totally cool like that.

Thanks for stopping by and entering! -- Rachel (R.L. Naquin, accommodating author who wants to give you stuff.)

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The Role of Magic

My first M/M romance, After the War, was the story of two warriors growing closer to each other while on the run from an invasion force. While one of them is a gunslinger, the other's an old-fashioned swordsman, and I felt very certain of its status as romantic fantasy until I started getting feedback: there was hardly any magic in it. Wizards were mentioned in passing, but several readers even wondered if I hadn’t written a historical piece without realizing it. I disagreed--it had certainly felt like a fantasy world I was constructing as I thought up its geography, cultures, even religions. 

But it left me wondering--is there a minimum amount of fantastic happenings to be included in a fantasy story? And is magic one of them? 

For that matter, what counts as magic? Strange creatures? Unicorns may have magical powers in one setting and be natural, if unusual, animals in another. Even beings like vampires, Amazons, or shapeshifters can make a story speculative without including any outright wizardry. In the Middle Ages, alchemists tried to become immortal or transmute metals--things that look a lot like magic to us, although they would insist differently (especially if the Inquisition came around). What about witches? Are they manipulators of the basic nature of reality, or simply wise herbalists? And what about Arthur C. Clarke's law, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"? Some wonderful steampunk has been written straddling the boundaries of science and sorcery. In this world's Victorian era, Forteans and investigators into the Spiritualist wave tried to make sense of the supernatural in a scientific context, preferring psychic powers and hidden dimensions to magic.

Is magic something the characters in a story take in stride? Or is it uncanny, mysterious in origin and beyond human comprehension? Can you see a wizard's duel at the weekly market, or would a feud between sorcerers be a once-in-a-millennium occurrence that threatens the stability of empires? And wherever it falls between those two points, how do ordinary people feel about magic? If rare but benevolent, it may be a miracle. If commonplace and dangerous, witchcraft may become a petty crime. 

In my short story Unnatural Means, I finally wrote about magic...or did I? While Unnatural Means clearly takes place in a world where people believe in--and persecute--magic, the viewpoint character, Isak, is never certain whether his prisoner Sain is a true witch or not. Whether the reader believes Sain or Isak will impact their judgement of the characters, but it's certainly true that Isak feels Sain has some sort of hold over him, bewitchment or not. 

My forthcoming release from Carina, Gardens Where No One Can See, will be my first M/M romance to feature what it unquestionably magic: cruel sorcery so powerful it overcomes the warrior Renad's will, enslaving him. Renad and his friend and lover, Nemaran, aren't magicians, and they don't understand the intricacies of the spell binding him. Instead they have to feel their way around it, working together to learn as much as they can and find a way to counter it. Like Unnatural Means, Gardens is a story that wouldn't happen without the idea of magic, and it's also what I like to call a "nature of magic" story: how sorcery works is crucial to solving the problem the characters confront. 

Although writing a "nature of magic" story was fun and gave me plenty to think about, I also enjoyed exploring the boundaries of fantasy with the comparatively mundane After the War. What I love most about a story are how the characters interact with each other and with their world, whether magic is a major part of it or only a glimmer of mystery at the corners of what they know.

What sort of role do you like magic to play in your stories? Would you ever consider reading or writing a fantasy story where the existence of magic is unclear or unproven, or where it exists but doesn't directly impact the plot? And--my gooey inner nature won't let me close without asking--isn't love the greatest magic of all? ;-D 

Here Be News

Link List

Loki beating up a little kid in "Who's Better: Thor or Loki?"

Sherlock Season 3 premiere January 19, 2014 10 pm ET!

'Lost Girl' Season 4: Everything You Need To Know

Thor’s Nemesis Makes Some Thunder
Tom Hiddleston Gets Mythic for ‘Thor: The Dark World’

Nebraska author sues Texas publisher over books involving werewolf sex. The author of the article seems hung-up on the werewolf sex but what made my jaw drop was the 15k words a day.

