Yes, I promised Warped before I took a hiatus from Blended and concentrated on M&M.

Yes, I am reneging.

Why?

#1: I’ve published nearly 1,800 pages of Blended in 2014. I think I’ve earned a pass.

#2: I tend to emulate my characters. Writing a Bipolar drug addicted police officer is not a small feat while maintaining your own level of sanity. As of late, I’ve been suffering with the manic portion of my character’s condition. I cannot concentrate on anything for longer than a few moments. To write, one must be able to sit for large amounts of time and be completely within their minds. I can only read the beginning of a book, and then I lose interest at this point. It’s like my mind has been invaded by a swarm of thoughts that just will NOT settle down into something cohesive.

#3: I’ve already written over 100,000 words of Warped. (Restraint is 97,000 in its current state). Warped will be nearly 1,000 pages in length if I write it while inspired, with patience, and without rushing. I want to enjoy what I write, but if I don’t, the readers will feel the negative emotions infusing the page.

#4: I promised myself I’d NEVER rush-write again, and that is a promise to myself I will never break. I wouldn’t be in this situation if I hadn’t wrote how I did earlier in my career. But I can call upon my ignorance. I. Am. NOT. Ignorant any longer. I have been wizened beyond my years through trial and error and shit writing.

#5: I’ve written well-over a million words since I began Restraint. I’m positive I’ve evolved in my craft, and M&M deserves better. The series deserves the level of writing I am currently at, not what is currently published, silently embarrassing me.
#6: we are coming up to the one-year anniversary to the release of Integrated, the last M&M book I published. If I were to take my time, making Warped as incredible as I believe it will be (hard-hitting, raw- gripping, and emotional), it would be nearing 2 years for the next M&M book. Some authors don’t write a 1000 pages in several years, and to expect me to crank it out in a few months without harsh consequences is madness.

#7: Erica needs a break. I’m drained. Tapped out. The muse is not amused, or inspired, or awake. I slept for hours last night, finally, realizing it’s been ages since I slept longer than 4 hours at a time. It isn’t healthy. It’s a delicate balance: creating books to sell to the masses, versus taking care of yourself. I write book that my fans are hungry to read, but I don’t have a lot of devoted fans in my niche writing. So it takes a LOT of releases to earn squat. But at what cost? My sanity? My health?

#7.5: see refusal to speed-write to crank out books to earn more money. I’d rather write a great book, the first time, and be proud of what I’ve given to the public, than to pad my bank account. I deserve more. The reader deserves more. But most importantly, the STORY deserves more.

#8: Sometimes I just can’t write anew. Sometimes I find immense joy in fixing what I’ve previously written, finding pride in making it better- more. Obviously this is obvious, since I can never leave well-enough alone. Which is why I’m going into Print books. Once in print, it’s permanent, a stopping point for my never-ending obsession with perfection.

#9: I don’t cater to the masses. My books are not for the mainstream. A notion I’m completely ditching during my M&M rewrite. Maybe if I wasn’t trying to straddle the line of normalcy versus how twisted my mind truly is, the readers would feel it, connect with the story, and want to share it with the world. So instead of trying to crank out books to sell more books to a handful of devotees, I’m going to try to write the best books to my ability, to my standards, and perhaps gain some more fans in the process. I think the payoff for all those involved will be greater.

#10: Restraint is getting refurbished: A new cover. A new blurb. A new price point. Both in print and in ebook form. It’s getting completely rewritten, restructured. Because if I demand more of myself as a writer, to write my flagship book to be one of the best books I’ve written, then I should not discount it. As with self-respect, you get what you project. If I give my own version of a masterpiece away for free, in hopes someone will one-click it, and may or may not ever even open it to read its contents, then I’m belittling my own work. If I want readers to know it’s worthy, then I’ll make sure they know its worth. I’m not saying I will never sale price the title, I’m promising it will never be FREE.

#11: I can give a way a lot of books for free or next to nothing, and they may or may not ever be read. But this avid reader/one-clicker/bookwhore, hardly ever reads the free books she collects, but one thing that is for damned sure: if I BUY it, I READ it. If I READ it, I REVIEW it.

