WIP: The Conscripted. Fantasy. [blurb: undisclosed]. Many things I love about writing, yes, indeed...but one that sticks out is the mental acrobatics. Makes me feel young and limber and like i still have firing synapses, and i get to feel all detective-like, as i'm working out the puzzle of plot.
Margarita Nights Commercial/Mainstream Fiction Blurb - no clue I love the adventure of writing. I never really know where I'm going once an idea slaps me upside the head. I love the process of delving deeply into my characters emotions, the reasons why they do the crazy things they do, and why they don't do some things. I love the dynamics of the relationships that bind certain characters together, and tear others apart. I love the feeling of exhaustion after a really good writing session.
WIP: Middle Grade, contemporary fiction/untitled (don't even go there until the work is finished)
On submission: With A Name Like Love/Middle Grade historical fiction/
blurb: With A Name Like Love is a middle grade murder mystery set in Binder, Arkansas. In the early summer days of 1957, Ollie’s daddy pulls their green and gold teardrop trailer into town with the intent of offering a three day revival. On their very first day, Ollie meets a boy whose mother is in jail for murdering his father – and who asserts her innocence. But, even if Ollie were to believe the boy, could she convince her daddy to stay long enough to help him? And, if the Love family did stay, how could two thirteen year olds free a woman who has admitted to the crime and signed a full confession?
Nother World, which I self published for family and friends, to get feedback. If I haven't mentioned it before it's a total nightmare. SP'ing needs it's own horror blog.
** Genre (where it would be in a book store)
MG fantasy, 54K words
** Back of the book blurb (which blows chunks)
Annie Watkins is just an average girl on the eve of her 13th Birthday. That is, until she's kidnapped. In the middle of the night a strange old man whisks her away to a place she never dreamed could exist--The home of the Faeries. Through one chaotic event after another, she and her captor search for the clues they need to find a magical charm. If must be found if they are to stop an evil Faerie from taking over Nother World. As she finds her way, and learns the new role she was destined for, she never imagines what helping him will cost her in the end.
** Current WIP: "Progressively Dead" ** Cozy Mystery ** Who in heaven’s name would kill Jill? What dastardly demon would pound this volunteering, hard working, Sunday school teacher to death with her very own cast-iron frying pan? Supper club was hardly the time to perpetrate this unneighborly deed. The progressive dinner beat a hasty retreat at the sight of a dead Jill in her own kitchen amid eight pounds of wasted barbeque.
Miss Myrtle, octogenarian sleuth extraordinaire, learns Jill wasn’t all she seemed. Will she discover the truth about her killer too, and before another murder?
** What you enjoy most about writing? Being creative. Seeing my work published and read.
WIP: Siren (working title) Fantasy Fiction (Adult possibly YA) Blurb: Not far enough into it for a blurb yet :) Enjoy most: able to leave the real world behind while writing
Aunt Dorothy's neighbors speak about her in whispers, yet they all adore her. Ten-year-old Martin intends to learn why. It has something to do with her vegetable garden. When Martin begins helping out with the gardening and canning, he learns that bigger is not always better, especially when it comes to pickles.
What I enjoy most about writing is all the stories, mine and those of others, that I get to experience. There's a lot of power in the phrase, "Tell me a story!"
You didn't have a button for magazine articles, but hey, I've published several for Pet Health, For Her, Free Press and VMDR. Currently working on the 2nd draft of my fiction book. No title yet, as titles tend to pop to me once it's completely done.
After breakfast, Investigator Lexus Toulouse, ex-soldier extreme, learns she must track down a war-era serial killer.
Before lunch, she finds her Libido Generator is on the fritz, her old warship wants to “get back together” and her impromptu partner, Scott, seems to be displaying very peculiar mental abilities while stirring the odd romantic feelings in her. She doesn’t want odd romantic feelings. She already has four husbands!