Win-a-Book Wednesday Winner

Congrats to Joey, the winner of a Realm Walker in last week's Win-a-Book Wednesday! Kathleen Collins will be contacting you soon about your prize.

This Wednesday we'll have another mystery giveaway; stop by for more chances to win!

Getting past burnout

I've just finished first round developmental edits for two different books back to back. I totally understand the need for edits and always strive to do my best. It's just not my favorite part of the creative process. I've also been trying to keep up with promoting my newest release, Trancehack. Promotion is something I don't have an instinct for, so I'm not always very good at it. But, like edits, it's necessary, so I do the best I can. All of this on top of each other has left me with a never-ending tension headache and a bad case of burnout. But I can't take too much time off. For one thing, there will be more rounds of edits over the coming weeks. A new book to start. And let's not even talk about the holidays, mmkay?

But my creative batteries desperately need a recharge. I've got a few scribbled, half-formed ideas for short stories that I was thinking of playing with for a week or two before I start the next book. Even if I finished something, probably not much would come from it, publication-wise. Just knowing that might actually be good to get the creative juices flowing. Writing without expectation can be freeing. So I'm going to open up that folder and see what I can come up with.

What do you do to get past burnout?

Sonya Clark grew up a military brat and now lives in Tennessee with her husband and daughter. She writes urban fantasy and paranormal romance with a heavy helping of magic and lots of music for inspiration. Her latest release is a futuristic paranormal romance titled Trancehack. Learn more at www.sonyaclark.net.

NaNoWriMo: Inciting a Rebellion

Psst. Hey. Over here. Step into the shadows with me for a moment. That’s right. NaNoWriMo has dark alleys with shifty people like me wiggling their fingers at you to follow them.

We are the NaNo Rebels.

We are the folks with previously written material, so we start NaNo on, say, chapter five and add 50k from there. We are the people who are working on a bunch of short stories that will total 50k. We are poets, autobiographers, essayists, and scriptwriters.

But we’re not cheaters. Honest.

Do you recognize yourself in any of that? It’s okay if you do. The fine folks at the Office of Letters and Light have made provisions for us. They’ve given us the title of Rebel to erase the possibility of feeling like (or being called) a cheater. They even provided a section of the official forum exclusively for Rebels to talk about their awesome rebelliousness.

Myself, I’ve started every NaNo so far with 15-20k already written. The camaraderie and fever of NaNo are fantastic for a procrastinator like me. I know I will get 50-60k written every November, without fail. If I already have 20k written, I can finish November 30th with the words “The End.” And that doesn’t suck. If I go in with nothing, I end with a partial manuscript, and everybody who’d been helping me through November is too burnt out to drag me through the rest of my novel. I’ll be on my own like I am the rest of the year. Doing it rebel-style is like getting one free novel every year.

Before my first NaNo, three years ago, I’d never finished a novel before. That’s what NaNo taught me—how to be a finisher. I took that very first book and sold it to Carina Press. “The Phone Call” came in right before my second NaNo, so I wrote the second book in the series.

And last year’s NaNo was crazy. I walked into the kickoff meeting, dazed, with the news that I’d sold the next four books in the series—books I had yet to write. I wrote book three that year, and this year, I’m writing book five. (I had one due in between and had to learn to write a novel without NaNo helping me. That’s another story altogether.)

NaNoWriMo taught me what I needed to know. I’m a finisher now. But I’m not sure I could have learned that lesson if I hadn’t started each November 1st with words already on the page.

We Rebels still have rules. The words written in November are the only words that count toward the 50k. We still validate our work at the end of the month in order to get the nifty certificate. We’re still required to wear underwear on our heads on Thursdays and eat Pixie Stix on bologna sandwiches.

Wait. Those aren’t real rules? I’m gonna kill those guys.