#12: I’m pulling myself out of the rabbit hole. If I sell 10 books at the higher price point, it’s still worth more than giving away thousands of books no one will ever read. I will keep the Kindle Lending, Prime, and Unlimited. I will sale price my books for promotions. Books, just because they are offered in ebook form, does not make them any less valuable than one sitting upon the shelves. It still took the same amount of time to write, edit, buy the cover, pay the cover artist, pay Uncle Sam his cut, maintain an at-home office. If the writer is good, then the book will be better. The good writer with the better book shouldn’t have to lower their prices to compete with books of a lower caliber.

I’m not speaking of price gouging; I’m speaking of worth. To say Good Girl is only worth 99 cents is madness. To say when it’s in its print form it will be worth ten bucks just because of the paper it’s printed on is lunacy. It’s 700 pages of my blood, sweat, and tears, of ME on the pages, and to give it away for free, or to only get 30 cents BEFORE taxes per copy…

Yes, anyone can type up a book and slap a price on it, but it takes money to be a writer and survive. It takes even more money to be a damned good writer and show it in your work. We’re all worth more. I’ve just finally figured that out.

#13: My plan, which is subject to change: All of M&M of Restraint, rewritten and republished in both print and ebook, with every book published thereafter as a permanent book. Only one try this time for the Wicked Writer. No more do-overs. I can’t survive it. I either respect and feel proud of the work I’m publishing, or it won’t be published. The first time. No rush-writing. No getting books out to have a new release and keep my links on ppl’s Twitter, Fb, and Goodreads feeds.

#14: Hero will be my next new release.

#15: My apologies, Blended Fans, but I released 4 Blended books, back-to-back, in less than nine months (1,800 pages). It’s The Mistress & Master of Restraint’s turn. But I will never go longer than 2 books per series without going back to the other. No more years of one series without giving a voice to the other.

#16: Blended is finite for a reason. It’s heavily outlined. I even know the final sentence of “THE END”. M&M could be infinite, as along as I have a palate cleanser, affording me the opportunity to give my muse room to grow and play.

17: When I catch up, or when the muse demands some space, you’ll be hearing from my pseudonym. The mystery and the suspense will be that I will NOT tell you who it is. I’ll wait, announce it, and let you all scour goodreads & Amazon until you figure it out. I call myself the Wicked Writer for a reason, and I will derive perverse pleasure as I watch you reason out who my other half is…

Wanton was set to release the last week of July. Erica, where the hell is it?

I had to take a step back from my insane writing schedule. Which is laughable, since I started writing Warped instead. My New Year’s resolution was to slow down, not to rush-write to get books out to the readers, which always ends up in regret (mine) and rewrites with revamped released editions. Not going there again, Deviants. With that saying, I’ve released 1,500 pages to-date this year, with another 200+ in Wanton coming up, and Lord knows how many in Warped. So I’m guaranteed 2,000+ pages released in 2014- a new record for me, and totally contradicting my resolution.

Where is Wanton? Shelved for a few weeks for its betterment. Wanton evolved into a full-length book. On the short side of full-length, but longer than Restraint was when I first released it. Meaning, it’s not classified as a novella. It’s also not truly a half-book in the series any longer, either. Unlike Wildly Wedded Wife, Wanton will be necessary in the lineup in the Blended Series. I have 3 chapters to write, edits, and beta edits before it’s ready for publishing. Sometime in September. I want Wanton to be the best it can be, and if I’d rushed, it wouldn’t have been.

Warped: Flowing like water… in five days, I wrote over 40,000 words on Warped. As with the title, and the cover, Warped will be dark. Definitely the darkest book in the Blended Series. 50% Devon Mason. 25% Essie Prynne. 20% Kieren Mason, & 5% Willow Prynne. We’ve already had 700 pages from Willow’s POV. We’ve been deep inside her mind, I wanted readers to be one with the other characters now, but spotlight important scenes for Willow while inside her head.  Outlook on Warped: I have no idea how long it will be. It’s writing itself. I’ve heavily outlined, but all 40,000+ words I’ve written thus far, were NOT outlined. I’m sure it will live up to the development and the length of its predecessors. Release date: TBA. It depends on how much of itself it wants to write. LMAO (my muse is trying to kill me, I swear)

BETA DRIVE: The beta drive is still in effect. Late August/Early September. I will sort through the submissions, email the beta test, and choose a roster of betas. It should be in time for Wanton & Warped’s beta reads. Here is the submission form for those interested in becoming a Wicked Writer’s Beta. Thank you for the interest, and the help!