Her world spirals out of control when she mistakenly plugs herself into a simulation of the murders. As memories of the war surface, it all comes crashing down on her sanity. She struggles to do the right thing, but if the right thing is bringing back the soldier she buried deep within herself, can postwar Lexus ever return?
By dinner, she is lucky to be alive…
** What you enjoy most about writing
I love telling stories and entertaining my readers. That more than anything gives me warm fuzzies.
** "Home Cure" ** Genre: literary fiction ** Dennis MacDonald expected to die a hero's death in WWI, but the bullet that struck him went through a friend first. To repay that debt of honor, MacDonald returns home to England to console and comfort his friend's family and his lover. Drawn into a world of immense wealth and deep secrets, what he uncovers about his friend's life and death will force him to act as only a solider can.
** What you enjoy most about writing
Telling a gripping story and evoking an emotional response.
** LEGACY OF THE EMPRESS ** Fantasy (adult) ** Blurb: Astrid escapes her mother’s castle after a decade of captivity by using a book of magic found under the floor. She doesn’t know why her own mother would lock her away, robbing her of half her childhood, but she has her suspicions—power is welling up within her. Power to move the world.
She discovers that the same dark magic corrupting her mother is spreading throughout the land and feeding off the people. The only way to stop it is to find and free an imprisoned Empress who banished the same evil centuries before.
Beautiful creatures twisted into monsters, uncertain allies, and the deadly mystery of the book she possesses are the least of her concerns. As she faces the darkness in herself, she discovers that saving the land she loves may ultimately mean watching it burn.
** I love creating imaginary people as realistically as possible :). I'm not sure why, but getting to know people I just made up is great fun!
Title - Perfect Justice(so far) Genre - Thriller Blurb - Not there yet, but it involves an assasin who thinks he has found the perfect get out of jail free card
I like coming up with twisted plots that involve interesting characters in diabolical situations.
I'm leaving the info on my published book instead of my WIP. It's titled The Ride, it's contemporary women's fiction. The back cover blurb is Recipe for Suburban Surprise: Take one deeply depressed housewife. Add one unexpected windfall. Carefully fold in one very handsome, very clever charmer. Separate and discard one totally self-centered, slightly abusive husband. Place all remaining ingredients into red-hot, shiny red convertible cruising on Route 66 and wait to see what happens!
What I enjoy most about writing - the times when my characters seem to take control of the plot and all I have to do is follow them and type.
Rebel and Traitor, SF. Jin's tribe has finally defeated the human invaders who decimated his home. He's looking forward to peace and getting on with his life. Then Camar returns. His brother. The traitor. The one he thought he had killed. And Camar won't leave them alone. Then the humans drop something into their valley; a great, bulky metal thing that wakes the land beneath it, shaking their world and taking more lives. With Camar on one side, determined to finish what he started, and the invader's machine on the other, churning their land into dust, are slavery or extinction his only choices?
What I love about writing are the moments of serendipity that happen, when something you set up early in the book ties up beautifully with an inpirational moment later in the story.
Blurb (very much a WIP) To keep herself from virtual slavery, Dawn doles out computer-generated psychic readings for a living. When her clients envision Dawn as some kind of savior during a time of disasters, she uncovers her own psychic visions which predict a global meltdown. After quakes destroy most of the population, the computers elect Dawn as the world's leader. She soon learns that becoming Emergency Chairman is fraught with peril. She is overthrown and locked into a jail cell to die.
That's when the fight for humanity's survival begins. Set in the futuristic world of 2101, where computers run our lives and corporations govern our world, Dawn's Rise ranges from tethered space platforms hanging like ornaments in the sky down to towering cities destined for utter ruin. Dawn must muster the remnants of cities to action before the final cataclysmic event.
-- I enjoy the creative process. Creating something out of nothing. Getting to know my characters. Figuring out plot issues. Editing...not so much.
