Nocturnal Creatures begins

Tags

demon, devil, fantasy, gothic romance, horror, longest night, monster, nocturnal creatures, trilogy, vampire

With the first book in the trilogy, LONGEST NIGHT, which is available six days after said longest night, for which I apologize. But I had a cold that slowed me down during the proofreading process, plus holiday craziness.

Nocturnal Creatures was an experiment in several ways. It’s the longest thing I’ve written that’s high fantasy, and I gave myself a number of rules to keep it interesting. If you can spot the rules before I spoil them, you win a virtual cookie. Possibly a virtual kitten.

I hope to put these books out once a month, and then soon after the third one is available, an omnibus volume will be made available in both e-book and print, since I’d like to start offering my stories in print. Which means I need to get back on BLOODBOUND and WOLF GIRL sometime in the next decade. But I’m really looking forward to the omnibus volume. It’s gonna be big.

I wrote this when I was in the middle of working on a number of other vampire novels. I’d finished CALL FOR BLOOD, where I introduced vamps to the Sanctuary world, and I was either about to start or had finished SPIDER, which features a vampire-y Creature. What can I say? I have a type. But I try to do a lot of different things with them.

In the case of Nocturnal Creatures, it was one of three stories I wrote for a short story call for an anthology from Totally Bound. This little gothic erotic fairy tale came in over 20K words, which was too much, but it felt like not enough. So I set it aside and brought it out again later…and it turned into an over 200K-word story. This is my life, ladies and gentlemen. But I’m really pleased with it, and it does fit a trilogy structure, works just fine with the books separated. Each book really is its own story. And I hope you enjoy it as much as I still do.

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In the realm of the Crimson Kingdom, the demon king descends from his dark, dangerous castle on Longest Night to take for himself a new wife. She must be unmarried and unmarred by men, a pure sacrifice for the devil.

Asha of the Gray is one of the few women in the kingdom whom no man will marry and whom no man has marred, though she has had to fight every day to keep herself unruined, with the kingdom brothels just across from where she begs for coin every day.

When the demon king gifts her a winter rose and chooses her as his bride, he marks her for death. But though his castle is dark and strange and the king himself monstrous, not all is as it seems, and death may be a more welcome alternative than anything the Crimson Kingdom offers an unwanted woman like her.

Beware Longest Night

Tags

gothic romance, longest night, nocturnal creatures, poem, poetry, series, solstice, song, trilogy

Photo by Jenna Hamra on Pexels.com

I’m not sure why I did it, but I wrote a song for the NOCTURNAL CREATURES trilogy—the kind of cautionary tale people hand down in oral form to remember a lesson. It’s the night after Winter Solstice now, but since LONGEST NIGHT didn’t get published in time, consider this my apology.

Every year on Longest Night
Flee from the streets and lock up tight,
For if the king comes to your door
He’ll steal you away forevermore.

Beware the woods, where wild wolves prowl.
Beware their teeth, their demon howl.
But above all, Crimson daughters here,
It is the king whom you should fear.

So daughters, wed and show submission.
Bind virtue to God and to his men.
For when devil offers a winter rose,
If rose turns red, he’ll bleed your soul.

Fathers, keep your daughters well,
Else after the twelfth clear church’s bell,
If daughter is found unmarried, unmarred,
The devil king will eat her heart.

NOCTURNAL CREATURES was my first long attempt at hard fantasy (albeit gothic romance with a touch of horror), with all kinds of world-building. It was incredibly entertaining. I’d done a little of it before with CALLING THE DRAGONS HOME, but that was a short story and literally my first work published through Totally Bound in 2012. I’ve since gotten the rights back to rework it into something longer. I’d like to think it’s in the same universe as NOCTURNAL CREATURES.

Hope this song gives you a glimpse into the Crimson Kingdom before LONGEST NIGHT arrives. Season’s Greetings!

SPIDER Trivia

Tags

arcanium, elizabeth, funhouse, haunted, novel, series, spider, trivia

I’m so behind on keeping up with this, but in my defense, I’ve been editing FUNHOUSE (A7) and writing SKELETONS (A9), plus doing the final edits/proofs of LONGEST NIGHT (NC1).

SPIDER has been out for several weeks now. I received a wonderful review from Lisabet Sarai, who’s a big fan of the series (which absolutely tickles me), but since it’s the sixth book in the series, probably don’t get a lot of new readers. (For book links, check out the Arcanium page.)