**I just spent the last three days in the car,  riding from Pennsylvania to New Mexico, desperately searching for a book to hold my interest. That is the emotion behind this blog posting- pure frustration mixed with bitter disappointment*

A plea to my fellow wordsmiths from the reader in all of us.

I spend a great deal of time in analytical-mode, observing others for their actions and reactions. I do this to perfect my character development. Lately, I’ve had a difficult time reading anyone’s books but my own because of ‘character lobotomies.’

I’m not just speaking of Indie or traditionally published authors. I’m speaking of BOTH!

Like actual human beings: age, gender, personality traits, emotional baggage, and careers should drive your characters' actions. The hardest thing for me to swallow when reading: characters acting out of character. The dumbass or helpless female disease. Many a doctor, lawyer, or other professional women, with 8+ years of higher education and an analytical mind with a ‘take no prisoners’ attitude, turn into dipshit, teenaged girls in these books.

“I know this is a bad idea, but I’m gonna do it anyway. So there!” *sticks tongue out like a petulant five-year-old child when in actuality is a 35-year-old professional* “Aren’t I cute and funny? Hehe!” *Looks like the first to die in a horror flick.* “Oh, shit, I shouldn’t have done that. Gonna get hurt now unless some manly man rushes in to save me.”

Erica rolls her eyes, threatens to smash her Kindle, and puts the author on the long list of DNF & ‘never-going-to-read-a-word-you-write-again.’

Authors: you have your characters thinking one thing in their inner monologue and reacting in an opposite fashion. This seems to be the norm today, along with insta-love.

Why this diatribe today? Well, I was reading a book I thoroughly enjoyed, and then it was lobotomized. Personally, the short backstory was the key to my interest. I would have rather read that instead. It was hard-hitting, engrossing, and worthy. Instead of expanding on the story to create a solid foundation, the author went ahead and made it about insta-love. I say it’s a cop-out. Write the story out, and quit selling me phony romance without a backbone or foundation.

There is something to be said about intensity, chemistry, and tension.

Build some.

In so many books today, the protagonists meet, and then it’s instant attraction and… *shudders* L-O-V-E? Really? Seriously? Love? What happened to lust?

It takes time to build a foundation of love, one that is only made over time, over interaction, over emotional attachment. This is never built over sex- never, ever. If you believe this phony bullshit, you’re probably addicted to the high of ‘new love’, or as it’s better known, infatuation.

9 times out of 10, this occurs. I realize in order to properly show the time it takes to develop a real relationship, the readers would be bored out of their skulls. But to ‘tell’ me versus ‘show’ me WHY they fit as a couple, is taking the easy way out, and a detriment to your story. Lastly, not everything has to be about sappy romance or hot sex.

No, it doesn’t.

Because if all you have is sappy romance and hot sex without any real story behind it, then it’s forgettable and a dime-a-dozen, and personally, the sex is just flat.

I expect certain things out of a book. In YA or NA, I expect the girls to do something stupid, since they are, in essence, children. They are without the experience of life, the growth to make sound decisions. But in those novels, the females act older, wiser. They save the world in Fantasy and Dystopian novels, or live on their own while their wayward parents are off living their life somewhere else, acting criminally for leaving their underaged children alone for long periods of time.

I found the missing and idiotic parents to our YA heroines and heroes in Contemporary romance/erotica novels. In today’s contemporary romance and erotica genres, you have 25+ year old females acting the way those in the YA & NA should have been behaving. How do you explain this shift? Why do our younger readers get strong role models and our adult readers get “Too Stupid to Live” females who give all women a bad name?

One book that will forever stick in my mind, a female doctor, highly intelligent, acting like a twelve-year-old in heat, pranking hospital faculty. They took an oath to save lives, and the author is making light of this highly intelligent character with slap-stick, over-the-top bullshit for the sake of comedy. For me, it’s not funny if you’re trying too hard. It’s just freakin’ annoying.

