Progress Friday: A New Contract!

Hey peeps!

Can you believe it's already Friday??? And lol, I spent this morning online...but ended up getting nothing done. How is that possible? True though that there is always something shiny on the Net, and it's so easy to get waylaid. That's why I prefer to have the wifi off when I'm writing or have work to do. Less temptation towards time perdition.

Progress Friday Update! 3 new contracts & a brand-new-looking site!

Hey peeps!

Seen anything different here? No...? (what do you mean, No???) LOL.

Forgive me, but I'm absolutely giddy right now. Spent most of the morning tweaking with codes and all that lovely hoop-la to make an airhead and/or non-nerd cross-eyed, and this is the result. A blog that doubles up as a website and steers clear of the previous clutter I had displaying on all my pages. Found some nifty tips and tutorials on the Net (what can you not find on the Net???) and here's the result. Your thoughts?

Anyhow, it's been a really, really long time since I posted a Friday update. To tell you the truth, the reason is because... I didn't have any update to post. With the hyenas at home, it took nearly all my brainpower to work on the rewrites and edits/polish on my Island Girls series before I managed to sub somewhat on deadline. Then the real holiday season started, with hubby staying home half the time, and there went any hope of getting anything done. Not that I still possessed the brain cells necessary to write by then. To laze out seemed like the best choice while I let my synapses re-wire themselves.

Have they re-wired? I'm not too sure... because, you see, I'm opening WIP documents and staring at blank half-pages this past week. With kiddo back in school, I expected to ramp up and rev up all guns a'blazing to write, but it sorta looks like I've been away from my WIPs for too long and need to re-acquaint myself with them again.

Consequently, no writing progress so far...

But I have other things to talk about (and here you thought I was about to shut up. No such luck, sorry! *grin*)

Well, guess what? Those 3 Island Girls books I rewrote all through November and half of December... have been contracted at Decadent Publishing, for the African Ubuntu line! Seems like the editors loved the stories, and little me couldn't be any prouder.

You see, these are the stories that originally called me to writing. Book 1 in this series, The Other Side, was my first ever foray into the world of writing. It was pubbed by a local publisher here in Mauritius, did pretty well, too, but when the rights reverted to me, I took them. Why? Because I had grown a huge lot in the 7 years since I'd penned this book, and this progress showed in my writing (and was sorely lacking in that original version!).

The story of a divorcee of Indian origin, a girl born in London to Mauritian parents, it spoke of how she met up with her first love when she comes back to the island. The one that got away; a man she gave up on, because he is of a different race. On this backdrop of Mauritian society, I had their love bloom.

Though I'd set out to write only this book at the time I started penning stories, I met the heroine's (Lara is her name) 2 younger sisters. Housewife Neha, and spirited Diya. And of course, both suddenly had a story to share...

Diya had her story briefly published with a now-disbanded epublisher, but Neha never got the chance to tell the world her story.
Enter Decadent and their Ubuntu line... and these books seemed 'perfect' for the requirements. What did I have to lose, right?
Turns out... nothing! I only gained, and now have 3 more babies ready to come out into the world this year.

And speaking of my babies, one of them received its fantabulous cover over the past few weeks. Check out the gorgeous cover Scott Carpenter created for my first Western Escape book, Transient Hearts. The models are totally Shayne and Grayson, while the landscape portrays, to a T, a pivotal scene's location in the book.

So now we head into the weekend and I need to wrap my head again around the idea of writing. Of getting into my WIPs, more precisely. My bestie, Natalie G. Owens, is expecting me to write my part of a chapter in our collaborative Eternelles series, on Book 1, Inescapable, before she can work her magic on the ms. Then I have a brand new series I am starting (of course, you know me by now - I can never write just one book from a new concept/location!).

Hope ye all enjoy a fabulous weekend with your loved ones!

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

Progress Friday & Where I stopped by this week!

Hello beautiful people!
TGIF, innit? For once, I'm glad it's Friday (coz I usually dread having the hyenas at home on weekends!) because guess what? I finally got back to work this week. Yep, good, forthright, actual writing!
The madness of promo and guest posts and everyone falling sick with a cold (including me!) finally died down and I've been able to sit down with Transient Hearts for the past 2 days and make some progress on the word count. 4, 393 words in 2 mornings - not too shabby, innit? Quite stoked with myself!

It finally feels like I'm back in the driving seat of my life and my writing, not having some weird pumped-on-speed automatic pilot steering me this way and that and not bothering if I crash into the curb or slam into walls (kinda like those Advanced races on Need For Speed where you can't control anything and you end up crashing more than actually doing a race...?)

So hopefully I get to finish this WIP next week, when I plan to sit down every single day to write (hope I'm not jinxing myself here!). Still on track with the deadline for submitting this one, so all's well. Not perfect, mind you, but hey, I know it could be worse, so... beggars are not choosers, are they?
Looking forward to a not-too-crazy weekend now - and the new plan is to focus on doing the week's promo posts and interviews on Saturdays and send them off to their respective blog owners.

Speaking of weekly stops, check out where I've been this week!

Author Tory Michaels asked me over... and requested a character interview with Ash and Rayne from Before The Morning!
So I put these two in the hot seat - come see their answers to my rather-nosy questions!
A tidbit:

'... A few words with Ash Gilfoy – a London-based paramedic, and the hero of this book.

How do you feel regarding this interview?

So-so. Not too enthusiastic. (Grimaces) Okay, can we get this out of the way already? You asked me to the bloody Ritz, lady, and everyone knows I hate having to wear a tie!

*chuckles* It’ll soon be over, once I get the answers I’m looking for...

(watches the dapper-looking, Josh Holloway lookalike squirm in his seat, and loosen his silk tie and undo the collar button. What a fine specimen of male perfection... Anyhow, he’s not mine, so... *sigh*) ...'

Read the rest...

 

And author DB Moon (who I found out is a fellow shoeholic!!) invited me over to her blog for an in-depth interview! Come check it out.

A snippet:

'... If someone wrote a biography of your life, what would the title be?

How to be a headless chicken and still get everything done! ...'

The rest of the interview here...


Last but not least, the amazing Felicity Lennie, whom I met and befriended on Twitter, asked if I'd agree to become a Castaway on the Castataway Island of Books blog, and if I'd nominate a book for the island's bookshelves. Come see my turn on the Castaway Island!!