For the Arcanium veterans, though, you know I love sharing my book trivia. They work better if you’ve read the book, but I don’t think I’ve included any spoilers.

1) The number of elements that went into this story are ridiculous, and I suspect it’s a product of waiting too long between Book 5 and Book 6. I had most of the stories pre-planned, but time allows for additional embellishments. Still, it was the story I wanted to tell, and I have to hope I pull it off.

2) It’s the longest Arcanium novel at a little over 120K words (see aforementioned elements). FORTUNE was longer when the Behind the Curtain short stories were included but became more manageable after those were removed.

3) During some sex scenes, I literally asked myself how I could gross people out while they were turned on. Being unsettled and aroused at the same time is kind of Arcanium’s thing, but I really cranked it up for SPIDER.

4) I am not actually arachnophobic. I am, however, scared of common cockroaches. Madagascar cockroaches, however, are pretty cool. I included both. You’re welcome.

5) I made up a cult. I like to do that. See CRY WOLF.

6) Elizabeth is the first Asian protagonist I’ve written, although there have been other Asian characters. It’s not common to see Asian characters on erotic romance covers (or any covers, really), so I’m really happy that Elizabeth has such a place of prominence in the second half of the Arcanium series–so much so that she kicks it off.

7) Elizabeth is named after Mary’s cousin in the Book of Matthew. Elizabeth’s mother’s family had daughters named after virtues.

8) The haunted funhouse is easily my favorite Arcanium element, which is why it continues to play an important role in FUNHOUSE (A7) and HAUNTED (A8).

9) Elizabeth is my second heavily tattooed character. See CRY WOLF. But this and number 5 are the only things the books have in common. Funnily enough, I don’t have any tattoos of my own. It’s one of those things I’ve always wanted to do but never have.

10) Part of a three-part plot arc shared with FUNHOUSE (A7) and HAUNTED (A8). The first five books can be read independently of each other, though they have a kind of character-arc progression to them, but Books 6, 7, and 8 require a certain knowledge of what came before.

SPIDER Coming Soon!

Tags

arcanium, demonic circus, freak, nocturnal creatures, novel, series, spider

Guess what’s available for pre-order on Sept 27 and coming out in wide release on Nov 5? And I can’t tell you how awesome it is to have a spider on an erotic romance cover. So much of Arcanium is just me going, How can I make people aroused and uncomfortable or grossed out at the same time? And I really gave it my all in SPIDER.

 

Oh, what a tangled web she weaves…

One moment, Elizabeth is the modest, religiously devout nanny who accidentally brings her four charges to a slightly inappropriate circus filled with all the things a phobic like her could ever fear. The next, she’s sucked into the demonic world of Arcanium and transformed into Arcanium’s newest oddity, the Spider.

Her anxieties and phobias quickly attract the attention of the Creature, the gargoyle-like guardian of the haunted funhouse, who feeds on fear—and she offers a veritable feast from which he can relieve her, especially after she’s been locked in a glass box with giant spiders crawling over her eight-limbed body all day.

However, she also catches the eye of her jealous ex-lover, who helped make her into the scared, secretive woman she’s become, a woman who wrapped herself in the piety of her childhood cult just to escape him.

Between Arcanium and her own personal demons, Elizabeth has all four of her hands full.

 

I feel like when I wrote my blurb, I was dryly amused at all the elements that ended up in the novel. It was quite ambitious and slightly ridiculous. But it worked, so I left everything in. And so many elements led to a longer book, if you like that sort of thing. It’s a 120K novel, at about 302 pages according to the book page at Totally Bound.

And that’s not all. I’ve written and edited FUNHOUSE, and it’s been submitted. I’ve written HAUNTED (which is the continuation of FUNHOUSE), and I’m just waiting until it’s approved before editing, because I don’t know whether I’ll have to rewrite the second half of it. It took a decidedly dark turn, but Arcanium is an erotic horror series, so I might be okay.

Also, while waiting for FUNHOUSE to be accepted and HAUNTED to be approved, I’ve been editing the Nocturnal Creatures trilogy. Each book has been double-edited, and it’s ready for the pro edit. I’m hoping to write Arcanium’s next book SKELETON for this November’s NaNoWriMo and self-publish the first book in the Nocturnal Creatures trilogy on Winter Solstice, which is when the first book opens. The schedule’s pretty tight, but we’ll see. As I can afford it, I’ll be self-publishing the others, then possibly publishing an omnibus volume as well.