Working titles (these are guaranteed to change) from Minotaur with expected pub dates:
The Ephialtes Affair (Fall 2010) The Magnesia Sanction (Fall 2011) Sacred Games (Fall 2012)
And the blurb:
Nicolaos, the ambitious son of a minor sculptor, walks the mean streets of Classical Athens as an agent for the promising young politician Pericles. Murder and mayhem don't bother Nico; what's really on his mind is how to get closer (much closer) to Diotima, the intelligent and annoyingly virgin priestess of Artemis, and how to shake off his irritating 12 year old brother Socrates.
What do I like about writing? Pretty much everything!
My current WIP, tentatively titled The Rainbow Child, will be my eighth book. All but one are paranormal fantasy (one was a mock autobiography of a dead rock star). None published yet but I keep plugging along, finishing one then moving on to the next. The important thing is to keep writing, no matter what.
Masking the Truth/Fiction: Hoping to rescue both troubled newspaper, The Chronicle, and his career, reporter Thomas Freeman takes a new assignment: investigating and revealing the secret identity of every superhero in Bigg City.
Tell Me What You Did Today/Children's: Working with an illustrator and fellow new father, a short book Dads can read to their kids before bed.
What I like most about writing: how grounded and centered I feel when I put down the pen or shut down the computer.
WIP: The Conscripted. Fantasy. [blurb: undisclosed]. Many things I love about writing, yes, indeed...but one that sticks out is the mental acrobatics. Makes me feel young and limber and like i still have firing synapses, and i get to feel all detective-like, as i'm working out the puzzle of plot.
ReplyDeleteMargarita Nights
ReplyDeleteCommercial/Mainstream Fiction
Blurb - no clue
I love the adventure of writing. I never really know where I'm going once an idea slaps me upside the head. I love the process of delving deeply into my characters emotions, the reasons why they do the crazy things they do, and why they don't do some things. I love the dynamics of the relationships that bind certain characters together, and tear others apart. I love the feeling of exhaustion after a really good writing session.
S
WIP: Middle Grade, contemporary fiction/untitled (don't even go there until the work is finished)
ReplyDeleteOn submission: With A Name Like Love/Middle Grade historical fiction/
blurb: With A Name Like Love is a middle grade murder mystery set in Binder, Arkansas. In the early summer days of 1957, Ollie’s daddy pulls their green and gold teardrop trailer into town with the intent of offering a three day revival.
On their very first day, Ollie meets a boy whose mother is in jail for murdering his father – and who asserts her innocence. But, even if Ollie were to believe the boy, could she convince her daddy to stay long enough to help him? And, if the Love family did stay, how could two thirteen year olds free a woman who has admitted to the crime and signed a full confession?
Happy to share....but might I ask why?
Fun post to see where everybody's at!
ReplyDeleteMonarch
Suspense
What I love most about writing is learning and growing.
My first novel of three
ReplyDelete** The working title
Nother World, which I self published for family and friends, to get feedback. If I haven't mentioned it before it's a total nightmare. SP'ing needs it's own horror blog.
** Genre (where it would be in a book store)
MG fantasy, 54K words
** Back of the book blurb (which blows chunks)
Annie Watkins is just an average girl on the eve of her 13th Birthday. That is, until she's kidnapped. In the middle of the night a strange old man whisks her away to a place she never dreamed could exist--The home of the Faeries. Through one chaotic event after another, she and her captor search for the clues they need to find a magical charm. If must be found if they are to stop an evil Faerie from taking over Nother World. As she finds her way, and learns the new role she was destined for, she never imagines what helping him will cost her in the end.
** What you enjoy most about writing
ALL OF IT. Even the agony.
** Current WIP: "Progressively Dead"
ReplyDelete** Cozy Mystery
** Who in heaven’s name would kill Jill? What dastardly demon would pound this volunteering, hard working, Sunday school teacher to death with her very own cast-iron frying pan? Supper club was hardly the time to perpetrate this unneighborly deed. The progressive dinner beat a hasty retreat at the sight of a dead Jill in her own kitchen amid eight pounds of wasted barbeque.