Next up, the hotter than blazes Mary Jane. MJ’s internal monologue is something like this, “Woe-is-me.” “I’m 35 and no one wants me.” “I’m shy and quiet, and my last boyfriend was mean to me.” “I don’t trust men.”  The author usually writes one, more often two or three, hot guys sniffing at MJ’s tail. & in their POV, they find MJ the most gorgeous creature, engrossing in conversation, and completely sounding like MJ in their minds. Add, “I’m fat.” “I’m ugly.” “I’m boring.”  Yet these women are goddesses in the hotties’ eyes.

I get the realism of using everyday women, and the fantasy of being wanted by 5 hot rockers or billionaires, or what have you, but it’s an insult to my intelligence… and freakin’ annoying to boot.

Next up, these Gods among men, who are starve-gutted for plain Mary Jane, mysteriously sound, act, and react like a woman… or a douchebag. Never an in between. Then douchebag gets pussy-whipped by MJ, and then his inner monologue becomes just as hers. Without fail.

If I’m reading a male’s POV, I expect him to act, react, and sound like a dude from page one to ‘the end’. A guy in love is still a guy, not a girl who is wielding a penis aimed at our damsel-in-distress. If the girl can’t save herself, her male clone shouldn’t be able to save her, either. Right?

Candy at the Van Predators versus Streetwise, Badassed Bitches.

As I said, these intelligent, streetwise, or take-no-prisoners women always have a baggage-filled backstory (which I love, and I always wish the authors would write that instead of the fluff-filled romance piece they publish). Today’s woman slept in a shelter with a knife in her hand to save her pitiful belongings. She’s on the run from an abusive ex. Meets a guy by happenchance (always is the case, right? Gotta love Fate!), and trusts this new stranger infallibly. Character trait lobotomy, anyone? This is without fail, always, and was so difficult to swallow that I was furious.

So then the dude starts in on possessive shit, and she shrugs it off, ‘cuz you know, it’s NOT like she doesn’t recognize the signs after being abused. He’s hot. *shrugs* He wants her mousy ass. *shrugs* I’m sure he’s a good guy, even if he’s telling her what to do after a handful of words, and now looking, touching, and breathing on her in a way that makes her girly parts tingly. *tingling so intensely I wonder if she has feminine itch*

It’s been 12 hours, in which she lost a job, gained a job, cried, gained an apartment and money, did all the necessary body functions, spoke less than 100 words to this dude (none of them of any real substance) but has looked at, and been looked at by, this insanely HOT dude, so all her reasoning skills and intelligence just flee her mind to pool at her itching stranger-danger zones. She’s been super busy, dang it! I’m exhausted for her just by writing the sequence of events out. (I know I can’t get THAT much done in 12 hours- oh, she slept too!) (She puts the Super in “HERO”ine) She’s spent maybe an hour in this dude’s presence, but now she thinks she loves him, and his POV is thinking the same about her, too…

Awww… how sweet, and toe-curling, and sexy… I hope they make cute babies on their first time, because that’s the rational thing to do.

Are you freakin’ kidding me? Seriously?

(I’m not making fun of just this book, since the 7 I tried to read in the past 24-hours have followed this same formula)

I’m not a feminist, but this pisses me off. & more often than not, all women are depicted as dumbassed bitches while spouting how intelligent, streetwise, and gun-shy they are. Trust? What’s that? It’s called following strangers around, and then letting them touch the places your parents warned you about without having something called a conversation first. *growls in fury*

But it’s love at first sight, right?

No, sweetie, it’s a thing called lust.

How about the author creates some sexual tension by NOT having the characters have sex and fall in love in the beginning of the book (both of which spells out ‘THE END’ for me) Build to the moment without giving into instant gratification and ploys. If you wrote a douchebag, have him douchebag it up for ½ of the book (love/hate, sexual frustration and tension) with a ¼ for redemption, and the last ¼ for ‘THE END’.

Don’t give me the meat before you even scoop the serving of potatoes on my plate, after completely bypassing the salad. We are a generation of dessert eaters when I still want to digest the whole, entire meal.

Book after book, after book, after book, after book, in an endless stream of sameness- a sameness I cannot stand.

I understand there is a guideline to each genre, a formula to follow, but c’mon! Don’t ruin your well-thought-out story by following the herd. The incredible story you briefly mentioned, as a way to introduce your character so she could get acquainted with the nearest mattress, IS the story you should be telling. Not some mediocre, dime-a-dozen, formulaic clone of all the rest.

