Signs of Spring & WIP's

Hello, my pretties.
Well, the first real signs of spring have shown up this week! In fact today was the first spotting of the red-winged blackbird--a sure sign of spring for us. A robin showed up earlier, but these birds don't really go south for the winter--although if I were a robin, this year, I would have headed for Mexico!

My husband has been putting birdseed out for the birds, and squirrels in our snow-packed drive. Currently, and since the rain last week, we've got an ice pond. He put out some salt where we park and walk around the truck, but the rest of the drive is icy. But I saw that the mountains of snow along side the road by us has been visibly reduced to at least half of what it had been. The sun is traveling back north, meaning the length of days are getting longer, and the sun's warmth--even when it's only 20 out--helps with the melt.

That's the news on our weather here.

On my WIP's. Well I have a couple. One is my large granny-square afghan, which is about 75% - 80% done (that is the squares that are done--sewing it all up is another project that will take time, of course) I think I began working on this larger project at the end of December, or around Christmas time.

My writing projects still consist of working on over-all edits of the 4th novel in the Sabrina Strong series, which goes slowly. I'm now not seeing this finished until March or April. I don't like rushing a book these days to get it published. I simply can't do that.

Work on my stand-alone book Dhampir Legacy is still being written. I'm working on the last portion of this book--the climax. I'm guestamating this as being finished (written) at some point in March. And then I let it sit and I'll be working on editing after I get Vampire Caprice done and published to Amazon. I hope to also put it up at Smashwords for those of you who do not have an e-reader. You can go and buy the PDF version of it there.

I've had a number of setbacks because of the weather, and related problems, things like having to fill the washing machine manually (because of the pipes being frozen) was not a joy, and it took about 3 hours to do a load of laundry! Thankfully, the pipes haven't burst, and we're back in business, as they are all thawed out.

Although I may not have had to do much work outside, like my husband, I still had to drive in horrible weather, and driving a 12 ton bus in the winter is stressful. My route is an hour long, and the time points are extremely tight, especially when a lot of people ride and I have to stop at a number of stops along my route. I rarely have enough time to eat or hit the bathroom--but I make time. I've dubbed this route my "diet" route. I usually come home exhausted, and an exhausted mind is not easy to recover from. So, the signs of spring coming in is a wonderful thing to see.

And this year I'm calling my 60th  Jubilee (sounds better than birthday to me). When I come up with a few ideas of how to celebrate it, I'll let you know. I'll try and have some giveaways. More on that later on.

Hope you're having some signs of spring where ever you are today! I know I'm looking forward to not seeing snow out my window for a long, long while. But this will not happen any time soon.

My Writing Goals for 2014

Hello, my pretties!
I'm writing this for a blog hop I'm on. It runs from, well, today until March 24, over on this blog.

Today is my writing goals for this year.

If truth be told, it's actually thin. I'm hoping to publish only two books this year, since last year I had to go and re-publish my first Sabrina Strong books, and go Indie. Not that I didn't welcome that, but it really pushed me to get this done. I had to go through each book, corrections on the last book were--ehem--numerous...but we won't go there today.

Two books I'm currently working on are Dhampire Legacy,which if you've been coming to my blog(s) regularly, you'll have seen what I've been doing. It's not exactly an urban fantasy, as my Sabrina Strong series is. I like to call it a cross-over mystery-suspense paranormal with horror thrown in for good measure. Why can't we just call it a vampire novel and get over it. It isn't your typical vampire novel of today. It reminiscent of vampire novels of the 1980's where the vampire was evil and the good guys are trying to stamp them out and having a hell of a time doing it. I'm working in the scenes I thought I didn't need of showing the vampires themselves, but as I got into the climax (where I am in my writing of this), I'm seeing the need for these scenes.

And the other project, which I hope to get done sometime early spring, is the fourth book in the Sabrina Strong Series, Vampire Caprice. 

Cover forFourth book in
Sabrina Strong Series 2014

I've currently been working on Dhampire Legacy, while allowing my beta readers to swarm over the fourth Sabrina book. Once that's done, I'll have to go through that mss, do corrections, go through it again to make sure everything's right, and then publish it.

My other writing projects are to keep up with my other blogs. I've started a poetry blog, as well, but I post there only on a monthly basis, or until people take interest.