Little bit:

'... If you could choose any author to be your 'muse' or companion who would it be and why?

My bestie, author Natalie G. Owens. She’s my soul sister and my best friend, as well as my writing/brainstorming partner. We get on like a house on fire, and I’m sure we’d never run out of topics to talk about. J ...'

My Castaway Author Index card answers here!


Hope you all have a lovely weekend, peeps!

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

Progress Friday + a few lines from the WIP

Hey peeps

Not much progress to show this week, but I gotta say, at least there is some progress. I always end up forgetting how chaotic my house gets when I have the hyenas underfoot. And I think the whole madness grows more hectic at each and every holiday, the older they get. You’d think your kids growing would imply a little more peace of mind for you, but no, that’s not the case (of course, you no longer get ‘accidents’ at night, and they can bathe/feed/clothe themselves without your assistance. But otherwise, yes – your job keeps on growing.)

And what would be the progress report of this week without a mention of the absolutely nightmarish soap opera we’ve been reluctant actors in, along with (what is now) our former ISP (yes, finally!). I mentioned a few weeks ago on this same spot how awful my Internet connection has been lately. I ended up on first-name/good-friends basis with most of the helpdesk staff there, so much I was calling to log in complaint after complaint. I think the company’s technicians visited my house more than my own parents have in the past few months! Things took a turn for the worse Sunday evening, and we’ve been having a working connection for – brace yourself for this one! – 13 seconds. Yes, you heard me! We have connection for 13 seconds, then it goes AWOL, by which time it takes the modem 3-4 minutes to reset and look for a new connection... and it’s connected... for 13 seconds again, before it loses signal... Damn, that is just no way to live! And not to mention that the TV channels that come in the deal play for 13 seconds, image freezes, blank screen while the connection box resets, then you get another 13 seconds of film (after losing 4-5 minutes of the action!). How on earth can anyone not go nuts with such a service! Enough of it – push came to shove and we did shove it, all right. We cancelled the connection on Wednesday (and suddenly the company was speechless that we cancelled and weren’t even moving to a different connection package with them! Ha – take that!) and we tried another ISP, that we’d used in the past. This one too turned to be an issue, because... we couldn’t pick up enough signal off our modem where we live (which, incidentally, is smack-dab in the middle of the third biggest city on the island!). 7 minutes to get Hotmail to open, when we even managed to get a connection. Nuh-uh! No can do (can you see the stress mounting here?).
Finally, we were forced to go to another ISP – yesterday morning. This one is more expensive and is a limited connection, but at least it does provide service where we are, and the connection is reliable. About a whole day lost yesterday to that, and today I had to go out to go cancel the other connection that we tried. What a week! I don’t wish that kind of hassle on my worst enemy!

Is it a wonder then when I tell you the only day I managed to write and get some work done was Monday, before the sh*t hit the fan? Moved up some 3,500 words on Transient Hearts, which puts me just beyond half-way on this WIP.

I know I always say that I plan the week to come to be one where I’ll write, but with my new limited connection now, I won’t have any reason to be online unless I really, really, have to. Which implies time not online = time to park my arse in chair and write! Transient Hearts should see ‘The End’ written on its Word doc before May 5.

Who's gonna keep me to my deadline, and crack the wet noodle? :)

Leaving you now with a few lines that I’ve written this week. The heat is ramping up between Shania and Grayson, and in this scene here, she is ‘feeding’ him something called pani puri, which is a small, fried hollow puff of dough that you dunk in hot spicy water before eating. You can see the pic right here

'...

Before she could realize what she’d done, Shania brought the pani puri in her hand up to his mouth.

In a flash, his eyes darkened, and he wrapped a hand around her wrist. Slowly, he pulled her hand closer, and he opened his lips, took the pastry from her fingers and into his mouth. His soft lips grazed the tips of her fingers, and he didn’t let her pull back while he savored his puri, and swallowed.

“Delicious,” he said softly.

Shania sucked in a breath. His eyes were hooded, jaw tense, and that small smile hovered on his lips.

“You like?” She sounded breathless, her voice so low it could’ve been another woman who spoke.

“I like a lot,” he replied just as low.

He still held her wrist, and without releasing her, he stood.

With a single tug, he could pull her to him. Right then, there was nothing more she wanted than to be flush against him, to have his wide, warm body on hers.

Pull me to you. Dare she ask it aloud though? She could be brazen, yes, but this soon, and with a man she barely knew? She debated the question endlessly in her mind, those split-seconds looking like they lasted for an eternity, until he broke the quiet.

“Come with me.”

...'

Weekend now to be spent on edits for Before The Morning, Book 2 of the Corpus Brides series, that’s to come out with Noble Publishing on May 7. Wish me sanity!

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

Progress Friday + an excerpt from the WIP

Hey peeps!

It's been another of those weeks, where I again, didn't make my target word count *sigh*. Blast - it seems all I ever do on Fridays is admit defeat, and I'm tired of that. When ever will things calm down a little and allow me some sane moments so I can get on with my stuff? This week's paltry productivity is thanks to a massive migraine of the female-only kind, and then my super-crappy ISP f*cking up my connection again. Tell me how productive you'd feel when every morning - when you've been assured that everything's okay and in working order! - it takes you 3-4 attempts while refreshing every page to even log into your email inbox. If by some miracle, the connection didn't time out and you do manage to open a message, you type your reply, and *gasp*, didn't look at the lights on the modem when you reflexively clicked 'Send'... and find that a) the page has frozen, b) the connection is NOT THERE right then (no lights, not even a blinking one, on the bloody modem!), and c) of course since the connection was down when you typed your message, it never got saved to Draft, so you've just lost all you typed when you have to refresh the page WHEN the connection comes back, and start afresh again.

Lost 2 hours this morning while trying to send out 3 important emails. 3 emails, people! Ain't that enough to drive anyone bat-shit crazy, when just yesterday afternoon, the customer service were calling to tell you everything was sorted out??? ARGHH!!!

My plan was down some painkillers this morning for the migraine and thus enable myself to write for an uninterrupted 3-4 hours, and thus catch up on some of the word count lag. Not to mention that today, the hyenas go on 2-weeks' Easter break - I won't have much free time for most of April what with them being at home with me. But of course, the #$%#@& ISP had to come mess it all up. Sorry for going off my trolley so much, but when you realize that I've been dealing with such crap for the past 5 months... Yes, I know I'm the fool for not taking my customership elsewhere. The problem? In Mauritius, there is really no elsewhere to go, unless you can afford to pay 3-4 times what you're paying to get the only other faster/unlimited Internet access.

