This time, it’s the cover for Destiny Kills.
Gorgeous, isn’t it? 
I saw the cover concepts for the UK/Australia versions of Beneath a Rising Moon and Dancing with the Devil yesterday, and I have to say, they are great. I’ll post them as soon as I get the okay. As you know, Piatkus (now a part of Little, Brown) bought the rights to my ImaJinn books, and they are planning to release them in the following order:
Beneath a Rising Moon / Beneath a Darkening Moon — Sept 08
Dancing with the Devil / Hearts in Darkness – Nov 08
Chasing the Shadows / Kiss the Night Goodbye – Dec 08
Memory Zero -April 09
Generation 18 – May 09
Penumbra – June 09
Circle of Fire – Aug 09
Circle of Death -Sept 09
Circle of Desire -Oct 09
Of course, the above dates may yet change, but I’ll let you know if they do. And I’m not sure if the above dates are also the Australian release dates, although I believe the Sept and Nov release dates are pretty close to the mark. It’s going to be absolutely brilliant to finally be able to see these books on the shelf, though
Other writing news– well, I finished the Destiny edits and shipped them back, but nothing much has happened since then. I’m not sure what it is about copy edits, but I always seem to struggle to get back into my current story after stopping to do the copy edits on another. Maybe its just the abrupt dip into a different world/ time / characters that messes with the mind, maybe my muse is just damn lazy. Who knows? I just know it’s frustrating. I got four pages written yesterday, and I’m hoping to do a little more today. One thing is for sure–this book isn’t going to be done by the end of feb. I really should know better than to give myself a target–it seems life and my muse love to sabotage it.
I was pretty slack when it came to writing on Friday (I had excuses–but I always do. lol) so it was something of a relief that I more than made up for it yesterday. I finished writing the zombie scene, and swung back onto the plot line again, although the next scene was supposed to be a Quinn and Riley fight scene (as in, bickering again) but by the time I’d gotten to it, I realised that with everything they’d been through–both together and apart–it really didn’t back sense to have the same old arguments, so they backed away from that and talked like adults. Although the anger (on Quinn’s part) remains in the background, but we all know it’s due to fear of losing her
The copy edits for Destiny Kills arrived on Friday, so my writing may be curtailed over the next couple of days. They need to be done and back at Bantam by the 25th, so that doesn’t really leave me a whole lot of time. I’m going to try and get as much done as I can today, but my aim of getting Riley 7 finished by the end of Feb is looking pretty dodgy.
Riley 7 progress meter:
The Mammoth Book of Vampires Anthology–which will have the Quinn short story in it–is also being released in America! Which is good news for everyone in the US wanting to get their hands on the story. It’s being released by Running Press and it should be out roughly the same time as the UK edition (July 08). So, yay!
Writing news–well, the muse decided to get serious yesterday, and I’ve actually hit my end of week target of 200 pages. Hopefully that means I’ll hit about 220 by tomorrow, which would mean the downhill run to the finish line has officially begun. The storyline continues to deviate from the plot, though. I had my bad guys using magic to track down their targets, and that magic was placed onto a business card handed out to said targets. All well and good. Except that for several chapters, Riley’s been finding these cards and they haven’t been on the victims. Which doesn’t make sense if you actually think about it–how are the bad guys tracking their victims with the business cards if the business cards aren’t actually on them? Easy, says the muse. The magic can simply ‘transfer’ from the card to the person. Great. Except that both Riley and the person she’s currently trying to save have both touched the card, so why wouldn’t the bad guys go after them?
The answer, of course, is that they would. Or they’d at least go after the person she’s trying to save, simply because he has vital information about the identity of our bad guys. So, yesterday was spent writing a completely new scene involving magic, zombies, a dead guardian and a terrified witness. I’m actually still in that scene–Riley’s just about to have a fight with the zombie and she’ll gain a vital clue out of it (something else I missed when plotting). Then, hopefully, I’ll get back on track.
Oh, and happy Valentines Day to those on my side of the world!
Riley 7 progress meter:
It’s been a weird couple of days. We had a RWAustralia face-to-face committee meeting here in Melbourne over the weekend, and while they’re lots of fun (and usually involve much chocolate, wine and gossip–after hours, of course 
), they’re also rather tiring. It didn’t help that the beds were like rocks and that it always takes me a few days to get used to the combination of late nights and a new bedroom–which is why I usually looked wrecked for the first few days of a conference, and that’s totally bad news if the conference is only a couple of days long. The upshot of the weekend is that lots of planning got done, and I came home totally tired. I still went to gym as usual on Monday, but I think that drained the last of my reserves, because the brain refused to function when it came to writing. It only wanted to veg out.
Today wasn’t a whole lot better, but for different reasons. I had some website stuff that needed to be done for RWA, and then an author questionnaire came in from Little, Brown (Hatchette Livre Australia). That took the better part of the afternoon to complete, so there just wasn’t any writing time left. But I do have an Australian release date for The Darkest Kiss–May 2008
Hopefully tomorrow I’ll make up for the slackness of the last few days. I need to at least roll over the 200 page mark by the end of the week, otherwise my plans to finish this book by the end of Feb will be busted.
I got the galleys in yesterday for To Die For, which is my story in Kim Harrison’s Hotter than Hell anthology. Of course, given this is being released in June, they basically want any corrections back straight away, so guess what I’m going to be doing today? Yep, reading and correcting. Although given there’s only 30 pages to the story, hopefully there won’t be many mistakes–especially given I usually only find a dozen or so in my novels once they’ve reached galley stage (which is not saying that there isn’t more there, just that I didn’t find them 
)
In writing news, Riley 7 continues to roll along. As do the subtle changes to the plot. But I guess my muse wouldn’t be happy unless she’s changing something–after all, I’ve spent all these years making it up as I go along, so strictly following a plot line was never going to happen. I’ve just written a scene that turned out to be a great deal hotter than the plot line required, and I was left in two minds as to whether it was better to leave the characters wanting, or to go all the way. In the end, I did the former rather than the latter, simply because it makes more story sense for Riley at this point in time, and it fits with the overall story arc better. But her partner in the ‘almost’ escapade is sure to get more hot scenes with our girl in future novels, simply because I love writing him. Actually, this book is turning out to be great fun, because there’s three hot guys in it, and though each one is different, they’re all turning out to be scene stealers. And no, I can’t tell you who they are–that would be spoiling the story.
In release news this week, I finally have a release date for Destiny Kills! It’s officially out October 28 2008. WooHoo! (lots of happy dancing from me, here). There’s no cover art or anything for it yet, but as soon as I get anything, I’ll be sure to share with you all
Riley 7 progress meter:
