Hanging Around with My Imaginary Friends

man sits as if hugging the person sitting next to him, but no one is visible – one line art vector. concept imaginary friend

In the Hidden in Plain Sight series, I have been writing enough books and short stories that the characters have become my imaginary friends. My husband and I play with questions like “What would Luke say about this?” or “Would Josh do this?” I occasionally ask my characters questions (what I call ‘interrogating’) to see what they tell me about themselves. I have backstories (often written in the short stories) that make the characters more complex.

I have two novels published (Gaia’s Hands and Apocalypse), one about to be published (Reclaiming the Balance), and three to be published in the future (Avatar of the Maker, Carrying Light, and Whose Hearts are Mountains.) There’s also a set of short stories out there and another in the works. There’s one more secret to be revealed, and I’m working out how to make it into a full novel. And then I don’t know if I have any more stories about that world.

I don’t know what I will write about if I feel like I’ve written too much in the Hidden in Plain Sight world. I could invent another world and write a while in it. I do have one novel with a different world (or a different angle on this current world like Hidden in Plain Sight is) and I suppose there may be more stories there. But I don’t want to leave my imaginary friends!

Re-editing Some Books

My task for the last couple of days has been to re-edit two books I hope to publish by the beginning of the new year. I just got done re-editing Reclaiming the Balance, which is the book I am wrestling with publishing on January 1st. I’m wrestling with it because it’s one of my Hidden in Plain Sight books, and those aren’t selling like I’d like. I have distributed many free copies of the first book, Gaia’s Hands, as part of BookFunnel promotions, and I don’t know that they’ve yielded too many sales. It’s the burden of being an indie author, not knowing how to market my books. Reclaiming is also an unusual book, where the primary romance is between an artist and a truly androgynous half-human.

Today I’m re-re-editing Kringle Through the Snow, which will go out on October 1 (just in time for WalMart to put out their Christmas decorations.) I have little to change in this; three chapters so far, and I have changed two words. I can’t tell if it’s boredom or anxiety making me go through these stories again.

I might just be killing time. All I have between now and my trip out to New York on the 30th is making some prosthetic impalements for moulage. (Think ripped and charred wood glued to discs for adhesion onto skin). I’m all set up for classes this fall, and I have time to feel like I really have a summer vacation. Or I might be coming to terms with the realization that all I can do is be the best writer I can and hope I get the hang of promotion.

Managing a Book Universe

Several of my books (two published, one nearly ready to publish, two needing a good go-over, one currently being written — that many already?) exist in the Hidden in Plain Sight universe — a world just like the one we’re living in, except with preternatural and virtually immortal beings and their half-human offspring. The stories are just as much (if not more) about how the beings deal with what they call Earthside.

The series is very character-driven, with one extended family of Archetypes (the immortals) and Nephilim (the half-humans) prominent in the plots. There are also several humans featured prominently. The books occur over a timeline of 20 years. As a result, I have to manage events in several characters’ lives.

For example, there was the Baby Boom. At one point, Nephilim were sterile, then their Maker decided they weren’t. (There is a reason, but the book hasn’t been written yet.) As many of them were in relationships and accustomed to not using birth control, there were babies. So yesterday I was going to write a story about four characters in Chicago going on a walk through the powder keg of a city pre-collapse. Three were Nephilim, one human, and all have strong personalities so it was going to be fun. Until I realized: Wait, Allan and Celestine have a kid. And later, wait, one of those two is the father to twins. And the original idea collapsed, because I didn’t see these parents taking the kids out for a field trip on volatile streets. Nor did I see them leaving the kids with babysitters while there were riots on corners nearby. I don’t know how to write the story now.

This happens all the time. Are Batarel and Ty in Chicago or at Barn Swallows’ Dance¹ right now? (Barn Swallows’ Dance, ever since they completed their field trip.) How do I keep Josh from being held hostage with the English Department during the siege of Illinois? (He has a vision and stays home from work that day. I knew a guy who survived 9/11 because he didn’t feel like going to work that day.) Just where is Hard Promises located? (Cook County IL sold off a lot of its forest preserve property, and the collective’s founders grabbed Beaubien Woods.)

It’s hard to take notes on these twists and turns because I can’t predict what I’ll need for the future. So I search through the previous books (thank goodness Scrivener has a pretty robust search engine) and find the details I need.

I’m sure this will keep happening. When does Barn Swallows’ Dance first connect with Hearts are Mountains?

^1: Barn Swallows Dance, Hard Promises, and Hearts are Mountains are all agricultural collectives. They have as residents a mix of humans, Archetypes, and Nephilim.

Friday Afternoon, NOT winding down…

I type this as I wait for 4:30 on the clock to release me from coffee hours at the on-campus Starbucks. We have the best Starbucks at the university — it’s in the university library. So our library is like a Barnes and Noble except it’s set up for studying.

I’m not winding down after this, even though it’s a weekend. I’m celebrating my birthday in Kansas City this weekend. (I’ll be 60 on Monday). It’s a me sort of weekend. We’re heading down tonight and staying at the 21c, which is an art hotel! (If anyone there has watched Middleman years ago, it’s like “Artcrawl!”). We’ll watch Miyazaki movies, eat Thai for dinner, write, and hopefully go to a cat cafe and consider adopting a little furry creature. We’ll see about the latter.

