My Own Personal Apocalypse

Summer. Oh, crap.

This last week was so busy with grads and awards assemblies and x-rays (I sprained my ankle) and spring cleaning (I missed spring cleaning because we had no spring this year), the end of school snuck right up on me. I was like one of those silent film heroines tied to the tracks--only I'm stuck untying myself because ain't no one coming to my rescue--and I know the train is barreling towards me but I'm too busy clawing at the ropes to even look.

And then SPLAT!

Summer. The season where I transform from a part-time waitress with three kids in school to a part-time waitress with 5 1/2 kids at home. My stepsons are 17 and 21, so they don't precisely count as kids--but they aren't adults, either, not by a long shot. They have to be reminded to pick up after themselves, to make sure their laundry makes it into the utility room, to pitch in around the house. It helps that the oldest brings his girlfriend. She offered to help me in the kitchen one day two summers ago and I almost cried.

Our house is small. Three bedrooms--my oldest (14) shares a room with my youngest (6). The stepkids sleep in the family room when they visit. Normally, the 17-year-old would already be here (his mom likes to send him ten minutes after school lets out in the summer), but he put his foot down this year and won't arrive until the 9th. 21 and his girlfriend arrive on the 19th or so.

But between the one and the other, I will be swamped. Overwhelmed. Invaded. Besieged.

Yes, my family--two sisters, the bil, gram and gramp, and six nieces and nephews--in their infinite and appalling wisdom, have decided to turn a cousin's wedding on the mainland into the perfect excuse to visit little Kirsten on the island. They will begin arriving on the 12th. They will cease arriving sometime on the 14th. They plan to stay for many days. And although they will be sleeping and recreating some at a campsite/resort where I've booked them cottages on the ocean, I'm sure they will spend plenty of time in my teeny tiny shoebox of a house.

I am of two minds on this. On the one hand, I am squeeing and peeing my pants for the joy of having everyone together. Just imagine the barbeques, the Sunday dinner sentimentality, the pitter patter of many, many, many little feet! We've recently made improvements on our house that make our nice backyard more accessible and there's a park right across the street. There are all kinds of awesome things to do and see on the north island in the summer, and I'm happy to show my family all of them.

On the other hand...I'm terrified. Just feeding everyone is going to be a major production. Not to mention the fact that among my relatives are a few...volatile personalities. These personalities have been known to clash when forced to coexist for any length of time. And all those kids--Oh my god.

So pray for me. And for now, I'll repeat that mantra: "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger. And provides fodder for yet another book..."

This Sex Scene is Doing Nothing for Me--It Must Be Good

I know. Sounds like I'm talking about Norman Mailer's work, right? But no.

I'm talking about my own.

Fiction is filled (one would hope) with emotionally charged scenes, and while I'm writing one of them, be it a death scene, a declaration of love, the HEA or a sex scene, I'm often entirely caught up in the moment. Me, I am an emotional animal. I'm the kind of person who cries at movies, whether they're sad or happy or genuinely moving or shamelessly schmaltzy. I've been moved to tears over episodes of The Simpsons and Futurama, for godsakes!

I cried once to the point of exhaustion while banging out the scene that mercilessly killed two of my favorite characters in my grand, huge, massive, epic WIP. I had to tell people for two days after that I'd had an allergy attack, and that's why my eyes were all puffy and red.

I read that scene now, and I'm "meh". From sobbing to stoic after four passes of my dispassionate editorial eye.

Sex scenes, too. While writing them, I'm affected in predictable fashion--sometimes to my great discomfiture when I have to abandon a scene in the middle and say, function at work in front of, you know, people and stuff. By the time a book is ready to submit, that same scene often leaves me entirely cold. I have to remind myself of how I felt while writing the first draft, tell myself over and over--"Yes, damnit, it is hot! The reader will think so, too!"--because usually, by the time I've polished the living bejeesus out of it, well, it pretty much does nothing for me anymore.

My latest novel, Bound by Steel, which should be out in October, was a major departure from this phenomenon. The hot scenes in that book are, well, still hot to me--even the ones at the beginning. I don't know exactly what this means. I didn't sit on the manuscript as long as I usually do before sending it off, and let my editor know this. I was concerned the writing wasn't ready. She came back with an enthusiastic "I love this book!", which is an enormous relief. Perhaps it's simply a function of increasing confidence. I know I write pretty damn clean (editorially speaking, not smexing-wise, heh) and if I can submit a solid story without agonizing over every sentence, that can't help but be good for my mental health.

And even if the back-and-forth of edits with this one takes longer than it did with Crossing Swords or Healer's Touch, well, I think I'll be able to live with that for the opportunity to keep getting misty over the happily ever after. Because for me, getting all emotional is what good fiction is about.

Ugh, It's Raining. Again.

June. And raining. Not a gentle spring shower, a deluge with gale-force winds. The clouds are so low and dark, my whole house looks like a dungeon. Welcome to summer on the northern tip of Vancouver Island.

At this moment, my five-year-old is having a school-sponsored swimming lesson in an outdoor pool in the middle of a freezing, torrential downpour. My handy-dandy-man Alan is chopping up my balcony railing while bent beneath frigid sheets of driving rain. For my part, I am debating whether it's worth it to get soaked crossing the yard to the place where my table-saw sits under its veil of spiderwebs, so I can rip this window casing to width (since the idiots who built my house didn't make anything standard, from window-depths to the length of drainpipe under the bathroom sink).

Can't install the baseboards until the sliding door is framed. Can't frame the door until the casing is ripped. Can't rip the casing until the table-saw is unearthed. Can't unearth the table-saw without going out into the rain.