But I did clock some 4K-something on Transient Hearts this week. Not all's been lost, but still... ARGH!!

Here's a snippet that I wrote this week - I edited the scene so you can get the bigger picture. More and more, it appears a secondary character is going to get her own story, so this aspect was kinda the foreshadowing of her plot when her time will come.

If only the damn thing [sleep] came when it was needed. She’d rarely needed more than five hours of sleep, and here, she got her rest by napping in the late afternoon when her biological clock told her it was nighttime in London. Which left her wide awake in the heart of the night, hearing every creak and groan of the big wood house. If she was a scaredy-cat, she’d say the house was haunted. Something – what her Indian aunts would call nazarr, the evil eye – seemed to hover inside the dwelling. She shivered. Her aunts would tell her to wear a black kohl dot on the outer corner of her eyes to ward off the threat, but she’d never believed such superstitions.

....

Shania got up and ditched the tattered old T-shirt she wore to bed and changed into jeans and a light cashmere jumper. Might as well head to the kitchen after was done with the call - she had a feeling chopping vegetables would be very therapeutic for the frustration any conversation with her mother would bring on.

The house was still and quiet when she stepped into the corridor. Shania couldn't help the shiver that coursed down her back. Something weird, and not right, shrouded this whole place, and right then, she was attuned all too well to the hovering cloak, one that wrapped itself around her and made her look over her shoulder as she walked down the hallway. The feeling settled around her, and suddenly, her heart no longer hammered. A soft, soothing breeze blew gently in her hair, lifting the locks from the nape of her neck, and then drifted away. Heavy stillness fell on the surroundings when the breeze left.

What on earth was that about?

Shania gasped. She should be scared shitless right then - her mind agreed with that conclusion, but something inside her heart made her certain she had nothing to fear.

    Strange - she should ask Aurelia if the house was haunted.



Here's to wishing you all have a fantastic weekend, peeps! I know I'll be looking toward more migraine-pain and a hell of a hissy fit tomorrow when I confront that shoddy company for the crappy service they're making people pay for!

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

Progress Friday + this week's excerpt from the WIP!

Hey peeps!

We've been having an absolutely awful week of rain and super-humidity - let me tell you, that kind of weather makes your muse and/or inspiration take a huge beating.

But I braved through, people! I sat down and wrote, and moved my word count by 4,908 words these past 2 days!

March went by me in a huge blur, and I have no clue what I've gotten done (except, if that makes sense, I know what I've not gotten done!). Should've been finished with the first draft of Transient Hearts this week, but I'm still way behind the half-way mark on this story. It doesn't help that I've had other stuff beating down my door (yes, freelance work. It pays some of my stuff, all right, but it's not something that easy-breezy. By the time I'm done with work, I barely have enough time or energy to dedicate to writing).

Speaking of, check out this amazing article a friend of mine sent me the other day - my life is about counting spoons too, though I do happen to have way more in my hands than someone suffering from something as restricting as Lupus. Do read this one.

So I knew it all came down to prioritizing, and as from Wednesday when I finished with the last of March's contracted work, my priorities moved to the WIP, and I've stuck to that. With 2.5 hours writing both yesterday and today, I managed to clock down nearly 5K (and I need to mention, it's 5K that actually makes sense! LOL).

Planning, hoping, that next week, I'll be able to dedicate at least 2.5 hours every day to the story, which should see me moving forward by some 12-13K, and well beyond the halfway mark.

I had a good idea it was the amount of contracted work on my shoulders that was blocking me from work - both literally and figuratively, because I no longer had any juice in the brain to come up with scenes, and so glad I'm over this at the moment.

Okay, and today I decided that, instead of rambling aaaaall the way about my writing and word count and all, I'll actually start posting a snippet of what I got written during the week.

So here's a little bit from Transient Hearts; from our hero's POV. This born-cowboy but turned-New Yorker is back home on his ranch, and has dug a hole for himself: he now has to go ride with the ranch hands, because that's the excuse he gave to escape his cousin's clutches when she wanted to rope him into another bickering argument between herself and the heroine. :)

'...

Should he be ecstatic that, at thirty-two, he could still get into the jeans he’d worn at seventeen? Years of hard partying with tequila, vodka, and beer, and he didn’t have any more of a belly than when he’d been a kid. An achievement? Probably not, given how he’d failed at everything else where his aunt and Aurelia were concerned...

Not for here and now, he told himself as he closed his eyes, and pressed his forehead to the mirror on the front panel of his closet. He’d have to take all this one moment at a time. Like getting used to those jeans again. He opened his eyes, turned around, then took a step, and another.

At first, after he’d taken a deep breath and pulled the pants on, the denim had chafed at his skin, sending an itch like the patrol of a hundred red ants down his limbs. He’d stopped counting how many times he’d had to fiddle with the back of the pants, in moves that weren’t far from Rafael Nadal’s signature shorts-in-butt-crack adjusting. But the more steps he took, the more the fabric smoothed over his skin and merged with his movements in a flow that came naturally, like instinct. He’d worn jeans in New York, but here, in cowboy country, wearing denim was a different, almost life-altering, experience.

It’s in your blood. The thought, once again, came through in his father’s voice. ...'

Hope you all have a lovely weekend, peeps!

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

Progress Friday - & the battle of the heroes!

Hey beautiful people!

Progress Friday post, but unfortunately, I don’t have any ms/WIP progress to report this week. I have been working on other stuff, mostly work-related, preferring to give my attention to some things and get them done with, instead of multitasking and getting nothing done. But next week, I should be free of other constraints, and the focus will be on the WIP (which is on deadline, btw... I need to remind myself of that...)

Anyhow, what am I posting about today then? There’s something going over the Net these days, called the Lucky 7 Meme. I’ve been tagged by a few people - *mad wave* at Christine Warner, JM Blackman, Lorraine Paton, Siobhan Muir, SK Whiteside, Sandra Bunino for tagging me in this one.

So the point of the Lucky 7 Meme is that you have to go to your WIP, head to page 77, paragraph 7 on the page, and then you post the next 7 lines.

