Yes, dancing Hobbes means the project is done!
Enemy Embrace is part of the Crave the Night anthology and is slated to be released in October 2011. I’d tell you more about the story, except I’m brain dead right now. More later.
Posts Tagged ‘EnemyEmbrace’
Done
Thursday, September 1st, 2011
Oh, Yeah–Nocturnal
Tuesday, July 12th, 2011Over the Fourth of July weekend when I was trying to get pages and pages done on the Work In Progress (WIP), I had a memory jolt. I opened my file every day and while I got a little bit written, I certainly wasn’t meeting my own expectations. But as the evening got later, the word count increased. Greatly.
I didn’t think much of it the first night, but when it happened on Sunday, too. I stopped and wondered. And then a memory came slamming into me. This had happened before. When I was writing Conor and Mika–both half demons–I could only make good progress when it got dark.
It took a while, but I finally figured out that it’s because demons are nocturnal.
I’m working on another demon couple now–or at least one full demon hero and one half demon heroine. It was a light bulb moment. No, I shouldn’t have been so slow to figure it out, but in my defense, my other demons didn’t insist on nighttime writing. Some characters are just more cooperative and pleasant to work with than others.
Thanks, Andras and Bree (Demon Kissed)! Not so thrilled with you, Nicole and Dak (Enemy Embrace).
Insurrection!
Tuesday, June 28th, 2011My heroine and I spent the past weekend arguing. About a major plot element that sets up the entire romance.
Keep in mind that she originally voiced no opposition as I formed the general plot for this story. I thought that meant it was all good. As it turned out, it wasn’t.
I’ve mentioned before that my characters refuse to do what I want them to do if it’s something they don’t agree with. I sit and spin my wheels until I go back and change what they don’t like. This time, I didn’t even write the part of the scene yet that she was objecting to. This was a pre-objection. 
Actually, I’m okay with her objecting before I reach that part of the scene. It saves me from writing stuff I won’t be able to use and keeps me from coming to a complete stop as I try to figure out what’s wrong. It just would have been nice if she’d said something earlier.
I guess the fact that we spent an entire day arguing is my fault. I should have just agreed to change what she didn’t like. It wasn’t as if I had a choice, but this was a major structural piece of the story and I didn’t want to give it up.
As it turned out, though, it wasn’t too difficult to fix the issue. This surprised me. I expected to spend a lot of time struggling with this, but when I went to bed Saturday night, the answer popped into my head.
Sometimes there are epiphanies.
Story Time
Thursday, June 16th, 2011I posted the cover for Crave the Night on Tuesday and this got me thinking about sharing my characters from Enemy Embrace with y’all.
The heroine is Nicole Ruiz. She’s a psi tracker–an elite vampire hunter–and she’s got a personal crusade. She wants to find the vampire who killed her family when she was ten and avenge their deaths. The vampire in question was out of Los Angeles for a long time, but he’s come back at last.
Her hero is Daktan, he’s a demon and an executioner (like Andras from Demon Kissed). Dak’s been assigned by his king (no less) to take out the same vampire Nicole wants dead. It’s a favor the demon king is granting to the vampire clan lord in LA. If you read Blood Feud, you know that the demons and vampires are trying to forge an alliance and this is viewed as one of the bridges. Plus, it doesn’t hurt to have a vampire clan lord owe a favor or two, right?
The vampire they both want dead is a rogue. In this world, any vampire who is not affiliated with a clan lord is considered a rogue, but the title itself doesn’t connote they’re evil. Of course, this particular vampire is, but well, you know.
The clan lords are the original vampires, the origin vampires, and one of them was killed during the war with the demons. All his blood line became “rogue” instantly, but many chose to form affiliations with other clans. There are a large number, though, who didn’t. They remain untethered to a clan lord, but there are power plays and issues going on that I hope to address in future stories.
This turned out to be a very complex world, and with stories all being short in length, it means I can only focus on small segments at a time. It’s actually kind of an interesting way to reveal society and the issues going on. Blood Feud introduced the demon/vampire divide and that they’re trying to form an alliance. Demon Kissed focused on the demon world and the fact that there are human demon slayers out there. Shadow’s Caress introduced human vampire hunters and psi trackers. In this case, I use “introduce” to mean when I reveal its existence to the readers. There is a whole bunch more yet to come.
Enemy Embrace will reveal a little bit more of the world. Because Nicole is a psi tracker, I’ll show a little more of that. I’m also bringing in another group of humans that have a stake in the magical world beyond demons, vampires, rogues, hunters, and slayers. They won’t have a direct role in the story–there isn’t space for them–but the wizards are coming. I have a story with a wizard human on the back burner, but he won’t be in EE.