New Design & WIP

Hello, my pretties! How is the new year treating you? Good, I hope.

Well, I've been working steadily in my WIP. I've just put 78K words under my belt on Dhampire Legacy. Working right along, and happy in my work. I'll give you a bit of a tease here, in a bit.

How do you like the new header? Nice? I made this myself. I think it will work for me until I get a few more books under my belt.

Here I'd like to introduce you to Phil Green and Dr. Herb Ruben. They're just a couple of your average vampire hunters trying to find the vampire lair. This is from a later chapter, but I thought it was atmospheric. This is in a first draft, so there might be a few miss-spellings and such.

“You sure you know what you're doing?” Herb asked over Phil's shoulder. On his knees, Phil wiggled the pick in the lock.

“It's a little rusty,” Phil said, concentrating.

“How do we know this is the right mausoleum?” Herb asked, gazing out across the cemetery.

“Because, Mrs. Crunch said it was northwest from the mansion. This is the only one in this area that it could be.” Phil switched to a different picking device and shoved it into the lock, and jiggled it around.

“You'd have been better off using a hacksaw,” Herb groused.

“If you'd just quiet down, I might be able to do this!” Phil said through gritted teeth. “Besides, we don't want anyone to know that we've been here.”

“No. I suppose not. They'll just figure out someone's picked the lock when they come to see grandma and grandpa Miller,” Herb said, squinting up at the name chiseled above the door. The door had an iron gate over it. A padlock held it closed to those who might try and get inside to desecrate.

The lock clicked and opened in Phil's large hand. “Got it!” He eased the padlock off the gate and opened the gates and examined the door that closed the mausoleum off from the elements.

He grasped an old latch, it opened under his hand. “We're in.” Herb followed him into a five by twelve space. The walls were lined with vaults. Most were occupied. This he had expected. They looked around.

“What now, Sherlock?” Herb asked.

“I don't know.”

“You mean she didn't tell you how to get into the tunnel?”

“No. I don't think she knew how. She only said that this was one way into the tunnel.”

“Oh, I don't believe this!” Herb said, hand going up and flopping to his side making a soft sound. “You got me all the way here and you have no idea what you're looking for?”

“No.” Phil looked around, noticed a large marble urn with handles and stepped up to it. He eyed it, walked around it and grasped it by the rim and handle. “Won't budge.”

“You mean you think there's some secret way to get inside?” Herb laughed. “You mean like on some silly show where they find a secret leaver, or something you turn?”

“Yeah.” Phil looked at the piece of heavy pottery and now placed his hands on the handles he pushed with one hand and pulled with another. It turned with a slight grinding sound. “Oh, I think—” He grunted and tried to move it further. Herb watched him, dubious.

“C'mon. Help me! You push I'll pull.”

“Alright, just let me put my cane down.” Herb put his cane up against the wall and came back. He pressed on one large handle and pushed, putting his weight into it, while Phil pulled on the other one. The large marble piece turned again a quarter turn.

“That's it! Do it again!” Phil encouraged. They pushed and pulled at the urn's handles until they'd turned it to a half way point. Something behind them made a grinding sound.

They stopped and turned to one of the bronze tomb coverings to find it had moved out five inches or so.

Both men breathing hard, they turned. Herb grabbed his cane and leaned on it, watching his larger friend move for the tomb three tombs up.

“How did you figure out that it would turn?” Herb panted, and daubing his sweaty face with a handkerchief.

“I watched a lot of Wild, Wild West shows. There was one where they went into a mausoleum and a blind girl turned something to open up a secret compartment.”

Herb shook his head, chuckling. “Which proves once again that fact is stranger than fiction.”

“Strange or not. I can't figure out what this is supposed to do,” Phil said, looking all around it, top, bottom, sides. He ran his forefinger over his thick mustache.

“Does it turn?” Herb asked, moving up to inspect it. The tomb was level with Phil's head, but the top went six inches above. He reached up, hands flat to the sides, he curled his fingers around an edge

“No. It's just a box, or tomb. I don't know what the hell it's for.”

Herb chuckled. “Well, you opened it.”

“Yeah, but why? What's it for? It has to be for something.”

“Is there a body in there?”

“I hope not,” Phil said and went up on tip toes. Unable to see inside, he reached around. It was empty, like a box. “Wait a minute.” His hand came in contact with something metallic, a leaver of some sort. He grasped it, pushed and pulled until it moved, suddenly. Quickly he pulled his hand out and stepped back, cautioning Herb to do the same. The stone-on-stone grinding came from the wall.

“This is exciting!” Phil said. “Almost like opening up King Tut's Tomb, or something.”

“Or Aunt Gabrielle's eternal resting place,” Herb said, watching the whole section of wall move slowly out like a thick door.

“Now that's innovative!” Phil said, peering through the darkness of the opening. “Hey, there's some steps!”

“Wonderful,” Herb said. “I'll stay right here, if you don't mind?”

“No, no. That's alright. Let me get my flashlight.” Phil took the small flashlight out of his vest under his coat. “You stay right here, I'm just going to see how far down it goes.”

“I'll be right here, twiddling my thumbs,” Herb said.

“Okay,” Phil said, moving to the entrance and pausing at the top of the old stairs. He turned on his flashlight, aimed the bright light down into the dark mouth of the entrance. Cobwebs hung thick in spots. Dust and dead bugs littered the stone steps. The reek of death rose to meet his nose. “Ish, something died here recently.”

“Mice, probably,” Herb suggested.

“Okay, “I'm going down. You stay there. If I yell for help call 911.”

“Right.”

Phil descended into the darkness, slowly taking each step as though it might go out from beneath him. The walls of stone became brick the further he went down. Finally he reached the bottom.

“Okay, I'm down on level ground, here.” He shown his light around. The tunnel led off, and he would have to bend down to walk through. “It's a really cramped space. But it does lead somewhere.”

“Are you going to investigate it?” Herb asked. “Because it's almost four o'clock and that sun's going to set soon.” There was some argument as to when a vampire is awake. Some said the vampire was asleep like the dead during the day. Other said that the older the vampire, the less sleep he needed, and was able to walk about even during the day time, as long as he was in darkness, protected from the sun.

“Okay, I've got a watch,” he called up. “I'm going to go a little ways in, then I'll come back.”

“If you find King Tut, you know you've gone too far,” Herb joked, looking down into the dark hole. He watched the light Phil held shift back and forth, and then its brightness faded until it disappeared. He turned toward the entrance, noting the shadows were advancing. “Oh, hell. This is not the time to be checking out a vampire's hiding place,” he said to himself, but held back calling to Phil. He'd given him a warning. His heart pounded in his chest. My blood pressure must be up... “I need this like I need a hole in the head,” he muttered to himself. I'm supposed to be retired, and here I am poking into a tomb where a vampire might be hiding. I'm gonna pay for this. I just know it.

Herb glanced at his watch, looked outside through the open door of the mausoleum. “Christ, come on, Phil.” Five minutes, then six ticked by. He checked and noticed it had been seven minutes since Phil said he'd come right back. Herb moved toward the shadowed doorway that led outside. Fresh air filtered in, and he hadn't noticed until pulling it in how dank the place was. It had been closed up, possibly the oxygen levels had been low.

Herb frowned, pulling in fresh air. “Holy cow.” The thought jolted him into action. He hobbled toward the tunnel's entrance and yelled, “PHIL! PHIL! CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

Nothing. Not a sound filtered up to him. “Oh, crap.” Urgency caused him to make his way down five steps, grimacing when pain shot up his spine from his bad hip. He stopped and leaned on the wall with cane in hand until the pain subsided. “PHIL! ANSWER ME!”

“Here I am,” Phil's voice filtered up.

“Well, it's about damned time!” Herb groused, watching Phil take the steps two at a time like a teenager. There was a time when he had been able to dart up stairs like that too. Not any more. He could barely go down them.

“What are you doing down here?” Phil said, stopping to regard him.

“Never mind, just get me back up, will ya?”

Phil took one arm, and helped Herb back up, mindful of his painful hip.

“The sun's going down, and your horsing around in a vampire's lair,” Herb admonished, moving to distance himself from the entrance.

“I just wanted to check this out,” Phil said. “Wait outside, if you want. I've gotta close this up.”

Herb made his way back outside the mausoleum while Phil closed the entrances up. He joined Herb outside and locked the padlock again.

“No way I can make it back through that field,” Herb said.

“I think I can sneak my Jeep over here. You think you can make it to the edge of the cemetery at least?”

“Find me a spot to rest for five minutes, and I'll try,” Herb said.

Phil glanced around and found a fairly flat-topped stone, which had moved and now leaned slightly. “Over here. Come on,” Phil said, moving for the headstone. Herb gingerly walked toward the stone, and settled himself down.

“Go on, get the Jeep. By the time you make it over I'll probably feel better.”

“Okay. Just stay right here,” Phil looked around, and saw that the light was fading from the day. He jogged away, toward the grassy field. It took him half the time they took to walk it. He brought the Jeep down a farmer's drive off the road, and drove straight up to where the cemetery was. While he did another ambulance went by, coming from the mansion. He hoped that the person inside would be okay. He wondered if the police had any idea of what they were up against.
Probably not.

A New Year!

Isn't it nice to pretend we can flip over to a new untarnished sheet and start all over?

Yes, maybe that's what we should do. We've learned some lessons in the past year (we hope), and are moving on to better things--if not bigger. Let's try not to overtax ourselves.

Since my year was so full of both disappointment and overwhelming projects, I'm looking forward to a new year where I hope I'm not having to go back three steps and try to correct a lot of errors, and then do the job that someone else screwed up. Trying to get out all three books that my publisher dropped was a job, but I did it! Plus put out the one I had been planning on as well.

Having gone Indie over the summer was freeing, but also putting a great deal of pressure on me, because now I have to promote. This isn't always easy. Especially if you are busy doing other things, including working outside the home in a job you don't really relish--sound familiar? A number of you out there do the same thing. We're all in this boat together. And take care of a home and family, as well.

My hope is to merely get two books out in 2014. Period! I'll be working on other projects as these things get done. I'll continue my Sabrina Strong series--since I've got the 4th one Vampire Caprice, coming out in 2014, and have #5-#7 written, and need to work on those in order.

So, as things settle down with the confetti, and I get over the hang-over (just kidding!), my work will continue on these projects. I think the key word for next year will be MODERATION!

What are your plans for 2014?

Flying Fingers

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The clock on the mantle announced the hour of one a.m. with a delicate bong.

Seated on one of the more comfortable silk-covered Regency couches, Phil gazed down the hallway. How many times had he and his friend, Herb Rubin, encountered the undead's evil? Too many to recall. Nearly ten years worth, he guessed off the top of his head. During that time they had kept close vigil on odd occurrences of cluster disappearances, monitored anemic victims in hospitals, learned of strange stories of corpses vanishing from morgues and mortuaries, and of the freakish phenomenons of instantaneous combustion mostly by newspaper accounts and through their covert investigations, which usually turned up vampiric attacks on a whole community. Some of these attacks had been on acquaintances, and they could operate with the victim's blessings. Others, and there had been many, were on people who didn't even know them, and yet they had been successful in snuffing out the lair--either quietly, or in a big way--and had to flee the area in order to keep themselves out of jail and continue to do their important work to fight this evil. They hoped to, someday (along with others doing the same work all over the world), eradicate this terrible plague from the world, once and for all. 
~from Vampire Legacy 2005, by Lorelei Bell

Hello, my pretties. The above is a sample paragraph from the older mss., which I'm working from. I've renamed it Dhampire Legacy. As I go through I am editing out things/characters/scenes, and deciding where, if at all, any portion of a chapter (or all), I can use in the new version, and where it will go. The "edited out" pile is pretty large. The "entered" pile is large, but then, I had two or three drafts to look through and choose what I wanted to use.

I've run across a number of files where I've written notes for it. This thing took on gigantic proportions at one time. I've mentioned to you that at one point it was over 800 pages, and I honed it down to 400 in a month's time. I can see now, as I go through and discard certain chapters, where this thing got out of hand. The need to "kill" my darlings has become like a slaughter, in this case.

Nevertheless, I have just reached over 60k words--yesterday it came to 62,350 words and 191 pages. I'm nearly at the 200th page and I'm working to get my mss to the climax point of the book. It's easier if you have a diagram of a plot and know how to implement it. (If you need one, just ask. I have something I can send you via email.) It was something I discovered through the various places I go to learn how to write and plot.

As you may have guessed this is a slightly different sort of vampire book, it is more on the order of a police procedural, mystery, and supernatural suspense sort of novel. It is pretty much the opposite of what my other books are like, and borrows from novels such as those written in the 1980's, before vampires became sexy and got into the bedroom and became objects of women's sexual fantasies. I used to read novels such as 'Salems' Lot by Stephen King, They Thirst by Robert R. McCammon, and various others which had vampires seeking human doctors to either explain their condition, asks for help or tell the true story of their existence (before Anne Rice), like Vampyr by Jan Jennings, and By Blood Alone by Bernhardt J. Hurwood, and there was The Dracula Tape by Fred Saberhagen, among the few I'd read. Some I wasn't too impressed with, but these weren't too bad. They Thirst being among the better of these for suspense and action where the vampire was strictly evil and blood thirsty--which as it should be! I'd have to re-read 'Salem's Lot, however, as I keep getting it confused with the ridiculous movie rendition. They simply could not keep from messing with, and changing (screwing up), King's books on the screen.

With this post, we are looking on a brand new year and I hope to get two brand new books out in 2014. The first one will be #4 of the Sabrina Strong series, and I'm working on the edits while beta readers are still working along, chapter by chapter. And I am definitely slating Dhampire Legacy for a 2014 release! Hopefully with nothing else on my slate, I should be able to get these two books out next year.

Until next time, my pretties!

A Bit of This 'n' That

Merry Christmas to all my pretties!

 I wanted to give you some up-dates what's been happening with me, and my husband and my writing.
This has been a heck of a year! I went Indie, as you may know. That was a busy summer! I got all three of my Sabrina Strong books out as an Indie with the help of my friend/formatter, John Gill (Carole's husband). He was also instrumental in helping me get "The Cat Whisperer" formatted for both Amazon and Smashwords, as well as helping me with the cover.

I finished my husband's afghan. I never realized it, but I've never made him his own before. I've made others just to go over couches, but this one is his.

As you know we had to give up the kittens so that they would go to a good home. This is a picture of Peewee, the smallest kitten in the 5 that were born under the porch steps in the fall. She was so small, she snuggled in between her two bigger brothers, and hid. I was the first one to see her, small as a mouse, but there. I had been very worried about her. Well, here she is. A healthy little kitty, now 2 and a half pounds of spunk! I'm so happy my sister has her, she's delighted I must say, and I'm very happy that this little bundle has given her such pleasure.

This is Peewee ("Sadie") the smallest kitten
in the group of 5 kittens we had to raise and then
give to shelter, but my sister has this one!

I've been told the gray kitten went to her sister-in-law, and that was good news. I hope to hear what happened to the others. But I'm sure they'll all get great homes.

While I sit and look out the window at the melting snow, we are under a winter storm warning for tonight, and so I'm getting this post up just in case I can't do this tomorrow. Christmas has snuck up on me! I didn't have much time to get cards out and forgot to get more stamps, so I just didn't do it.

I am still working on getting the fourth Sabrina Strong book done, with the help of friend and author, Shelly Arkon.

I am currently working on another WIP. As a matter of fact I've almost got 50k words done with it. If I had pushed it, I would have gotten that much done within the 30 days usually set aside for NANOWRIMO. I'm about 4 days over it, but that's okay, as this is a new achievement. And it's nowhere finished at all. Anyway, in case you aren't familiar with what I'm working on, this is something I had written many years ago, and I've decided to dust it off and breath new life into it. I've renamed it "Dhampire Legacy". I've got plans for the cover and two co-workers have agreed to give me a hand in making the cover. I'm not going to reveal any more about that right now, but I will when things begin to move along toward making it and then I'll have a big reveal. But that's a long way away. Next year at some point.

This year I have done what I said I'd do: enjoy life. I did not push myself too much. I went for walks, I crocheted in the afternoons, and read something after dinner before going to bed. And the naps in the afternoon have been wonderful!

I wish all of my readers a very Merry Christmas and we'll see you in the new year! I'll be lurking around my other blogs and usual places in the next few days as well!