Archive for August, 2019|Monthly archive page
A Quick Public Service Announcement
If you ever read something I’ve written and have constructive feedback, please feel free to let me know! I edit as thoroughly as I can, but after so many repetitions through the material, the brain starts to make it look like what it’s supposed to regardless of whether it actually does.
Something like that happened recently with The Unique Solution — which had been edited, critique-partner read, beta-read, and edited some more before it was published, with a certain plot element repeated thirty pages apart. Head, meet desk. Repeat.
Thank you Lieselotte, for noticing and saying something. You rock!
Comments and constructive criticism gratefully received at valmroberts (at) gmail (dot) com.
Hey, and if you feel like saying something nice, I’m up for that too.
News from the Word Mine
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: plot turns, plotting, WIP, writing, writing life
Comments (4) House purchase accomplished. Furniture purchase accomplished. Now I am back to the word mine, hard at work on about four projects.
First Working Title: Finding the Briar Rose
Set in the Human Diaspora universe. The story of Dane and Aurora Avondale’s courtship; he wakes her up from a century of cryosleep. He’s kidnapped by Saurians (friendly-ish aliens who evolved from their version of dinosaurs). He prevents the kidnappers from killing her after she nearly fights them off.
It is a Sleeping Beauty trope, but it’s Sleeping Beauty done properly. She wakes up with this guy kissing her and punches him, as one does in the real world. Eventually, Aurora kills the evil fairy in dragon form Saurian queen to free Dane, then takes over as regent for the late queen’s offspring that he saved when they were eggs. Hey, the kids didn’t do anything wrong.
I’m having trouble with the middle bit, where they discover they have far more in common than not, and the irritation turns to attraction. Apparently stubborn people live in my subconscious.
Second Working Title: Beta Testing
Set in the Dozen Worlds universe. The story of how Beta Tanaka and Danae Childress re-establish contact with Earth while overcoming their own relationship problems (he’s a customer-relations ninja for the Hauptmann Group, flitting around the Dozen Worlds fixing things; she’s a stay-at-home Zonan art expert–which makes for a really long-distance relationship). Oh, and did I mention alien cephalopoids (evil squids) might be coming to kill them all? Still fighting with this story, so the plot’s a bit murky yet.
Third Working Title: A Married Woman
Set in Regency England. Michael and Elizabeth, Lord and Lady Danbury, are coming up on their tenth anniversary…he was “blackmailed” into a marriage of convenience by her seedy father right before he leaves to be a field surgeon on the Peninsula. They discover she wasn’t quite 12 (who makes 12 the age of consent?!?—England until 1875! Gah!) at the ceremony.
A lot of living has happened since that wedding—both his older brothers died four years ago and he’s now heir to the big title—and he’s fallen in love with her, but she’s not so sure about trying the vows again. I never planned to write even one historical, but this is the second set of characters that refuse to get out of my head, so I’m writing it. FYI, Michael shows up at the end of A Ruined Woman as the physician for the duel.
Fourth Working Title: Temptation of Tetsuo or The Hitsugaya Harridan
Set in the Dozen Worlds universe. If you’ve read The Nobinata Gambit, you know a bit about Tetsuo Nobinata and Yuki Hitsugaya. This is their courtship—alpha male imperial warlord and alpha female survivor of sexual violence. And I’m still plotting it so that’s about all I know right now, but I do know that her strength and resilience is one of the things he finds highly attractive.
I also know Tetsuo is a great fighter but not so smooth with the ladies, and his awkwardness, and to some extent vulnerability, is something she finds attractive about him.
I’ll try to surface about once a week and think of something interesting to type, but…yeah. Those are pretty much the rest of my year if I can keep from getting distracted again. Wish me luck. And let me know if you come up with better titles, because I struggle with them.