All that writing, while painful, had to eventually lead to this. We’ll see how it goes. But I’m excited for the Arcanium series, guys, and schedule willing, I might be able to finish it out next year.

Completed SPIDER

Tags

arcanium, novel, spider, stats, update

I’ve been a busy bee since last November. I finally found a system to writing that takes advantage of the hours when I’m still productive. It’s not as fast as when I was writing full-time, but it’s more than I was doing for two and a half years.

I finished writing SPIDER (Arcanium Book 6) mid-November, then started on FUNHOUSE (Arcanium Book 7 and 8 – it’s a two-parter) right afterward. Finished that in February. I was trying something new for Arcanium, a soft reboot, and it ended up making both stories much longer than the others, because they weren’t one-shots like the others. SPIDER’s first draft came in at 151K words, and FUNHOUSE clocked in at 199K words.

After three rounds of edits, I cut SPIDER down to 123K before submitting it yesterday, roughly two years after first starting (had to stop because it wasn’t working, worked on NOCTURNAL CREATURES instead) and a year after trying again. That’s still long, but if necessary, there are a few other things I can remove – it just wouldn’t improve the story to do so at this point. However, no amount of cutting is going to keep FUNHOUSE in one book, hence the two-parter.

I was upset about it for a while. Still am. But there’s nothing left to be done unless I want to scrap the three-book arc altogether and start over again, which I really don’t want to do, because the stories are good. I’ve grown in the two years since the first five Arcanium novels. The storylines are more ambitious. But long novels can be expensive through a publishing house, so even though I don’t want to split FUNHOUSE, it must be done, and I hope you can forgive me for any irritation that comes from that.

However, it was really nice to be finished with SPIDER. Because FUNHOUSE was so much longer than expected, I’m about a month behind on my flexible schedule, so I had to do my edits in a hardcore fashion that makes it more difficult for me, but the outcome was worth it. I have a project to complete for April, but I should be able to get started on FUNHOUSE edits in May to finish in June. Then I’ll probably have another project to work on before starting to write SKELETON (Book 9). Hard to imagine I’ve written that much just within my wonderful demonic circus universe.

Time for stats, because I like numbers.

SPIDER Stats:

First draft word count: 151,181 words

Submitted draft word count: 123,034 words

Projected word count: 100,000 words (If I drank, this is why I’d drink.)

Days to write: I wasn’t keeping track this time. There were a lot of breaks. Let’s say a cumulative three months.

First line: “In retrospect, Elizabeth should have looked up what kind of circus Arcanium was before bringing the Bishop children.”

Largest number of sexual participants at once: 6. Boom.

Number of sex scenes: Roughly 8? But there’s a shit-ton of sexual tension, and the scenes themselves are intense.

I did a lot of things where I’m not sure whether I’ll have to tone them down or not, because Arcanium tends to push the envelope, and the issue of consent comes up a lot in SPIDER and FUNHOUSE due to plotty things. The fact that it’s horror erotica means that I hope people know what they’re getting into, but I still worry.

And because of the nature of SPIDER specifically, I paired a number of things with my sex scenes that don’t normally get paired with sex, which makes me happy. I hope they let me keep Arcanium hella weird. Because it’s only going to get weirder.

Finished a project

Tags

beasts, grayling, longest night, nocturnal creatures, novel, trilogy, vampire, werewolf, writing

I’m more active at my Facebook page than I am here, simply because I’m thinking more in the short form than long form these days. Novel-writing has been taking all my long-form brain cells. Namely, trilogy-writing. Did it start as a trilogy? No. It started as one of the three short stories I wrote in the attempt to satisfy a submission call for a werewolf/vampire MFM anthology. The first two were too long for the call. Intervention ended up working for it, and I sold Red Queen as a novella. But the project I’ve been working on demanded fuller investment. Little did I know how much fuller it would become.

So I started working on Nocturnal Creatures (formerly Tooth and Claw) in late June,  expecting it to be a single novel finished by the end of August. Turned out it wanted to be a trilogy to satisfy the threesome/moresome relationship arcs to more satisfaction, and I just finished the last book tonight, mid-February.