So you know what? Screw it. I'm staying inside with my laptop, two lovely gentlemen and their reluctant bride, and I'm not even going to feel guilty about it. Maybe if I let myself get lost in the writing, I'll stop wondering why I live in this godforsaken soggy wilderness where porphyria sufferers roam free...

We Have Wieners!

Thanks to all who entered, and to all those who helped me in my search for the perfect title. I know you've probably been losing as much sleep over this as I have, so I'll let you know right now you can stop worrying. The title search is officially over. The book shall henceforth be known as "Bound by Steel".

Due to my much lauded largesse, I and my panel of self-appointed experts have chosen three--count 'em, three--winners of my Name This Baby contest.

First up, Nonny, with her paean to brevity: "The Lying Cheating Double-Dealing Swordsman's Wife's Not-So-Secret Not-Quite-Bride"

Second, Sylvia's very succinct and practical: "A Bigger Bed"

And finally, Laughingwolf's completely adorable, cheese-free: "Lianon's Heart"

All y'all, email (kirstensaell AT yahoo DOT com) me with your details and let me know which title you would like in which format (keeping in mind Crossing Swords is available now, Healer's Touch will be out in August, and Bound by Steel won't be available til October). Make sure to put "Name this Baby" in the subject of your email so I don't condemn your missive to spam purgatory. I shall have the copies sent as quickly as is humanly possible. Perhaps even quicker than that.

:)

Name This Baby - Contest!!

I need help, people, and in more ways than one. Given my growing urge to punish my latest, stubbornly unnamable novel, and in honor of the Smart Bitches' recent shenanigans, I hereby announce my first ever Purple Title Contest!

Read yon blurb. Post appropriately over-the-top, lilac-tinted title in the comments. Next week, a panel of three self-appointed experts will determine the most godawful, painfully purple example, and level a suitable punishme--*ahem* award the winner a free copy of the ebook in question (when it releases)--or Crossing Swords (out now) or Healer's Touch (August) if you prefer your gratification closer to instant.

Blurbage:


“I’ve been thinking about Kaela…”

There they are – the words that lead Gil to suspect Lianon his wife is falling in love with someone else. Not with another man – with Kaela, the traumatized girl they rescued from certain death six months before, the sweet, beautiful young woman who’s been living with them since that terrible night at Flaxton’s Inn. Gil has no idea how to compete with a woman for his wife’s affections, and part of him isn’t interested in trying. Because Lianon has plans for the three of them, plans that worry Gil less and less as he begins to fall under the spell of Kaela’s tarnished innocence.

But even as Gil, Lianon and Kaela succumb to the growing desire between them, the two Emissaries are drawn against their will into the intrigues and vendettas of Belthalas’ elite. When Lianon is kidnapped, Gil finds himself caught between one of the city’s most powerful politicians and those who seek to destroy him. Gil must weave a dangerous path between one adversary’s ambition and another’s lust for vengeance, even as Kaela works her way further under his skin. By the time Kaela is finally reunited with her disapproving family, Lianon’s heart isn’t the only one that stands to be broken.

One way or the other, it could be a very unhappy ending for everyone…

~

There you have it. Despite my editor's flagrant taunting and my own growing annoyance with the entire ordeal, I am reluctant to name this book One Sword, Two Scabbards. So have at it, one and all. Do your downright, despicably flowery worst!

And if any of you can think up a suitable title in a more utilitarian shade of say, brown or ecru or Navaho white, feel free to email me. At this point, I need all the help I can get!

Edited to add: The deadline for entries is Thursday, May 29. The winner (or winners, depending on how tough the decision is!) will be chosen Saturday and announced immediately thereafter.

Name This Baby

When I had my boys, I knew right away--before I was pregnant, even--what their names would be. Strong, traditional, simple, masculine names. Names that have stood the test of time. Names any boy or man would wear with pride, ones that suited my husband's taste and my own.

With my daughter, not so much. She was, in fact, nameless for the first twenty-eight days of her life, at which point, the government forced my husband and me to come to a compromise and slap a sticker on the poor girl. We were neither of us overjoyed with the name we ended up picking, but we met each other halfway and our daughter is now thankfully in possession of a moniker other than "Baby Girl S.".

As authors we are often told, "your book is not your baby", a sentiment I wholeheartedly second. But right now, the book in my editor's hot little hand is behaving exactly like my daughter. My first two books, Crossing Swords and Healer's Touch, pretty much named themselves, the words appearing in my head in a burst of creative clarity. But this book, the sequel to Crossing Swords, is stubbornly resisting any semblance of labelling.

Add to this irritation the fact that my editor, the incomparable Bethany Morgan, is holding my contract in reserve, awaiting only the christening of this recalcitrant manuscript. In her words: "If someone were to name her book, she might receive an email..."

Yet we remain at an impasse, my book and me. The 80 000 words of this story poured from my fingertips and onto my hard drive with an effortless certainty. But the two to five words that will encapsulate the tale for the benefit of readers continue to elude me. To be honest, I'm not sure these words even exist. Perhaps in Esperanto?

This book being an erotic romance/fantasy featuring a sword-wielding hero and two--count 'em, two--heroines, the possibilities for title cheese are as endless and seductive as the oh-so-subtle symbolism of swords and *ahem* sheaths.

So that's it. I'm putting my foot down. If this thing doesn't tell me it's freaking name by tomorrow night, it will be contracted under the dignified moniker of One Sword, Two Scabbards.

Take that.