I’m doing mine from Against The Odds, one of my WIPs currently on the backburner. The premise is this one – the hero, Magnus Trammell, is one of the most famous playboys of Europe. Summoned by his illustrious family to get back on the straight and narrow, he reluctantly heads to work at one of the Trammel haute jewellery stores. This is where he meets shrewish, sharp-tongued, and opinionated salesgirl Megha Saran. Sparks fly, but Megha has bigger fish to fry – she’s just been diagnosed with breast cancer.

This excerpt here is taken from the scene where Magnus comes to the hospital to see Megha right after her mastectomy (surgical excision of a/both breasts).

The nurse nodded. "Some people don't deal too well with anaesthesia. It's good she has you here with her."
He didn't reply, instead looking over at Megha.
"Visiting hours will be over soon. Do you want to stay?"
He turned to the nurse. "I thought only family members could stay over."
She frowned. "Oh, you're not..."
Her boyfriend. He shook his head. "I'm just a friend."
And maybe – just maybe – he wanted to be more...
What on earth was happening to him?

Now yesterday, fellow author & good friend of mine, Rebecca Royce, tagged me in the other version of the Lucky 7 Meme that is making its rounds on Facebook.

This one is for shorter works, and can be taken from a WIP, completed work, or even a published work from this year. Same principle, except that you head to Page 7, then paragraph 7, and post the next 7 lines.

Taken this time from my current WIP, Transient Hearts, which a contemporary Western romance set in Wyoming. The heroine, Shania Morea, is an Indo-Briton chef who’s been lured to Wyoming by a good friend under erroneous pretences, and who finds herself between a rock and a hard place as she’s already committed herself to teach the locals how to cook Indian sweets. Things move from bad to dire when the owner of the ranch on which she’s staying returns. Grayson Warner, a Forex broker in New York, is the prodigal son, who wants to be anywhere but in Wyoming. But life’s left him no other choice, and to move forward, he must face his past, and his demons.

This scene is taken from Shania’s first glance at Grayson (and if we’re friends on Facebook, you would’ve seen me post this earlier today).


The back of her neck prickled again, but this time with something else – physical awareness. She squinted in his direction, careful to conceal that she was overtly assessing him.

Tailored suit that hugged a lean yet broad physique; Italian loafers on medium-sized feet; big hands with well-cared-for nails; pale gold skin peeking above the collar of his crisp light-blue shirt; a chiseled jaw; thin-lipped mouth stretched in a smile as he gazed at Aurelia; a nose that was neither too sharp nor too soft; a shock of unruly dark hair, with wavy locks that broke from the swept-back style to brush his wide forehead; and in between his nose and forehead, the most beautiful eyes Shania had ever seen on a man. They slanted upwards at the outer corners, giving him an exotic look that hinted at Asian blood, and the irises were dark – brown or black, she wondered? – framed by thick lashes and topped by heavy, dark eyebrows.

Shania gulped. Character radiated off his face, and when she thought of his soft tone, she reckoned such a man wouldn’t need to raise his voice to be heard, or to make others listen.

So, battle of the WIP heroes! Who wins your vote?


Magnus of Against The Odds? (portrayed by the devastating Judas - actor Norman Reedus)

Or, Grayson from Transient Hearts? (portrayed by the sexy Ed Westwick aka Chuck Bass of Gossip Girl)

Chime in and let me know!

From Mauritius with love,
Zee

Progress Friday

Hey peeps!

TGIF? I'm ambivalent about this Friday. The week zipped by as if on fiber-optic cable transmission, and I saw the days pass me by without me able to park myself in my chair and get work done.

That being said, I did get some writing done. Transient Hearts jumped about 4K to clock in around 11K this week - all in all, not bad for 2 days' work this past week.

I'm back, somehow, on the routine that allows me to log off for a few hours in the morning and focus mainly on my writing, pushing my word count forward (a necessary evil when you're working on a deadline...). Seems like the routine is gelling once again, but I forgot that the time I devote to writing now used to be filled with social media/email attention. That's how I saw my inbox literally explode this week, and took today off to clear that pile up.

How do most writers write and be present on social media and attend to their communications and on top of it all, be wives and mums and daughters and friends?

Writer = Superbeing? I'm starting to wonder if that's the case. You need superhuman capacities to be present on all fronts and get all your jobs done. Unless you can have some minions... but most of us are not Queen Bees so tata, minion army...

Writer:- another definition for totally assumed multiple personality [dis]order?

What do you think?

Hope you all have a lovely weekend, peeps!

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

Progress Friday

Hey beautiful people!

Today's an absolutely fantastic & gorgeous day! The reason I'm in such high spirits - no, not TGIF, but here's what's happened:

A little while ago, Decadent Publishing sent out a call for submissions, urging in-house authors (and even authors not yet with them!) to consider writing some stories for some specific lines there. One of them is Western Escape - a multi-author, small-town community line of stories with a Western theme, set in fictional Freewill, Wyoming. Stories in this line can be set in contemporary Freewill, or in the historial, 1880s Freewill (and you can even time-travel between the eras! How cool is that?)

Anyhow, because this one uses a common setting and community, the editors require that any author considering writing for this line submit a proposal with blurb and detailed synopsis (GMC, plot, conflict, resolution) and if this gets approved, then the author starts writing the story, submits it, and the editors decide if they'll take it or not.

Now, ever since I saw this call for submissions go up (and, again, poked and prodded by some of the peeps over at Decadent!), I've been toying with the idea of a story set in Freewill. Indian-origin heroine who has ties to Mauritius; multicultural setup akin to my upcoming 1NS over there... On an insane impulse, I put a proposal together last weekend and sent it off...

And got the reply today - the editors want to see the finished ms. This in no way implies they'll take the story, but to me, it's one foot in the door anyhow, and I'm over the moon!

Those of you who have been following my career or who know me from my writing debut about 6 years ago know that my preferred theme/idea to write about is heroines who have the same cultural background as I do (and let's make a point here - culture and religion are not the same thing, in case anyone wants to point out and/or ask why I write about Indian culture when I'm a Muslim woman!).

Shania, the heroine in this story, is British with parents who hail from Mauritius. Grayson, the hero, is from Freewill, though he moved to Boston and then New York.
When the story starts, both find themselves in Freewill, and... *wicked grin* I'll make you wait a little before I unveil what happens then (though of course we all know these two will fall in love - it is a romance, after all!)

The title for this one is Transient Hearts. Look to the meter on the right to catch my progress on the WIP every week during March now.

Other good note of the week - I've been poked and prodded (yes, here too!) to showcase the cover art work I've been doing so far. So check the aka Cover Designer page on the blog - it features a slideshow of the covers I've done. I'll be adding to it as I go along.

So that's how I go into the weekend - on a high, and on the need to work out the story's plot in minute detail so I can outline the story to give me a working flow draft.

What have you got planned for the weekend? Good things, I hope :)

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

Progress Friday

Hey peeps

Apologies for not posting yesterday - my Internet went off in the afternoon, came back for 2 minutes, then went berserk again for another 5 minutes, to settle down for 1.5 minutes, then go all crazy again! I actually gave up, and did nothing except some reading and writing offline (in a way, had I not been forced offline, would I even have tackled those jobs...? Biiiig questions...).

Anyhow, I was at the bank this morning and having to fill in the deposit slip, whereby I have to put in today's date... Was flabbergasted to realize we're already into the second half of February!!! I have absolutely no clue where this year is going. One minute it was 2011 and I blinked *poof* we're in the middle of February!

And all I seem to be doing is asking myself tons of questions. What's next? What to do? Where to focus more? How to organize it all? Who/what deserves most of my time and dedication right now? All of these have been roiling inside my head, and I gotta admit, when you're thinking every step through to the nth degree and second-guessing all your moves before you even lift a foot forward, you're not exactly in a creative mood where the words just flow off your keyboard and onto the screen.

Still, being forced to 'work' yesterday when the connection went off, I have made some teeny progress. The counter for Against The Odds moves by a little under 500 words (pathetic, I know. But it's 478 words more than 0, know what I mean? I'll bask in that!). Plus I've dusted off an old short story and I think this one might just be getting a new lease of life with one of my publishers. Not to mention a special call for submissions story I'm putting together as a proposal this weekend, and which will go to the concerned parties next week...

All in all, there is progress, but I wish it were more concrete, as in, more words to show what I've done. When all your work's in your head, you're hard pressed to show your labour, innit?

Looking forward to a productive weekend catching up on email and promo stuff, all while I work on the above-mentioned proposal, the short, and a special project I'm getting to make with a friend (this one's hush-hush for now, but I'll let you know the minute I can *grin*)

Have a lovely weekend, peeps!

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

Progress Friday

Hey peeps

Where did this week go???? I seriously have no clue! One minute I was looking at the calendar and it was Monday; suddenly it's Friday? Already? You gotta be kidding me!

And fortunately for me, I am in a position today, despite the super-fast, extra-speedy week, to say that I've gotten some work done writing-wise.

Remember I was telling you (last week I think, it was?) that I was revamping an old ms in the hopes of possibly shopping it around later? Well, I've taken a long, good look at said ms... and come to the conclusion that it's going to take a lot of work. A full rewrite-from-scratch even, because the way it's written atm, it's 'me' but it's a sort of BMI-of-15-super-anorexic-borderline-corpse 'me' with regards to how much my writing has grown since I wrote that one. Full rewrite of a single-title novel = 2-3 months' work, at least, and that too when life isn't butting in (when ever does my life not butt into my writing?)

Also, considering I have 2 series out and there are more books planned for each... Can I really afford to give 2-3 months of vital/strategic writing time to a project that is more like a fun/hobby deal, when there are more 'important' stories to be written? Not exactly, right?

So today, with that knowledge and upon that decision, I went back to the current WIP. If you're in my social networks, you'll see I had my updates along the lines of "something old; something new; something true; and something blue" (we don 't have "something borrowed" in there because I'm talking about writing, and you don't "borrow" in writing - that's called plagiarism!).

Every word of that update pertain to me going back to Glory Days, the next book in the Destiny's Child series.
Old = tweaking the already written;
new = adding words;
true = the vision to myself and to my readers;
blue = the bittersweet undertone in this story, about former teenage lovers who have to reunite nineteen years later upon the revelation that they had a secret child who has today died and left them a baby to bring up together.

I started this story last year, around March, and the title came to me as the perfect definition of the time the hero, Stellan, and the heroine, Kelsey, spent together.
Imagine my surprise then when this year, I hear Adele's song, "Someone Like You", and those lyrics:

"...You know how the time flies,
 Only yesterday was the time of our lives,
 We were born and raised,
 In a summer haze,
 Bound by the surprise of our glory days ..."



Stellan and Kelsey meet over a fateful summer, both miles away from their homes, their romance and the surprise of their Glory Days cocooning them in a bubble... that bursts when Kelsey leaves one morning and no one knows where she went.

So I'm back on this WIP now. Should have a progress report for you next Friday (if I don't, please feel free to line up to take your turns with the wet noodle whip... *grin*)

And now I'm looking forward to the weekend with my mind working overtime on the story, while I wait for my quiet days to roll back next week and I get back to writing.

Have a lovely weekend, ye all!

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

Progress Friday

So it's finally Friday! Though I cannot say I'm looking forward to the weekend (home with the boys - no going away this time, sadly...), I also have to admit I am so, so glad Friday is here, to finally bring a close to this week.

How awful can it get to be away for 2-3 days, eh? That's what I asked myself too. Then I came back to my 'usual' workload on Tuesday... and it took me Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and half of Friday, to clear up the backlog that'd accumulated while I was away. Good grief, people - there's something seriously wrong with my life! With my workload... With my awful management skills too, I suppose.

This week's been an eye opener. If I want to get work done (was supposed to have started revamping an old ms, and been done with it, by now!), I need to handle my email better. Which means, more stops online every now and then, so nothing has the possibility to snowball over me and leave me looking at a gobsmacking-awful mess!

So, order for next week - get something, anything, done writing-wise!

And would you believe it? Next week, we'll be in February. So January's gone and what do I have to account for it? Got it - a big old rollicking nothing! Do I dare say I was easing into the year? Yeah, I can kid myself. I seriously need to get back in the saddle and work!

Speaking of work, my bestie, Natalie Owens (you formerly knew her as Angela Guillaume - I didn't swing loyalties all of a sudden *grin*), and I have an ongoing writing project, and we've committed to writing a chapter a month on our respective stories, on top of our other works. So as from next month, look towards the progress metre for Against The Odds - the total should be growing steadily there. Not sure if Glory Days will see any significant progress, since I have 3 old mss to revamp, and I'm supposing that'll take me at least a month. But we'll see...

So, weekend... What are your plans? I have to catch up on some backlogged reading (Backlogged is my middle name lately!).

Right now, off to pack the hyenas to the gym - they're in the kitchen doing their hysterical laughs and wolfing down a bowl of dry cereal (yes, that's what I feed them as post-school afternoon snack!).

Have a lovely weekend, peeps!

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

Progress Friday

Hey peeps!

First week of being back on the 'job', so to speak... and not much to show for progress, sadly. Still in limbo over getting back into a productive work routine, and with that hacking cough shaking me every other minute, not exactly in the right frame of mind to concentrate. The plan was to be working already on Glory Days (Book #2 in the Destiny's Child lineup) but no such luck...

That being said, I did dust off an old project and sent it off to where it was supposed to be sent (my, aren't we intellectual today...). So at least there's that.

I guess life must be good on the whole, because I found myself humming this tune throughout the day. An upbeat song, and the lyrics are very much what we're having here - it's 72 degrees, zero chance of rain, it's been a perfect day...

Enjoy the song - I'll leave you with it!



And if we're friends on Facebook, drop by my page later today - the Hunk of the Week will be back, and I promise a treat *wink*

Hope you all have a lovely weekend, beautiful people!

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

Random Thoughts' Monday: It's A New Year!

Hello beautiful people!

Can you believe we've crossed into 2012 already? I still have a hard time with it - reminding myself to use 12 instead of 11 whenever I fill in the dates on official papers, such as bank slips. A new year tiding in is a time of change, innit?

Speaking of change, I cannot believe how much has happened to me in 2011. It's been a fast & furious year, totally fantabulous and with more highs than lows. I was sitting at my desk this morning and taking stock of the past year, and some of the things that have happened, well, I still can't wrap my head around them.

For instance, I am now a published author. Yes, I've had books out in the past, under my pen names. But it's not the same as looking at a book and seeing your real name on there; like having people saying they've read your books and recommending it to others; getting fan mail (totally giddy factor here!), people putting two & two together between the book and little ol' you ...

...and the sheer amount of amazing people I have met throughout the year! The clan at Noble Romance, and then the striking posse of Six Sentence Sunday! You guys totally, and I mean, totally, rock!

Good friends have become even better friends (my soul sisters Natalie G. Owens & Rae Lori showed me even more that I don't need to bemoan the fact that I don't have a biological sister - sisterhood happens across blood lines and geographical borders!);
some people I've met, I've felt like I've known them all my life after barely a few words/lines exchanged (Jessica E. Subject - I'm looking at you specifically here! Then there'd be Noble's JS Wayne, Ingrid Michaels, Lucy Felthouse & Elizabeth Morgan; Sue from Sassyspeaks, Layna Pimentel, Cate Peace on Twitter, among so many others, and I apologize for not citing your names here. You know who you are though, & I love ya all!).

So much has happened... and it all started on that day in December 2010 when I was dashing out to go to the beach and the bungalow my brother-in-law had rented for the holidays... and email-addict me just had to check her inbox before she went out. That's when I saw the request from an editor at Noble Romance Publishing, asking if the full of Walking The Edge was still available for their consideration.
Fast forward a few weeks in February, and *Gasp!*, they wanted the story! Acquisition, contract, meeting the fab folks at Noble (Owner & CEO Jill Noble, submissions editor Becky Dampier, my very own editor, the fantabulous Mary Harris who has become a dear friend on top of the one who pushes me to be better, brighter, & stronger, the awesome Fiona Jayde who does the most fantastic covers ever!).

Hint of a cloud health-wise though - and the scare that I would need more surgery to keep any possibility of cancer at bay again. Pulled from the irreversible point by my team of fabulous doctors (Dr. Mrs. Thacoor, a gifted ob/gyn who actually listens to her patients, & Dr. Mrs. Poorun, a fabulous, kind, & compassionate oncologist with whom there's never any b*llsh*t!) who have never let me down. They both did everything they could to find out how to make my life easier, and erase the spectre of cancer that hangs like Damocles' sword over my head. That's how, after consultation with specialists in South Africa and in Switzerland, they got me on a hormone-therapy regimen that's to stave off the prospect of recurrence.
Now the side effects are a total b*tch (menopause at 28? Seriously???), but hey, I'm alive, and I get to see a new dawn every morning; to see my kid grow up; to spend time with the wonderful man who decided, despite my basket-case neuroses, to make me his wife and stand by my side through thick, thin, and hormonal madness; to live one more moment and do what I want to do...
I started 2011 after another brush with breast cancer, and through daily trips to the hospital for radiation therapy treatments, a time during which I had an hour to kill every day in the waiting room, and my trusted qwerty phone came to the rescue... Add to it fatigue and the need to race through life at 150mph while your body can only go to 50 mph - well, that made for an interesting time :)

Then in the maelstrom of hot flashes, drenched-type night sweats punctuated by terrible bouts of insomnia, I was working on edits for Walking The Edge, which *gasp again*, morphed into a 3-book series. So much I learned through that edit, through this process of getting my book out by fantabulous professional people who were behind me 200%! Had to stop fiddling with certain writing projects and wrap myself around the concept of writing to a deadline, to finish specific WIPs before I jumped into new ones. All through that, the to-be-written list got bigger and bulkier as I wrote down all the ideas I could pursue but just not right now!

Did I add that I had my last university exam during that period? Menopause doesn't only make you got postal, it also scrambles your brain and plays with your memory. Now I understood why people say that it's better to learn when you're still young - age (whether real or brought on by, say, your medication regimen) really does play a part in how mentally fit you are to undertake certain tasks, like studying.

And then June was here - Walking The Edge (Corpus Brides: Book One) came out, and I haven't had a minute to look back. Amid subtle reminders that I better bust my a*se to get Book 2 written and sent ASAP, another world of possibility opened when I asked my editor if I could submit another story to Noble.

Remember the 1-hour to kill in the waiting room back in January, and the trusted qwerty phone? So it turns out that I did what I do best during that time - I wrote...

And the result was a 50K sweet romance story between a cold & uptight forensic pathologist whose world takes a spin when she lands custody of an 11-year-old girl, and who meets the handsome & sexy village doctor next-door... Yes, that was Calling Home (A Destiny's Child Book)! This one was snagged again by Noble, and came out in December!

1 year, 2 book contracts & 2 releases, and a 110K story completed (and currently on the editor's desk *gnawing cuticles here*). Not bad for someone who'd started the year with the goal to simply 'be out there' as she worked towards publication...

There have been some lows too, like the death of one of my uncles after his courageous battle with cancer. I didn't use to be close to him, but battling the same disease brought us together in a way someone who's never had cancer will not really understand... It was a blow to lose him, especially when he seemed to be doing so well with his treatments.

So all in all, it's been an eventful 2011 for me, and generally, a good year...

I plan to make 2012 even better - what about you? Starting with, giving back. I'm not rich, I haven't got awesome amazing fantablous resources, but what I can give back, I will.

In this light, I'm opening my blog to authors who want to come promote their books or themselves. I've already met with a wonderful response (check the box at the top left of this page - that's where you'll see who'll be visiting me throughout the month!).

The blog will be open on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, & Saturdays. Still have some slots open in January, so if you're interested, don't hesitate to get in touch. I want to help my fellow authors as many have been a tremendous help to me, so please help me out here :)

Here's to a magnificent 2012, peeps! I wish you all the best, nicest, brightest, and most beautiful for each and every day of this new year.

From Mauritius with love,

Z

Progress Friday

Hey peeps

It's been a quiet, pretty uneventful week over here. Took some time off to spend with the kids and also with my parents. They live less than 5 miles from my place, and I go there at least once weekly to drop the kiddo off and pick him up. But the last time I actually went to their house to spend a day/half-a-day, can't remember! Must've been back in August, during the winter school break. Just no time (I know I sound like an ungrateful kid!) to go there so often for the whole day. I do talk to my mum on the phone every morning, and every Sunday when I go pick up my son, I'll sit down for a cuppa with my parents and catch up a bit. But lunch and then the afternoon? Yikes. I've tried bringing my laptop with me, but it just breaks my heart to sit there and try to work when it's obvious Mum & Dad want to chat with me about everything and nothing. Plus there's no Internet there. :)

So twice this week, I went to my parents'. After the blow of my mum losing her brother on Sunday, I thought they could do with a little of our presence at their home, and I also didn't send the kid over to stay overnight.

Which left me with kids on hand 24/7 since last Friday, and that's kinda driven me nuts as well. Thank goodness for the Playstation, which is hooked in their bedroom at the back of the house, while my 'office' is at the front. I still hear them playing and bickering but at least now, the noise is not literally next to me.

Through it all, I got the gorgeous cover for Calling Home, which comes out in 1.5 weeks, on December 5! Check it out right here in the slideshow on the right. The uber-talented Fiona Jayde did a fabulous job on this cover. :)

I was waiting for this to hit my inbox to be able to start my promo. Also put the image to good use when I devised and made the book trailer over the past 2 days. The finished trailer is 'perking' now - I'll go back to it with fresh eyes in a couple of days, then if no changes are needed, will upload to YouTube and share with you guys. So excited, cannot wait to reveal it to you. Quite pleased with myself how it all turned out. :)

So now I'm looking forward to the weekend, and got 2 beta reads for my CPs on the agenda.

It's also getting hot as hell again over here, and I'm left with a splitting headache and drained of energy every single day. Did I say before that I wanted summer to come on? I take back my words, and bite my tongue too in the process. I want some cold now!

Don't forget - if we're friends on Facebook (and if we're not, yet, what are ye waiting for to send me a friend req???), drop by later today for the Tide-us-into-the-weekend hunk pic. I have a treat for sore eyes wrapped and ready to go *BIG grin*

And don't forget also to check Angela Guillaume's week wrap-up too. She'll definitely have a hunk or two up on that post.

Hope ye all have a lovely weekend! What will ye be up to?

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

Progress Friday--strikethat Saturday!

Hey beautiful people!

Sorry I didn't post yesterday. I sat down early in the morning to write the last chapter of Before The Morning. Got into the action, I blinked, it was time to pick up my son from my mum's... and I was 5-10 pages short of finishing the book. Which I did in the evening. 8,922 words added yesterday, and that means...

The WIP is finished! I wrote 'The End' on the ms yesterday night at 9.17 p.m. It totals at 108,400-something words, and is the longest book I've ever written. Lol, told you that one turned epic on me.

Now I need to take a break from the book for a few days/a week, so I can go back to it with fresh eyes and work in the suggestions of my crit partners. Then it's another round of beta reads, before this baby is sent off to my editor (who is waiting for it eagerly, it appears *grin*).

I'm over the moon right now. This book has been a labour of love all the way. From devising the characters, to tying the overall arc of the Corpus Brides series over all 3 books in this lineup, to the sheer amount of research it took to get this one as beefed up as possible. This is one story where almost every physical location I mention in the book actually exists - from the houses in Mayfair, Notting Hill, and Hastings; to the city centre of Prague; the Roman necropolis at Alyscamps in the south of France; the tunnel shaft of the Brunel Tunnel, found under the Thames and the first ever tunnel dug under a river - each and every one of these places exists and I did my best to get the location and details right. Not to mention the absolute fest of guns and other weapons my characters use - I got a crash course on semi-automatic pistols and sniper rifles, and can't wait to share that with my readers.

So please forgive my lateness with my progress report. I had set my goal to finish this book by yesterday, come what may, and I did it. I started this ms on July 27, and through 3 weeks-winter-break with the kids and them going back to school, and the start of the summer break - I worked for 3 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days on this one. Not bad for an epic-length story, especially when life and other books' edits flitted in too.

I sit back to enjoy a nice, restful weekend now. What are ye all up to? I admit my brain is a tad fried, but it's a good kind of fried, lol.

Wonder what my CP and the sister of my heart, Angela Guillaume, has been up to this week.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

Progress Friday

Hey peeps

It's been of those weeks of total extremes - where everything that could go right went perfect, and everything that could go wrong went, well, to hell in a handbasket.

All of which leaves me tired, weary, washed out... you name it. Not helped by the fact that summer break kicked in today and I'll have the kiddo on hand for the next 9 weeks. Yes, I am sooo looking forward to that, you bet!

Nevertheless, thank goodness the one thing that went right this week went totally right, and that it was the writing. Clocked down a grand total of 7,714 words on Before The Morning, taking me through the end of one chapter, start to finish on another, and setting up for the remaining leg of the book. I can so see this ending in another 2 chapters/10K words (which does, yes, mean that I'll have gone epic on this, but hey, the story's asking for it and the only time I felt so in tune with my characters was on another story that went epic too).

As for the bad that went ugly... well, tomorrow's another day, right? Gotta buck up and face it head on, though I've got as much energy as a washed out and wiped down dish rag right now. But, onwards and forwards, right? We're each one of us responsible for what we make of your future and how we handle our destiny in the palms of our hands.

That's what my bestie, author Angela Guillaume, would tell me. I hope she's had a better week than I've had, so why don't we check out her blog and find out?

Hope ye all have a lovely weekend, peeps! XOXO

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

Progress Friday

Hey peeps

Sorry for the late posting today! I was on a writing spree! My son was on school break this week and I arranged to have him spend 2 nights and 2 days at my mum's place (blessed be my mum!). So he stayed over yesterday night and was at my parents' place all day today. Which gave me time to write...

2 writing sprees this week! I clocked down 23 pages and 5,425 words today alone! The WIP count jumped from 63.7K to 79K today. Well past my expected 70K word goal... which means I'll have to move the target to at least around 100K on this story now. I'm nowhere near done with it, and I think I'll need to rename Before The Morning as The WIP That Didn't Want To End. :)

A little more than 15,000 words written over the past 7 days! Not bad, I say (and tout my own horn, lol!). Based on the new goal now, I'm 79% into the story. I don't know if it'll reach 100K, but anywhere it reaches till that number, I'll take. I'm already well past my expectations, I who thought I wouldn't be able to even write 70K on this story.

So the other good thing about this past week is that it has shown me a working/writing routine that I can put in practise when the 10-week summer break will roll around on November 4. Gonna have my son go to his grans twice a week for the night and the upcoming day, and I get to work non-stop when he isn't home from morning till afternoon without interruption.

It's been a good week, I have to say! Jumped with huge progress on the WIP, and I even managed to take a day 'off' yesterday and spend some time with my son. We played games on the Playstation and watched High School Musical again, like the good ol' days. :)

Looking forward to a nice weekend now. Will try to clock some words down but not gonna sweat it if I can't. Gonna take the boys out a little tomorrow, and on Sunday is the birthday lunch for my father-in-law's seventieth birthday.

Plan is to catch up on some writing and get some crits done too.

What are ye all up to this weekend?

My bestie, author Angela Guillaume, has had a busy week too - I hope you'll drop by her blog later and take a look at her round-up.

And, if we're friends on Facebook, drop by my profile later and check out the Tide-Us-Into-The-Weekend-Hunk pic. :)

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

Progress Friday

Hey peeps

It's already Friday afternoon! Where did this week go??? I've got only one hyena at home today, and he's been bribed into submission with the prospect of watching the DVD of his choice this afternoon (and knowing him, I'll bet it'll be Godzilla or some other icky stuff!). Not out of the woods, I assure you!

So, yeah, where did te past week go, people? I blinked and it was Monday (weekend over!) and next time I fluttered my eyelashes again, five days have gone. And thank goodness I don't need to say that I got nothing done. I'm chugging along with the first draft of Before The Morning, and despite a setback yesterday of my husband behaving like a typical bloke and getting on my nerves, I managed to clock down some work.

Total for this week = 7,803 words (not there yet, but not bad either. *other sigh*)
Which brings me at a WIP total word count of 63.7K, at 91% completion. But like I might've mentioned before, the story looks like it'll go beyond 70K in all.
I saw the remaining parts of the book unfold in my head like in a total brainwave over the past few days and I know I'm not close close to done yet with it. So hopefully next week I'll get to that and actually finish this thing.

Good thing I did plan for contingencies (and my editor is really patient and understanding!) - my plan was to have the ms finished, beta-ed, revised, and polished by mid-October. Still on target somewhat, but will need to crack the whip again next week.

In the meantime, there's a weekend to savour. I finally get a chance to sink my teeth into Only His, the latest from Susan Mallery's Fool's Gold series, and my idea of chocolate-bliss-in-book-form.

Not much else planned on my end - what are ye all up to?

And speaking of what we're up to, don't forget to check out what my bestie, author Angela Guillaume, has been doing this past week.

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

Progress Friday

Hey peeps!

It's Friday and everyone in my household is going TGIF! Except that the boys are so excited they're using the walls to bounce off as if the house was one of those inflatable jumping castles, and they just won't shut up! I left them in the kitchen, bribed with cookies and chocolate milk, because the only time they're not talking/jumping around is when they're eating. So I might have 10 minutes tops to get this post done and uploaded. *sigh*

So, progress... Where do we start? I wrote a chapter this week that just went on and on and didn't seem to want to stop. :) The word total for this past 5 days is just a little under 9K! Woot - finally getting closer to my ideal writing goal.

But now my brain is fried, and I have to regroup and recover to be able to write the next chapter, all while I have to set my mind to "perk" mode so I can figure out the next sequence of scenes and all that's supposed to take place now.

So the first draft of Before The Morning sits in at just under 56K this Friday, ending the week at 80% completion! WOOT! I'm getting there!

Life-wise, I celebrate some progress today! Remember a while back I was complaining about my medication making me put on weight (and so I had to exercise daily and go on a diet, etc). Well, a little more than one week into the new customised eating plan a nutritionist has devised for me, I've lost close to 3 pounds and have just another 4 or so to lose. Whoo-hoo - go me! Lol.

And speaking of progress, I wonder what my bestie, author Angela Guillaume, has been up to this week. Drive by her blog if you get a chance.

And too, if we're friends on Facebook, drop by my profile later today for the Friday Tide-us-into-the-weekend hottie pic. :)

What have you all got planned this weekend? I'll be sitting down with some good reads - Lori Foster's When You Dare (that I'm about halfway through) and Susan Mallery's Only His (that I've been dying to read ever since I finished Only Yours last month *grin*). Plus I also have a beta read for a CP.

Have a lovely weekend, wherever you are in the world!

From Mauritius with love,

Zee