Entertain me.

I read like an editor, and I’m not speaking of grammar rules, even though we all break them. I read a book like an editor, reading it in a way to FIX it, develop it into something more. It’s this quest that has me looking at my books with clear eyes, longing to better them for the reader. A quest I will soon be embarking upon for the Mistress & Master of Restraint Series. I don’t follow the herd. I don’t write for my readers. I challenge myself to write a better book than my last, to remove the ‘character lobotomies’ from the storyline, to write with true substance, to evolve the chemistry, the lust, the intensity of the characters’ romance.

I keep trying to read, trying to finally reach that  intoxicating feeling where if disturbed I’d knife the asshole who broke me from the story… but I can’t find that plane of existence any longer.

I need more, and dear Author, I want YOU to give it to me!

I knew from day-one that my titles would be pirated eventually, and they have been since early on. I was passive about piracy, knowing it impacted my sales yet hoping it would draw in true readers. I likened the piracy to a twisted library of sorts. I purposefully left off the DRM from the first few titles in my series, and then put a DRM on the later titles. My stance, “Here, have a copy. I hope you get hooked, and then pay for the rest.” 

With that saying, I know from reviews on whether or not it’s a pirated copy. As I said, I was pirated from early on with Restraint, and that Restraint no longer exists. I don’t  even have a copy. Yet two years and some change later, readers are still reading, judging, and reviewing me based on the edition of a book that sold fewer than an hundred copies… so what are the odds you purchased the ‘extinct‘ Restraint  and it took you 30 months to review it? I’m no statistician, but I’d say the odds are next to none, considering the tens of thousands it’s sold in its current form.

My warning to pirates: You may not be reading the book in its actual form, and when you review it as such, you are caught. But not only that, you are missing out on what the book evolved into, ruining and confusing you when you read the subsequent books in the series. & that is a pity and a shame for the reader, the author, and most importantly, for the purity of the story itself.

Why am I writing this blog posting? Several times over I’ve been contacted about my books not only being pirated, BUT SOLD. Yes, SOLD by PIRATES.

If you want to read my book for free, then by all means, get it from a piracy site. I’m not being facetious. I’d rather you get it for free than pay your hard-earned money to my pirate. But if you pay that fuckerfucking pirate, damn you to HELL!

The authors listed on this site CREATED THE STORY FROM NOTHING. WE SPENT THOUSANDS OF HOURS PLOTTING, WRITING, EDITING, DELETING, EDITING, WRITING, POURING OUR SOULS OUT ON THOSE PAGES, LISTENING TO CRITIQUES FROM BACKSEAT EDITORS, READING BULLYING REVIEWS, GETTING SHIT FROM READERS WHO LOATHED THIS OR THAT. WE EARNED THE RIGHT TO BE PAID, NOT SOME BASTARD, ASSHOLE OF A  PIRATE!

If you want my book for free, fucking contact me and I will send one to your Kindle. But to pay the pirate for OUR HARD WORK, MAKES YOU AN EVEN BIGGER ASSHOLE! 

I work no less than 12 hours a day to earn 30 cents on the buck, to where I then pay the government a third of that. As an indie author, I then make 20 cents on every dollar I sell, but out of that I have to pay for business expenses: laptops, software, cover images, cover artists, (I’d pay an editor, IF I COULD AFFORD IT). WHO THE FUCK COULD LIVE OFF THAT? & I LITERALLY WRITE ENDLESSLY, AS YOU ALL KNOW, JUDGING BY THE 1,500+ PAGES I’VE PUBLISHED IN THE FIRST HALF OF 2014 To have my work not only stolen but resold… you have no idea how disheartening of a sensation this is, or how much fury is coursing in my veins. BECAUSE I’M FOLLOWING THE FUCKING RULES, THE LAW, PAYING TAXES ON MY WORK, AND THEY ARE NOT! FYI: Plead ignorance all ya want, but if you are ‘purchasing’ from a dealer no one has ever heard of, you know what’s up. If you are a reader, you know who the major retailers are, or you buy straight from the publisher. If it looks hinky, it is.

FYI: NEVER HAVE I EVER published a PDF of my work. If the copy you are reading is a PDF, it wasn’t from me!

FYI: I lowered the price on Restraint to 99 cents for this exact reason. Now I’m under-bidding my pirate selling asshole friends who are bilking the ignorant and the criminal out of $1.50 a copy.

FYI: I’ve given tens of thousands of copies of Restraint and Good Girl away for free, and will continue to do so along with my ‘honest’ pirate friends. If you’re the honest sort, you’ll be out 99 cents for 700 HUNDRED PAGES of my hard work. You can either get it for free during Amazon promos or from a pirate, pay ME FOR MY HARD WORK, OR pay some asshole pirate who is laughing at you all the way to the bank.

Now if this just doesn’t make a person want to say the hell with it all, and cut their losses, I don’t know what does! It’s a spit in the face. I feel like I’m in an uphill battle against an unmovable army. I’m selling more books than ever and only getting paid half of that because I’m literally giving my books away for Free.

I want to know your reaction when you go into work tomorrow morning and your boss tells you how you have to work the next six months of your life, an upwards of eighteen hours a day, and NOT get PAID! You could live on that, right? You could deal with that, right? How about then your boss takes your earnings and gives it to some asshole criminal- all of it. And then your boss makes YOU pay the taxable income on what that asshole stole. Yeah, chew that over.

-peace out!

As of this morning I hit 200,000 words on Widow. I’m now on the downwards slope towards the ending, where I’m tying all the loose threads from the entire book while adding insight for the books to come.
Since I published Integrated, I took a step back to reevaluate myself as a writer. I am determined to eliminate my bad habits, writing-wise, and slow down. A major thread of Widow is regret, and that is channeled from its author. My biggest regret is rushing a story.

When Good Girl was first published, I was proud of it. I thought it complete. I was wrong. I had written 70% of Widow shortly after Good Girl’s completion. I then took a step back and wrote KING, Faithless, The Hunter, Integrated, Hero, and found myself back to square one with Good Girl.

The foundation of the entire Blended series wasn’t right, which made me rethink all of my choices.

The day I had to delete over 200 pages of Widow… was a sad day, indeed.

Originally Widow began where Good Girl ended- that explosive cliffhanger of a scene that changed their family dynamic. I will prove a point now: Rushing would have killed the book and the subsequent books if I had released it over a year ago. All 200,000 of Widow’s words thus far, are before that end scene. It is the entirety of the book itself, with only a handful of scenes wrapping up the novel. Widow, as it is now, with the way the family’s lives have evolved, would never have been written. Warped would have been dead in the water, unable to be written.

After this major change, Warped will be one of my most challenging books. Picking up with Devon in rehab and showing the aftermath of Widow for the entire Blended family.

I’ve had some flack over Good Girl for a few things, things I wish to address now.

DRUG USE: I’m not advocating it, nor am I preaching about it. I’m showing it from both perspectives, and both are very real. I don’t write fairy tales. Drug and alcohol abuse are very present in our everyday lives. It’s not pretty because it’s reality. If this presses a trigger for you, then perhaps you’ve been affected by it at some point, and you should continue to read to see how I show it from the different angles. If you believe I’m advocating use, then perhaps you should continue to read to find out that is not the case. If you don’t believe drugs are everywhere, and as such, they shouldn’t be in books, then perhaps you are living in a world of your own creation. If you just don’t like reading about reality, then the Blended series isn’t for you, so don’t penalize me for it.

S-E-X:  If you are on this earth, you were created through sex. If sex offends you, see above post in DRUG USE about reality.  I DO NOT write closed-door romance. Nowhere do I say I do. Everywhere I say I don’t. 2 seconds of research through the reviews or my backlist will inform you that I write contemporary romance, erotic romance, suspense, LGBT, and BDSM. Unless I’m living in an alternate universe, I’d expect those to have sexual situations, and I wouldn’t expect the author to be penalized because of it. To me, it makes about as much sense as buying Science Fiction, reading Science Fiction, and then writing a 1 star review because it was Science Fiction. NOTE: for my deviants, Widow is more mild because of its characters. If you are a long-time reader of mine, you know I don’t write sex-fests.