I’ve been getting a lot done these past few days — I have replaced the cover to Gaia’s Hands with its new look. My niece Rachel is very talented:

I also have put both the October 1 release (Kringle on Fire) and the January 1 release (Apocalypse) online. Putting together the covers is perhaps the hardest part, because I have to tweak the cover to fit the book. Whee!

I need a good slightly unrelaxing weekend now!

Summer ends here

The week has gotten away from me, but at least I have been busy while I’ve been gone:

I’ve finished out my summer internship class
I’ve finished up laying my fall courses (except one, which is largely out of my control)
I’ve re-edited Reclaiming the Balance in case I get the courage to publish it
I’ve started editing a reader magnet of short stories in the Archetype universe
I’ve been working with my niece Rachel (a talented artist) to design the cover for Apocalypse, and a rework of Gaia’s Hands. The cover for Apocalypse is so good it makes me happy cry.

And there’s one more day until the beginning of semester meetings. Summer is over, and it was one of the most productive summers I’ve had in a while.

The Pieces I Have Lost

Writing requires a certain amount of editing. I have done a lot of editing in my writing life. I have edited out characters, scenes, and subplots to make books more cohesive and, perhaps, coherent.

Some of my editing I don’t regret. One of my characters, Josh Young, was young and whiny when I first wrote him. He’s older now, somewhat more mature, and a far better and more complex character. You’ll find him in Gaia’s Hands.

Also, in one incarnation of Gaia’s Hands, there was a secondary love affair between two characters. Eric and Annie were interesting characters, but their arc was too much for Gaia’s Hands to handle. Eric remained; Annie did not.

Lilly and Adam’s relationship in what became Apocalypse (which will come out in the next year) was a lot darker, somewhat superficially. There was a lot of sexual obsession, which can be a good thing, just not for that novel. When two books got merged to make Apocalypse, I lost the goth feel but kept some of the edginess. There are some brilliant arguments in Apocalypse. I also lost the (also whiny) character James, and some subplot, but again I ended up with a better result.

As I got to writing more, I have edited out pieces less. Whole characters, subplots — heck, whole chapters — no longer get discarded by the wayside. Extensive editing taught me to write with less editing necessary.

There are pieces I miss, though. The chaste sexual obsession of Lilly and Adam was fun to write, but I don’t see room for that anymore. James dying and turning into a ghost cat (don’t ask) was fun for all the catlike manipulation he added to Apocalypse. Eric and Annie make a good couple, if only for a short story, but Annie’s place in the series has evaporated. Maybe the pieces will end up in a short story somewhere. Or another novel in another world.

A Free Copy of Gaia’s Hands

Folks —

I rarely write two days in a row, but I wanted all of you to know that I am releasing free copies of Gaia’s Hands for my blog readers. Gaia’s Hands is a romantic fantasy about an odd couple dealing with freakish talents and a plot to harm, and possibly kill, them.

Click here (Gaia’s Hands) for your copy

The only thing I ask is that, if you read it, you review it on Amazon.com. And maybe tell me that you’ve read it.

— Lauren

Glorious Break

I’ve missed a couple days writing this blog, but that’s because I spent a couple days in Kansas City on a writing retreat. Writing retreats consist of soaking up coffeehouse atmosphere, eating good food, and writing. This writing goal was to clean up some formatting and language on Gaia’s Hands that I missed the first time around. Luckily, uploading corrected versions on Kindle is so easy that I did it in half an hour, and 20 minutes of that was tweaking the cover.

I have editing to do with Avatar of the Maker, especially as I’ve separated it from the Maker’s Seeds plot. That’s something I’ve learned over my years writing, that there is such a thing as too much plot. As I have one-third of the book written, this will probably be painful. Maybe I will rescue it later. I have another book, although a fluffy one, waiting in the wings.

I get intense focus on writing retreats, even though I’m writing in a crowded coffeehouse. Or, as it so happens right now, writing in a quiet hotel room while my husband snores. (Oh yes, Richard, you do snore).

Today, I will write my newsletter and get caught up on my promotion tasks. And feel rested for the week to come.

Taglines

What to say about a book

I’ve written this fantasy book that hasn’t been “discovered yet”. Part of the reason it hasn’t is that I haven’t done a good job of selling it. Maybe it’s impostor syndrome; maybe it’s my inability to write good taglines. But here goes:

Gaia’s Hands

Professor Jeanne Beaumont designs oases of edible plants. Josh Young, English instructor, sees visions of danger approaching Jeanne and her talent for making plants grow inches overnight. Josh’s visions prove true as Josh and Jeanne install her dream garden — to face trial by fire.
Professor Jeanne Beaumont’s plants grow impossibly lusher and taller when she talks to them. Josh Young sees visions of Jeanne surrounded by a vast garden with a violent storm on the way. Josh and Jeanne must weather dire events and their eerie adversary — and they will face fire in Jeanne’s most ambitious garden.
Josh Young sees a vision of horticulturist Jeanne Beaumont standing in a lush garden, facing a deadly storm. He must work with her to help her face her talent of making plants grow inches a day. Soon they face an ever-increasing threat which will try them by fire.

So, any of these? None of these? I’ll try longer ones later.