The feeling of accomplishment is no less than it is if we’d started from scratch or written something more in line with the original NaNo intentions. So, if what you’ve been doing feels a little off because you’re not doing it exactly the way everybody around you is, come on over.

Rebels are in the dark corners, getting stuff done. And maybe selling a watch or two from underneath an overcoat.

NaNoWriMo: Husband and Wife Edition

When my husband, Aaron, first told me he was going to do National Novel Writing Month, I thought he was crazy. At that point I was already a published author with a number of books out—and the idea of writing 50,000 words in one month daunted me. Since he had only ever written short stories before I was quietly doubtful.

Furthermore, he’d only heard out about NaNoWriMo on November 3^rd.  He had no prep time. I am a plotter. I don’t like to type Chapter One until I have an outline.  Aaron went in seat of the pants with a basic situation but no clue where the plot was going. He used tarot cards for inspiration until the plot took over around chapter six.  The mere thought of doing this gives me hives.

This was during NaNoWriMo’s early years and according to the rules at the time you had to sign up before November 1^st (now you can sign up on Nov. 30^th if you want to). Undeterred, he joined a group called the NaNoWriMo Guerilla Rebellion. And he did it. (Well, actually he finished the novel at 47,000 words and changed all the characters and place names to longer names to artificially push the word count up to 50,000, but since he started three days late, I consider it a win.) And he went on to win for the next seven years. (Including one novel which ends: And then the Earth blew up.)

In years when we both did NaNoWriMo together, it quickly became apparent that my husband writes faster than me. He would often procrastinate until 10 pm before opening his manuscript file, but would then pour out 1666 in an hour or an hour and a half.  The only time I write this fast is when I’m doing a much-anticipated scene and/or nearing the home stretch.

My usual writing process is something like this: Write two paragraphs, count my words, write two more paragraphs, noodle around on Facebook, write a page, check my wordcount, check my email, write four more paragraphs, get a beverage, write a page, have lunch, catch fire and write three pages, done. It’s like trying to start a fire. I have to find the right kindling and even then my first sparks tend to burn out.  I am a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race type writer.

I have won NaNoWriMo successfully.  In fact my husband and I both won NaNoWriMo while having small children in the house. But I have come to accept that he is better at it. He stayed up late on Halloween and wrote 1000 words while I slept. He went to events and became part of the Edmonton writing community. He used Word Wars to get a jump on his word count. He once won our children a humongous stuffed Sullivan (the character from Monsters Inc for those of you without kids) by typing a 100 words with his nose. I’m lucky to get over 200 words in a word war. The only way I could win a Word War would be if the other contestants were forced to type with their noses.

I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year. Since I write all year long, I’m often in the middle of a project when Nov. 1 rolls around. This November is all about the rewrites—and rewriting is an area where I’m better than my husband hands down.

Win-a-Book Wednesday with...

Kathleen Collins

About the author:

Kathleen Collins has been writing since Kindergarten. And while her ability has drastically improved, her stories are still about monsters and the people who play with them.

The rare instances that she actually finds some spare time, she spends it playing with her two boys. Three if you count her husband.

She is currently hard at work on her next book.

This giveaway is for Realm Walker. Realm Walker is the first book in the Realm Walker series and Kathleen's first release.

An estranged mate, a mangled body and a powerful demon who calls her by name…

As a Realm Walker for the Agency, Juliana Norris tracks deadly paranormal quarry using her unique ability to see magical signatures. She excels at her job, but her friends worry about her mysterious habit of dying in the line of duty without staying dead. That's only the first of her secrets.

Most people don't know Juliana became the mate of master vampire Thomas Kendrick before he abandoned her seven years ago. Most people don't know the horrors she endured at the hands of the vampire he left in command. Most people don't know her true parentage, or why a demon on a world-threatening rampage has taken a personal interest in her…

Even as Juliana pursues the demon, it goes after all she holds dear—including Thomas, who is back to claim her for his own. But if she can't reconcile her past and learn to trust herself again, she will lose him forever.

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