Miss Myrtle, octogenarian sleuth extraordinaire, learns Jill wasn’t all she seemed. Will she discover the truth about her killer too, and before another murder?
** What you enjoy most about writing? Being creative. Seeing my work published and read.
Elizabeth
Mystery Writing is Murder
WIP: Siren (working title)
ReplyDeleteFantasy Fiction (Adult possibly YA)
Blurb: Not far enough into it for a blurb yet :)
Enjoy most: able to leave the real world behind while writing
The Great Pickle Story
ReplyDeleteMG fiction
Aunt Dorothy's neighbors speak about her in whispers, yet they all adore her. Ten-year-old Martin intends to learn why. It has something to do with her vegetable garden. When Martin begins helping out with the gardening and canning, he learns that bigger is not always better, especially when it comes to pickles.
What I enjoy most about writing is all the stories, mine and those of others, that I get to experience. There's a lot of power in the phrase, "Tell me a story!"
You didn't have a button for magazine articles, but hey, I've published several for Pet Health, For Her, Free Press and VMDR. Currently working on the 2nd draft of my fiction book. No title yet, as titles tend to pop to me once it's completely done.
ReplyDelete** The working title
ReplyDeleteArmageddon's Princess
** Genre (where it would be in a book store)
Science Fiction
** Back of the book blurb
After breakfast, Investigator Lexus Toulouse, ex-soldier extreme, learns she must track down a war-era serial killer.
Before lunch, she finds her Libido Generator is on the fritz, her old warship wants to “get back together” and her impromptu partner, Scott, seems to be displaying very peculiar mental abilities while stirring the odd romantic feelings in her. She doesn’t want odd romantic feelings. She already has four husbands!
Her world spirals out of control when she mistakenly plugs herself into a simulation of the murders. As memories of the war surface, it all comes crashing down on her sanity. She struggles to do the right thing, but if the right thing is bringing back the soldier she buried deep within herself, can postwar Lexus ever return?
By dinner, she is lucky to be alive…
** What you enjoy most about writing
I love telling stories and entertaining my readers. That more than anything gives me warm fuzzies.
Wow! Thanks everybody for the responses to far, very interesting to see where people are at. It is helpful to the writers of this blog.
ReplyDelete** "Home Cure"
ReplyDelete** Genre: literary fiction
** Dennis MacDonald expected to die a hero's death in WWI, but the bullet that struck him went through a friend first. To repay that debt of honor, MacDonald returns home to England to console and comfort his friend's family and his lover. Drawn into a world of immense wealth and deep secrets, what he uncovers about his friend's life and death will force him to act as only a solider can.
** What you enjoy most about writing
Telling a gripping story and evoking an emotional response.
** LEGACY OF THE EMPRESS
ReplyDelete** Fantasy (adult)
** Blurb:
Astrid escapes her mother’s castle after a decade of captivity by using a book of magic found under the floor. She doesn’t know why her own mother would lock her away, robbing her of half her childhood, but she has her suspicions—power is welling up within her. Power to move the world.
She discovers that the same dark magic corrupting her mother is spreading throughout the land and feeding off the people. The only way to stop it is to find and free an imprisoned Empress who banished the same evil centuries before.
Beautiful creatures twisted into monsters, uncertain allies, and the deadly mystery of the book she possesses are the least of her concerns. As she faces the darkness in herself, she discovers that saving the land she loves may ultimately mean watching it burn.
** I love creating imaginary people as realistically as possible :). I'm not sure why, but getting to know people I just made up is great fun!
Title - Perfect Justice(so far)
ReplyDeleteGenre - Thriller
Blurb - Not there yet, but it involves an assasin who thinks he has found the perfect get out of jail free card
I like coming up with twisted plots that involve interesting characters in diabolical situations.
Maybe that should be my back cover blurb... :-)
I'm leaving the info on my published book instead of my WIP. It's titled The Ride, it's contemporary women's fiction. The back cover blurb is Recipe for Suburban Surprise:
ReplyDeleteTake one deeply depressed housewife.