I’m tired, I’m frustrated, I’m way behind on my writing schedule, and I intend to throw this trilogy into the deepest, darkest digital trunk I can find and not look at or even think about it for at least a year. That’s how long I’ll need to recover from over six months working on one project. And no, it didn’t feel like three. It felt like all one book in three parts. For reference, I wrote each of the Arcanium novels in less than a month each because I was writing full-time. Six months more than pushes my limits.

The stories feel solid. I forced myself to take my time, go through everything now so I have less to work on later. But I’ve played and replayed this story in my head, and I can’t stand it one minute longer for now.

A teaser, though:

Longest Night (Book 1)—On the year’s longest night, out of the handful of eligible, unwanted women in the entire kingdom, Asha of the Gray is selected to marry the king, a monster who lives in the castle far above the civilized districts of the kingdom and who only keeps his wives a year. Word count: 73,386

Beasts (Book 2)—Leaving on a journey to unlock the mystery of the northern ghost kingdoms, the king leaves Asha in the care of his returned army of wolf warriors and under the watchful guardianship of his most trusted friend, the mercurial captain of the guard.  Word count: 74,286

Grayling (Book 3)—Upon the king’s return, the mysteries follow him and threaten to destroy everything he built as well as every connection Asha reluctantly forged with the demons, monsters, and beasts that surround her. Word count: 113,102

The total word count was 260,815, at around 406 pages of single space, size-12 font. The biggest challenge, aside from writing the whole damn thing at all after the first book, was that I wasn’t allowed to use the words ‘vampire’ or ‘werewolf’ once. Made things a little more interesting. It’s not the first time I played with high fantasy. I’d say it was set in a similar universe as Calling the Dragons Home, my first story published by Totally Bound. The whole election season riled me up. I suppose a took out a lot of aggression through the story. Romance it might be, it’s still got a heavy dose of Gothic horror in it as well, because I’m me and can’t help myself.

I’m taking a break to do some editing, because my brain’s ready to pop like an old toaster. As soon as I gather up my strength again, I’ll resume work on Spider, Arcanium’s sixth novel. At least the Arcanium stories are basically standalones. They really do feel like separate projects that way.

Leaving the Sanctuary

Tags

call for blood, sanctuary

I was so busy this week, I didn’t have a minute to post that I had an article in the LGBTQ publication Divine Magazine, where I wrote about my conflicted feelings about saying goodbye to the Sanctuary world.

Contortion Trivia

Tags

arcanium, contortion, contortionist, dark erotic romance, demonic circus, erotica, novel, supernatural, valorie

For every novel, I have a few interesting tidbits to share about aspects of the story and/or its place in its series. I love movie trivia, so it only makes sense I’d do the same for my books. Here are a few facts about Contortion, the fifth book in the Arcanium series. As always, it’s best to read the book first, lest you encounter spoilers.

1. Valorie is named after the actress Valorie Curry, to whom she bears no resemblance.

2. Lennon is inspired by but doesn’t physically resemble Tim Roth. John is inspired by Leonard Roberts. Valorie isn’t really inspired by anyone. She’s just in my head.

3. Contortion differs from the other Arcanium novels in several different ways. Like Kitty, she’s a veteran cast member of the circus, but she doesn’t bring anyone new in, so this is the first novel where there’s no formal introduction to Arcanium. Secondly, most of my main characters, they struggle with the demon side of Arcanium; Valorie struggles with her humanity.

4. When I wrote Ringmaster, I was writing about a woman with hair all over her body when my problem is that I have trouble keeping mine on. In Contortion, I write about a woman who can twist herself into knots. I can’t even reach my toes without bending my knees.

5. Between getting a dayjob and edits for other Arcanium novels, Contortion took over three months to edit prior to submission, even though it took less than a month to write.

6. Valorie’s jeans when she steps through the portal are high-waisted and acid-washed. It’s really quite bad.

7. I affectionately call this story ‘The Bitch and the Beast.’

8. I consider this the most human of the Arcanium novels thus far. Coincidentally, it was also the least interesting for me to write (doesn’t mean I don’t like it, because I enjoyed spending time seeing things through Valorie’s eyes – just in matters of comparison).

