children

A Bolt of Brilliance!

I’ve been talking about the Unnamed 7th book of Heir to the Firstborn for a couple of months, I think? If you missed it, I thought the Heir to the Firstborn books were done. Completely done. No more stories to be had in that universe. Right?

Wrong.

I left loose ends. And a plot bunny named Kaspin came hopping out of my subconscious and said “Where’s my book?” So I plotted out his book. And… it had no title. None. And I told myself that I wasn’t starting until I knew what it was called.

The other day, I was walking upstairs to my office, and I SWEAR TO BOB I walked into the title. Seriously, it felt like something hit me in the middle of the chest and there was the title…

Balance of Power
Heir to the Firstborn, Book 7

1156 / 90000 (1.28%)

I started work on Balance the day after I finished Broken Feathers. There may be something more to that story, too, and I may go back to visit my ravens at some point. But for now, they’re done.

Will they stay done? Hrm…answer hazy. Ask again later.

I’m also working on The Sea Prince, going back and forth with the person with whom I originally started the novel a whole bunch of years ago. We’ve both grown quite a bit as writers since we started this manuscript, so there’s been a lot of bringing things in line with what we know now. And it’s been interesting in that we both write very differently now, so we have to learn how to write together again. LOTS of chat in Discord, lots of “Why did they do that? Where is their head at?” Which… I usually don’t think of these things until the characters tell me, so it’s been interesting. I’ll get a wordcount update on it once we finalize the rewrites on the existing chapters. Then I’ll get started on drafting and we’ll be off!

I wrote a little last week on the upcoming Cavalcade of Authors promotion, which will run August 4th through the 6th.

This is turning out to be a MASSIVE giveaway, and it’s only for one weekend, so click on the graphic to sign up for notification when it goes live. There will also be a couple of Facebook takeovers, so watch my social media for more information on those.

We’re officially three weeks until the first day of school. The first day of senior year. Eek! My son took his senior pictures on Saturday (who is this grownup who was just in kindergarten???), and today was a college tour (a 2 mile hike in 95 degree heat… stick a fork in me…)

I know time goes fast, but it needs to slow down just a little. Just… just give me a second to catch up!

Catch you all next week!


Posted by EASchechter in 2023 plans, a-writers-life-is-never-dull, accountability, Adavar, Balance of Power, children, Heir to the Firstborn, promotions, The Sea Prince, The White Raven, upcoming books, upcoming work, WIP, wordcount, writing-mom, Written in Water, 0 comments

WIP: Forged in Fire and Table of Stone

It’s book week!!!! EEE!!!!!

So, can you tell I’m excited? Written in Water releases officially on Tuesday! So if you’ve preordered, you’ll have it in your hands on Tuesday. And if you haven’t preordered… there’s still time. Pick your favorite retailer — I’m likely to be there.

On a writing front,  the past couple of days have been… umm… slow is not the word. Non-existent. That’s the word. I normally don’t have much of a wordcount on Sundays, but this week I also didn’t have a wordcount on Saturday — evening pediatric urgent care visits tend to derail most everything else. (Thankfully, it was nothing much. Given the speed at which this whatever it was hit, I was worried that my kiddo might have picked up either strep or the flu at school. It’s neither.)

I did have a decent week before this weekend, which makes up for it in words, but not in writer impatience. I’m jut about to start big scenes in each of the books, and I want to write them NOW!!!!

Table of Stone
Swords of Charlemagne, Book 4

Forged in Fire
Heir to the Firstborn, Book 2

And because I’m at a pair of big scenes, and because anything I post from this point on in either Forged in Fire or Table of Stone will be spoiler, there’s no excerpt today. I’ll try to have something good next week, though.

Posted by EASchechter in accountability, Adavar, Best laid plans, Best planned lays, children, Elemental Project, Forged in Fire, forthcoming works, Happy Book Day, Heir to the Firstborn, kvelling, new books, presales, Release date, Swords of Charlemagne, Table of Stone, WIP, wordcount, Written in Water, 0 comments

Busy week

Short post tonight. It’s been a busy, and very odd week here in the Schechter household. I’ve been working around the edges on Adavar, and I’ve posted some more worldbuilding to Patreon. But the end of the week has been a bit distracting, so I’ve done very little since Thursday. I’m hoping things settle into place this week.

One of the changes has to do with our homeschooling status. In a nutshell, it’s coming to an end — starting in August, my son is going back to school, to an amazing school that we’ve been trying to get into for a few years now.  So come August, I’m going to have a lot more writing time, and I’m going to have to get used to that! It might mean that Ashes and Light gets written faster, or it might mean that I work on both Swords of Charlemagne and Adavar at the same time. I’ll figure it out as I go.

I’m also working on refreshing my brain, aka catching up on my reading. Last night, I read the first four pages of Catherynne Valente’s delightfully dippy Space Opera aloud to a very confused child of my acquaintance. I think I’m going to need to start him on Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy while I read this.  (If you haven’t read Space Opera yet, go get a copy now.  Right now. I’ll wait.)

Also on my pile are Roxane Gay’s Hunger, and a reread of Ursula Vernon’s Castle Hangnail.  And I’m still reading Damon Suede’s fantastic writing book Verbalize, which I have to take in small chunks, the better to absorb the information. Oh, and I’m refreshing my memory on Victorian household management for when I dive back in to Swords of Charlemagne.

The reprints of the Tales from the Arena books release soon — I know it was supposed to be June, but things happen. I’m still loving the new covers, though.

I should stop — I’m rambling like a Lake Wobegon broadcast. Although I do have to say — here in the Schechter house,  all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.

 

Posted by EASchechter in Adavar, Ashes and Light, book reviews, children, cover art, Elemental Project, Homeschool, new books, Patreon, silly, Swords of Charlemagne, Tales from the Arena, Worldbuilding, writing-mom, 0 comments

Busy!

Homeschool:

Went to Yoga today, and finished up Life Science. We’ll finish Math and Handwriting tomorrow. The Odyssey will probably be done by the weekend.

Baking:

  • No baking today.

Writing:

Total words today:  1,135 words

Total words on Burden of Truth: Book Two of The Rebel Mage

 

Posted by EASchechter in baking, Best laid plans, Best planned lays, Burden of Truth, children, Counsel of the Wicked, forthcoming works, Happy Holidays!, Homeschool, Rebel Mage, scores, Ta-da, the-end-is-near, to-dos, upcoming work, writing-mom, 0 comments

Crawling out from under the rock.

Oh, yeah. I have a blog.

Sorry. Been busy working on synopsi, doing worldbuilding and taking online classes. The Willow Sword synopsis is done. Drum Mage is almost done.  The worldbuilding for Tale from the Arena is started, and is going to be a lot of fun to flesh out. I might post some maps, if I can work out just how to get the GIMP to clean up my scanned drawings.

And these classes?  Are the number one reason I love the Romance Writers of America! Members of the RWA get free classes, taught by people who really know their stuff. This lovely website is courtesy of an RWA class. Right now, I’m taking one on Three-Act structure, which has really shown me where I need to work on Drum Mage.

So I’ve been plodding along, working on things, and trying not to think about the fact that we’re in the final countdown to two major milestones — the first day of kindergarten, and someone’s fifth birthday, both of which happen on the same day.

Just so you know, in three weeks, I’m going to be a BASKETCASE.

Posted by EASchechter in a-writers-life-is-never-dull, children, upcoming work, WIP, writing-mom, 0 comments

Blog Tour: Carnal Machines, Smut and the life of a writing mom.

Welcome! Pull up a chair! Have a cookie! Tea, anyone? Welcome to my place. It’s not home, but it’s much.

Today, I’ll be adding my contribution to the blog tour for Carnal Machines, my latest anthology appearance.

Here, have an excerpt from The Succubus:

The fourth floor is usually quiet, with only the hum of machinery and the distant voices from the floors below. The men do not return to the fourth floor after their initial encounter with me. They desire something more familiar, more in keeping with their personal fantasies. More safe. So I wait, alone, and the silent servants tend to my needs. This evening will be different. I know it already. I can hear Madame’s familiar step on the stair, and another, heavier step with her.

She enters first, the train of her evening gown sweeping the floor as she moves to the table and lights the lamp. The man lingers in the door, peering into the gloom. He wears pristine evening dress, and the lamplight picking out the gold links in his watch-chain and the gleam of the ruby on his left hand. The walls have already whispered his secrets to me: the second son of a Duke, one who was never expected to take the reins of power. One who came, all unexpected, into an inheritance that was never meant to be his. His older brother was dead of typhoid, gone without a son to succeed him, and so the younger son was now Earl Hathaway. It was no surprise to us that the late, lamented Reginald Warwick, Earl Hathaway had died without issue―he had also borne the collar and lock in this house, and had shown a definite preference for the third floor. It will be interesting to see what the new Lord Hathaway prefers. His name, the walls have told me, is Nigel.

“You can come in,” Madame says. “She won’t bite you.” She laughs, and leaves the lamp to go to the far wall, and the switches there. She throws them, one at the time, and light floods the room.

I hear him gasp, and I know what he sees. The ceilings in this room are high, and although they try to hide it with draperies, you can still see the machines that tower overhead, disappearing into the shadows above the lights. The machines hum and churn, gears half the size of a man moving in the eternal dance that gives me life. Occasionally they release puffs of fragrant steam into the air, making the entire room warmer than would normally be considered comfortable. There is very little furniture in the room, most of it covered with drapery against dust and future need. And then there is me. Shining silver and chrome, gleaming brass and copper, I lie in wait, reclined on the wide couch as might a goddess whilst she awaited her worshipers.

“But… it’s clockwork!” he blurts out, stepping into the room. He looks around, expecting to see a living woman. But, of course, there is no one else in the room.

Madame sniffs slightly, “Of course she is. I did explain that to you, did I not?”

Lord Hathaway has the grace to look embarrassed, “You did, but… the others all look… alive. This one…” he gestures wildly.

“She was the first, created by my late husband,” Madame says, walking over to my couch. She brushes her nails over my shoulder and continues, “The others came later, and I refined the forms to make them more… approachable. Despite her form, the Succubus is the most complex of all the automatons.”

“How can that be? It looks like a statue!” He takes a step toward the couch and points at me. “It is a statue!”

Madame runs her fingers over my gleaming silver skull, “Oh, this is just the focal point, Your Lordship. The Succubus encompasses this room.”

He looks around, his eyes wide, “The whole room?”

“The whole of this floor, actually. As I said, she is very complex.” Madame makes her way back to the wall and stands near the bell-rope. “Now, it is customary for the first appointment to be with the Succubus. Did your brother not tell you this?”

Lord Hathaway shakes his head. “All Reg told me was that I would not believe what I found here. He wouldn’t say more.” He swallows, looking nervously at the figure on the couch, and then back at Madame, “Is it safe?”

Madame laughs, “My dear sir, you’ll be as safe here as in your own mother’s arms, if that is your desire.”

He looks at her sharply, “What does that mean?”

Madame just smiles, “You’ve seen what we offer. Surely it’s no surprise to you that there are some who prefer an element of risk. Don’t you agree?”

He does, although I doubt that any would see it but me. His breathing quickens, ever so slightly. The flush in his cheeks heightens, just a touch. He looks at me again, studying me, silent. After a long moment, he turns back to Madame, “What do I have to do?”

She draws from the reticule that hangs from her wrist one of the shining silver collars, the black lock dangling from the end. She smiles at my soon-to-be paramour, “Take off your clothes.”

Still with me? Oh, good.

A little about me, now. I’m a former English teacher, and now SAHM (Stay-at-home-mom) to an active little boy. I can say honestly that he is one of the reasons that I don’t write as quickly as I would like to. (The other reasons are Facebook and Sherlock. Mostly Sherlock. Benedict Cumberbatch….yum…)

Sorry. Where was I? Oh, yes. My son. He’s a very bright little boy. Wherein lies my problem…

NOTHING kills momentum on a sex scene faster then having a small child (he was three years old when this happened) crawl into your lap, look at the laptop screen and say “Mommy, what are you writing?” Writing while he was around was always dicey, and not a lot got done. However, I could sometimes get a couple hundred words out while he played with Legos or trains. He was and is an unusually focused little boy, and actually enjoys playing by himself. Until he doesn’t, and then Mommy has to come play.

And then he taught himself to read. This wasn’t unexpected. I was reading at three, and so was my husband. Our son definitely inherited our love of words, and he reads anything (the grocery store is always great fun for him).

Think about that for a moment… See my problem?

This is why I can’t write when he is awake or at home. My writing time is restricted to the three hours in the morning when he is off being bored out of his mind (otherwise known as Pre-K), and the two hours between his bed-time and mine (times enforced by the husband, who gives me a little leeway, but can’t sleep if I’m not in the room, and won’t let me take my laptop to bed). I might squeeze a few more hours of writing out during the week if we go to the toddler play place (good for another year!), and I am looking forward with great glee to August, when school starts and someone starts full-day kindergarten. But that is three months from now… and summer vacation starts at the end of the month.

This is what I anticipate my day to look like once June starts (based on the fact that I’ve had a small boy home with a GI bug for three days now):

7:30 Out of bed. Into the shower.
7:45 – 8:30  Power up the laptop and eat breakfast while reading email and checking out the blogs. Maybe get some writing done before someone wakes up.

(This, of course, assumes that he hasn’t pulled his usual trick of waking up before dawn and coming down to find us.  Ever seen The Lion in Winter? “When the King’s off his ass, nobody sleeps!” Yeah, King Henry II had nothing on a pre-schooler…)

8:30 – 10:00 Breakfast and Playhouse Disney. Maybe writing in here!
10:00 – 5:00 Whatever else we’re doing the rest of the day.
5:00 – 7:00 Dinner prep and dinner.
7:00 – 8:00 Bedtime  Routine.

Then I get to write until 10:00. At which point I fall over and am unconscious until it all starts over again the next morning.

Such is the life of the writing Mommy. Words are squeezed in in dribs and drabs around the rest of my life. It’s amazing I get anything done at all! (In truth, this post here? Was written four days ago while he was at school, and edited last night after he went to bed because I forgot to put the picture in).

Right at this moment, I’m very close to the end of House of Sable Locks, the novel that comes after The Succubus. (Yes, we’re going back to the House! We’ll see outside the fourth floor! And we’ll find out Madame’s real name…) However, there is no way I’ll be finishing before Memorial Day. Add to that the fact that I will probably get the initial edits over the summer for my upcoming novel (Princes of Air, coming from Circlet Press!), and I foresee a lot of time spent at the play place this summer.

So, that’s where I am. Plugging away at the new manuscript, waiting for the edits on the novel I just sold, and trying not to let the boy learn any  words that will make for interesting parent-teacher conferences in the fall. (and won’t THAT be an interesting conversation?)

Oh, and my son calls me a story-maker.

You know what? I wouldn’t change a minute of it!

Posted by EASchechter in author chat, Carnal Machines, children, writing-mom, 2 comments

Why Paddy's not at work today…

Or, why Liz got no writing done…

Did you know that constipation and a stomach bug combined present as appendicitis?

Yeah, neither did I. Until this morning.

No, not me. My four-year-old son, J. He woke up this morning crying that his belly hurt. When I touched it, it was rock hard and tender. He was running a fever, and he threw up the cup of water that was all he wanted for breakfast, along with his asthma medication.

Needless to say, we went off to the pediatrician. Who examined him, listened to his symptoms, and said that, to be on the safe side, she wanted to have him checked for appendicitis, since he had all the classic symptoms. She went off to get the order for a CT scan, and to find a place that could take us STAT.

(Medical people have funny ideas as to what STAT means. We found this out later.)

Once we were on our way  to the radiologist (half an hour later), I called the husband and told him to meet us there. Got J settled, got the paperwork filled out, and sat down with a nurse, who explained to us that a) J would have to have a barium milkshake, b) that he was going to have to have an IV, and c) that they weren’t all that comfortable with giving a child this young a CT scan anyway, so we should think about heading down to Florida Hospital South.

About an hour and a half later (see where the funny ideas about STAT come in?), we were headed to Florida Hospital South. While we were waiting at the first radiologist, they let J see the CT scan machine. Hubby and I explained to him what they were going to do, that there was going to be a needle, and that the machine would take pictures of his insides. And we asked him if he wanted to do this. To our utter SHOCK, he said “Sure!”

Okay, at Florida Hospital South, we were taken back pretty quickly, and the waiting game started again. We had to wait for the machine to be clear, and they put numbing cream on J”s arm so that they could get the IV set without hurting him.  Half an hour of numbing cream, and the line went in without a hitch — he didn’t even NOTICE, once we made him stop looking at her. The nurses brought him a race-car to play with, and were VERY amused when he asked (very politely) if they could take him into the CT machine on the gurney. Gurney races!

Okay, into the machine, and they said he did better than any of the patients they’d seen today. I mean, I was stunned, and I know this kid! He held perfectly still, held his breath when they told him to, and did everything right the first time. (Okay, the second time. We forgot that he had metal grommets in his shorts…)

The nurses wheeled him back to the little room on his gurney, and the presents appeared! (I swear, these nurses loved him!) A cute little teddy bear, a plastic egg full of playdough, and he got to keep the racecar. I had a happy kid… until they took the IV out, and took the bandage off. The entire day, that was what upset him, because the razza-frazzin’ nurse ripped the bandage off instead of using the alcohol to ease it off the way we asked her to do it.

The day started at 7:30. We finally got cleared to leave the hospital and go home after 3. (which is when J. finally had his first meal of the day.)

The final diagnosis? Give the kid more fiber.

And that’s why there was no writing done today.

Tomorrow, I’m picking up some prune juice…

Posted by EASchechter in a-writers-life-is-never-dull, children, 0 comments

>Writing with children -or- Why Mommy's daily wordcount is so low.

>I don’t write fast. Quite frankly, I wish I did. I’m in awe of some of the writers whose blogs I read, especially one in particular who has turned out two novel drafts in the time it’s taken me to write a third of Sable Locks. But there’s a reason I don’t write fast.

He’s three and a half years old. He’ll start school in the fall, if we ever master this whole potty-training thing, but until then, my writing is in the hours after he goes to bed. Especially since he a) doesn’t nap anymore, b) can see my laptop even if its on the kitchen counter, and b) can sound out words. I’m not ready to have that discussion with him. Not at three. I’m already imagining the fun that we’re going to have on Parent-Teacher nights.

“Oh, Mrs. Schechter, so nice to meet you. Tell me, what is it that you do?”

“I’m a writer.”

You know what the next question will be: “What do you write?”

Now, I suppose I could give them the bullshit answer: “I write fictional accounts of the homoerotic interplay between sentient humanoids and their mechanical constructs.” Which sounds a heck of a lot more impressive than “I write steampunk erotica.” But with my luck, I might just get the rare teacher in our county who actually knows how to think and who understand words of more than one syllable.*

I also think I won’t get a lot of invites to speak on Career Day. This is, after all, the DEEP South.

So, most of my day is focused on my boy, which is as it should be.

And now you know why it takes so long to get a book out of me.

*I’m not knocking teachers. I was one myself once. A LONG time ago. So I know first hand that teachers of high caliber don’t tend to last long in the public school system. The pay isn’t good enough to keep them. And since the private schools around here are all religious, with very few, very EXPENSIVE exceptions, our boy is going to attend public school. With home-schooling around the edges to pick up the slack. I want my son to be able to count to more than first-and-ten.

Posted by EASchechter in children, writing, 0 comments