so, MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! Hope the day is filled with good times, good food, lots of laughter and, most importantly of all, lots of hugs. 

more animals

from the Deadline Dames….

and who are these Deadlines Dames I speak of? We’re a group of nine urban fantasy writers who’ve gotten together and started a website/blog that will be online in January 2009. (I’ll post the address as soon as the Dames go live). The Dames are: Me, Toni Andrews, Jenna Black, Rinda Elliot, Jackie Kesslar, Karen Mahoney, Devon Monk, Lilith Saintcrow, and Rachel Vincent.

The fabbo Toni Andrews has made a couple of Christmas cards to introduce the dames. The first card features Toni, Jenna, Jackie, Devon and Rachel, and the second features Karen, Jenna, Rinda, Devon and me (Lilith couldn’t find a suitable piccie)

enjoy!

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Piatkus just sent me the covers for the UK release of the Damask Circle series, so here they are:

brilliant, aren’t they? 

we finally got some of the wet stuff over the weekend. Not enough to be a drought breaker (we’d actually need months and months of continual rain to break the drought) but at least enough to freshen and save all the dying gardens. (where I’m currently living, we’re on stage 4 restrictions. It basically means no outside water use what so ever–which is why I’m trying to get water tanks connected. I want to keep my garden alive!)

Anyway, the reason I’m mentioning the rain is the fact that the rain actually ended up giving me a story start over the weekend, which just goes to prove we writers can get ideas from the weirdest things. Let me set the scene: I’m driving up Pretty Sally, which is basically part of the Great Dividing Range, a group of mountains that ring Melbourne. The rain is bucketing down, and the clouds are sitting so low over Pretty Sally that it feels like I’m driving through white sheets. Now, most sane people would be giving their full attention to the rather dangerous road conditions, but I think we’ve already established that writers are not sane people   So, of course, that little voice in the back of my mind (often called the muse, sometimes called the bitch), is like, how cool is this? We could write about this. It’d make a great scene….oh, ghosts would love this! No, ghosts are too obvious…maybe something else. Then, said little voice throws up one line…. I’ve always seen the reapers.

And I’m like, how cool is that for a first line? So, that is the official start for Dark Angels, the first of the Riley Jenson offshoot series, which will feature Risa as the heroine. I’ve now written a whole four paragraphs to go with that first line, and can’t wait to get into it. But I need to finish Bound to Shadows before I can do anything more–and I’ve got 155 pages to go. Damn. Not sure the muse can wait that long. She’s an impatient beast at times. lol

I really don’t know why I bother writing an outline (well, aside from the fact that my editor is now insisting that I do them). My muse loves the whole idea of an outline, gets very involved in writing them…then completely ignores them when it comes time to actually write the story. Well, not completely ignore–there are still some vague resemblances between the current story and its outline, even if its only character names. lol.

I have to say, I’m in total awe of writers who manage to do detailed story plotlines/outlines before they’ve actually written a word, and who then manage to stick to it when writing. Me, I tend to write several chapters first, then outline (because I have to more than I want to), then I proceed writing basically ignoring said outline. Still, I guess the actual process of having to actually think about the story does seem to clarify things in my mind, even if I later ignore that outline and go in a totally different direction. It also has the added benefit of giving the muse additional time think of even more wicked things to do to my characters.  And at least I have something to fall back on if the muse suddenly refuses to play.

Which is a long winded way of saying Bound to Shadows ( Riley 8 ) is not going where it is supposed to go, and that my muse is having great fun piling even more crap on poor old Riley’s shoulders. Just as well they breed dhampires tough

Life has gotten in the way of writing these last couple of days, so I really haven’t got much to talk about. However, there’s a new article up on the Piatkus website, which is basically me talking about how I got into writing urban fantasy and paranormal romance. If you’re feeling bored, and have a few minutes to spare, why not head on over there to check it out? Just click the click (and ignore the horrid picture of me. I really, really, need to get a new author pic done.)

Oh, and I saw the roughs for the Damask Circle covers (UK release) and I have to say, they’re brilliant. I’ll share as soon as they finalize them

The winner of my website Christmas giveaway is Stephanie Martin. Congrats Stephanie! I’ve sent you an email confirming your win.

I’ll have another contest up and running soon, this one featuring an ARC of Deadly Desires (aka Riley 7), so keep an eye out for that one