9. Was the second book written for NaNoWriMo 2014, started halfway through that month. I resolved to write 50k for each novel (at least 50k to finish the first novel, at least 50k to start the second novel), and I succeeded.

10. Shortest Arcanium novel thus far.

Ringmaster (Arcanium Book 4) Trivia

Tags

arcanium, demonic circus, erotic horror, erotic romance, erotica, novel, ringmaster, series, trivia, writing

As usual, I feel compelled to share some of the behind-the-scenes tidbits from the Arcanium series. Here’s a look at the interesting trivia for Ringmaster. (Highly recommended that you read the book before the trivia.)

1. Kitty’s story was the second story I came up with as a potential sequel, but the fourth Arcanium book written.

2. I originally revealed her secret relationship with the Ringmaster as a ‘Behind the Curtain’ short story in the first Arcanium novel FORTUNE. Most of that short story ended up in RINGMASTER.

3. Kitty’s full name is Katharine Clanahan. The Ringmaster doesn’t have a name.

4. I came up with the character of Kitty as a reactionary response to my form of OCD, typically called trichotillomania or excoriation disorder. I’m obsessive-compulsive about plucking, shaving, and pulling hair from my body, to the point where I have scarring and have to shave my head. I’m understandably resentful of social grooming norms. Kitty is my complementary opposite, and I love her to pieces. I was going to write her an erotic novel, no matter what.

5. Some of the ways she does her beard in this story are inspired by Captain Jack Sparrow and Albus Dumbledore.

6. Victor didn’t have a name for the first 8,000 or so words of the story. I just called him ‘&.’ Seriously.

7. The ending changed several times before I finally reached it.

8. A new oddity turned up in RINGMASTER that wasn’t been explained in the novel or in previous novels: Marcus, the rotting man. He’ll get an explanation eventually.

9. Two sexual encounters Kitty has are referenced but not expounded upon. Those stories will be in the accompanying ‘Behind the Curtain’ short stories for RINGMASTER.

10. Many thanks to bullwhip expert Anthony De Longis for his Youtube video. I’ve used a bullwhip myself and have one in my closet (from a cattle ranch, not for play), but it’s been over fifteen years since I’ve wielded it, and I really needed a refresher.

Aerial (Arcanium Book 3) Trivia

Tags

aerial, arcanium, demonic circus, erotic romance, erotica, horror, m/m, novel, series

It’s been a rough set of months, so I haven’t put up a trivia collection for Aerial. I love reading movie trivia and getting tidbits of information about TV shows and music. I continue the tradition with my novels. Enjoy! (As you might imagine, this is best read after you read Aerial.)

1. The only Arcanium prequel, set three years before FORTUNE. So the timeline is out of sequence, yet AERIAL just felt right as the third book. It wouldn’t have made sense as the first one, since everyone would have expected Arcanium to be a primarily MM series. But AERIAL is only one of two Arcanium novels with a prominent MM relationship. The other is SILK (Arcanium Book 8).

2. Often through the sex scenes, I’d get so into it that I’d forget Seth and Lars had to be touching each other. I’d have to go back and change the choreography to reestablish the connection.

3. Seth is inspired by Simon Baker, Lars by Taye Diggs, the twins by Jewel Staite.

4. Lars’ name used to be Lance. I decided against the puns.

5. This is my first primary MM novel ever, and my first story written entirely from a male POV. It was nerve-wracking to write, to say the least.

6. By the time I’d worked a while on this book, I realized I like putting characters in mobile homes, even though I’ve only been in one once in my life.

7. There were many times while working on AERIAL that I just wanted to shake Seth and Lars, throw the Kinsey scale at them, and say, “Bisexuality exists!” But as straight-identified men, they have a bit of a mental block against the sexuality spectrum. To them, it’s either straight or gay, period. It makes for wonderful but not particularly enlightened angst.

8. I often wrote ‘Seth and Lars’ in AERIAL to the point where my brain started combining the two while I typed, and I’d want to write ‘Sars and Lars.’ Not sexy.

9. Seth and Lars had their characters first fleshed out in a ‘Behind the Curtains’ short story in the original FORTUNE. I integrated most of the aspects of that short story into several scenes in AERIAL. I also integrated parts of the Joanne and Jane ‘Behind the Curtains’ short story from FORTUNE into AERIAL.

10. The hardest part about this story was the choreography—in the ring and in the bedroom.