Length: I’ve had readers complain of the length of Good Girl, with the irony being those same readers complain about spending their hard earned money buying what I call episodic series. (a series of novellas or short stories, all ending with a cliffhanger, forcing readers to wait for what comes next while it’s being written or to buy the next episode to see what happens next) While as lucrative for those authors as it is frustrating for its readers, I am not those authors.  As a writer, the only thing I can do is write the way my muse programmed me. For me, a book has a beginning, middle, and an ending, and I will write that book the way it tells me to write it.

Yes, I’ve had cliffhangers. But the ending was to change the POV of the character, optimizing the readers’ experiences by telling the story in the voice best to relay the story. Good Girl was the length it was because it chose its length, ending because it was Clover and Malcolm’s turn to voice their story. Widow is the length it is to give you an entire story from start to finish, where the children will pick up the story to show you a new side in this journey.

As a reader, if long books aren’t for you, that is not my issue. I know there are so many amazing stories being written, and we, as readers, will never read them all. So we rush like kids trying to earn BOOK-IT points for Pizza Hut. But there is no gold star for reading the most books the fastest. I used to rush-read as well, until I realized I was short-changing my own entertainment. Reading isn’t a job; it’s for pleasure. A pleasure we pay for, so the faster you read, the more expensive the hobby. So when I get negative flack for a 700 page book you received for free or for only 99 cents, I get insulted. So if my writing style isn’t for you… I will not change, nor be penalized for it.

3rd person vs 1st person: I’ve heard this one many times: If only Ms. Chilson wrote in 3rd person…usually followed by,  the book would be much shorter, and we’d know what so&so was thinking. 1st: I’ll let you know what they were thinking when I want you to know. Otherwise, it ruins any surprises, and I’m all about the surprises. Second: Well, that’s great that you enjoy 3rd person, but Ms. Chilson is the one who has to write the book. Ms. Chilson doesn’t write 3rd person. She also isn’t a fan of 3rd person narratives.

As a reader, you can choose what you read. As a writer, you CAN’T choose what you write.

This works for both my reading and writing styles: I must become one with the narrator, so 1st person present tense draws me into them. An overview isn’t intimate enough for me to connect with the characters. I’m in too many characters’ heads, and not deep enough. There is no deep connection when the internal monologue is disconnected from the readers. Also, past tense confuses me. I feel like saying, “I’m reading this RIGHT NOW, but it’s past tense.” I want to be walking around with the character, not hearing about how they walked around five minutes ago or ten years ago.

We all read differently because we are different people. Since I am the one writing the book, I can only write it the way I write. To each their own. To the joys of individual expression. *cheers*

Long story short: expect Widow to be a 700 page book in 1st person narrative in the present tense. Whether you find that boring, drawn-out, is not my issue. There are no unnecessary scenes written as filler in these pages. I don’t have time for that, not with all the characters screaming in my head. No shopping trips, car rides, or incessant decorator or fashion descriptions. Every scene is to propel the story or character development. There will be no doubting who the characters are on a soul-deep level. You, as the reader, will be able to predict their future actions as if they were your own. Why? Because I’ve bared their souls to you while you read, connected you, through the 1st person, present tense narrative.

Angry diatribe complete!

In other news. Widow will be released mid-June. Angela is organizing a Blog tour for Widow’s release, with ARCs for both Good Girl and Widow for review, as well as a Blitz and cover/blurb reveal. (All foreign language to me) So if you wish to join the fun,  I’ll post the information when it becomes available.

As of mid-June, I will have publish 1,500 pages in the first half of 2014. I am stepping back again, reevaluating how Warped should proceed. In my leisure, I will be editing the M&M series, as well as writing a novella titled Wanton. Wanton is a (for Amber, who requested a BBW) BBW Lesbian romance centered around two females in Blended’s cast of characters. I will release the details on this title after Widow’s release. This book is my version of a test- a test to see if I can write about two people, centering the entire book around their connection, and manage to fit it into 120 pages or less.

Gauntlet thrown down: the Deviants over at M&M of Restraint don’t think I can do it. Anyone who reads my books knows I’m a challenge-taker. I’ll do it because you guys think I can’t, whether said in jest or not (I wasn’t offended. First, it made me laugh, and then it made me get down to business. As I end Widow, that novella has been writing itself in my head)

Off to finish Widow’s draft in the next week or so, and then the betas will work their magic while I put my editor hat on… and then things get really serious.