Add one unexpected windfall.
Carefully fold in one very handsome, very clever charmer.
Separate and discard one totally self-centered, slightly abusive husband.
Place all remaining ingredients into red-hot, shiny red convertible cruising on Route 66 and wait to see what happens!
What I enjoy most about writing - the times when my characters seem to take control of the plot and all I have to do is follow them and type.
Rebel and Traitor, SF. Jin's tribe has finally defeated the human invaders who decimated his home. He's looking forward to peace and getting on with his life. Then Camar returns. His brother. The traitor. The one he thought he had killed. And Camar won't leave them alone.
ReplyDeleteThen the humans drop something into their valley; a great, bulky metal thing that wakes the land beneath it, shaking their world and taking more lives.
With Camar on one side, determined to finish what he started, and the invader's machine on the other, churning their land into dust, are slavery or extinction his only choices?
What I love about writing are the moments of serendipity that happen, when something you set up early in the book ties up beautifully with an inpirational moment later in the story.
Dawn's Rise
ReplyDeleteSF, maybe action thriller
Blurb (very much a WIP)
To keep herself from virtual slavery, Dawn doles out computer-generated psychic readings for a living. When her clients envision Dawn as some kind of savior during a time of disasters, she uncovers her own psychic visions which predict a global meltdown. After quakes destroy most of the population, the computers elect Dawn as the world's leader. She soon learns that becoming Emergency Chairman is fraught with peril. She is overthrown and locked into a jail cell to die.
That's when the fight for humanity's survival begins. Set in the futuristic world of 2101, where computers run our lives and corporations govern our world, Dawn's Rise ranges from tethered space platforms hanging like ornaments in the sky down to towering cities destined for utter ruin. Dawn must muster the remnants of cities to action before the final cataclysmic event.
--
I enjoy the creative process. Creating something out of nothing. Getting to know my characters. Figuring out plot issues.
Editing...not so much.
Historical Mysteries, set in Classical Greece.
ReplyDeleteWorking titles (these are guaranteed to change) from Minotaur with expected pub dates:
The Ephialtes Affair (Fall 2010)
The Magnesia Sanction (Fall 2011)
Sacred Games (Fall 2012)
And the blurb:
Nicolaos, the ambitious son of a minor sculptor, walks the mean streets of Classical Athens as an agent for the promising young politician Pericles. Murder and mayhem don't bother Nico; what's really on his mind is how to get closer (much closer) to Diotima, the intelligent and annoyingly virgin priestess of Artemis, and how to shake off his irritating 12 year old brother Socrates.
What do I like about writing? Pretty much everything!
I have written a children's book, along the lines of Magic Tree House. It is a mystery with 8 parts. Only part one is done. :O)
ReplyDeleteTitle: THE BOOK
ReplyDeleteGenre: YA
Blurb: A boy who hates to read must save his family, friends, and town when they are captivated by a mysterious book.
(I'm not sure if I like that blurb, but it'll have to do.)
Creativity rocks!
My current WIP, tentatively titled The Rainbow Child, will be my eighth book. All but one are paranormal fantasy (one was a mock autobiography of a dead rock star). None published yet but I keep plugging along, finishing one then moving on to the next. The important thing is to keep writing, no matter what.
ReplyDeleteTwo current WIPs:
ReplyDeleteMasking the Truth/Fiction: Hoping to rescue both troubled newspaper, The Chronicle, and his career, reporter Thomas Freeman takes a new assignment: investigating and revealing the secret identity of every superhero in Bigg City.
Tell Me What You Did Today/Children's: Working with an illustrator and fellow new father, a short book Dads can read to their kids before bed.
What I like most about writing: how grounded and centered I feel when I put down the pen or shut down the computer.
Dangerous Alliance
ReplyDeleteFantasy
Cool post. It's really nice to see what others are working on. Thanks Anthony!