Writing update

I’ve found that there are some readers who are a little confused about my book and series status and what I have ongoing right now.

Allow me to help!!

2011 marks the end of both my Nightshade and Living in Eden paranormal romance series at 2 and 3 books respectively. That’s okay. Short and sweet, right? I’m proud of both of these series, I enjoyed writing the books, and have been very grateful for the warm reception both have received from the readers who discovered them. I do think that Living in Eden is definitely done at the end of book 3, That Old Black Magic (out December 6th!), but I am open to returning to my Nightshade world someday if I ever have the opportunity.

2012 marks an exciting new start for three series… my current writing schedule will allow for new releases in each series every 8-9 months. I’m soooo excited about each one of these, I can’t even tell you….

NIGHTWATCHERS — New young adult urban fantasy series with Harlequin Teen.
Book #1 — DARK KISS — June 2012
In a nutshell, this is about a girl who gets a kiss from her ultimate crush but it’s, as the title suggests, a rather Dark Kiss. She then gets swept up into an world of angels and demons in a city at siege with an unseen evil that threatens everyone who lives there. It’s fun, it’s romantic, it’s thrilling. Currently, I’m contracted for two books in this series. The second book will be called WICKED KISS and it’ll be out in early 2013. I have seen an early cover for Dark Kiss and, I gotta say, it’s FREAKING GORGEOUS. Can’t wait to share the final version.

IMMORTALITY BITES MYSTERIES — New paranormal mystery series with NAL Obsidian; a fresh continuation of my original Immortality Bites books. Think: “season two.”
Book #1 — BLOOD BATH & BEYOND — August 2012
Sarah Dearly just wouldn’t stay quiet after I gave her a happily ever after in Tall, Dark & Fangsome. Nearly three years later (in real life anyway, in “book life” it’s only about three months), she’ll be back in her first cozy mystery — with the same feel, same humor, same voice as the original books. Sarah has her man, and he has a new and dangerous job as traveling consultant with the Ring, the vampire council. She tags along. Chaos ensues. I think it will be very fun to explore the ongoing relationship of a funny optimistic fledgling vampire who trusts too easily and a pessimistic and secretive master vampire who rarely trusts anyone. I think I could very happily write about Sarah’s future adventures for the rest of my life. But for now, I’m contracted for two books in this new series and I hope readers connect to it in a big way!

FALLING KINGDOMS — New YA high fantasy series with Razorbill
Book #1 — REBEL SPRING — Date TBA
I’m dipping my toes in a different genre — high fantasy — and I couldn’t be happier for the opportunity! Since this is a different feel from my paranormal fare, I will be writing it under the pen name Morgan Rhodes. Two books are contracted in this fun and exciting series so far. Woo hoo!

Oh, and I certainly can’t forget……..

DEMON PRINCESS — the self-pubbed finale(s) to my YA paranormal series.
Book #3 — REIGN FALL — January 2012
I like closure. I just couldn’t let Reign Fall be the last Demon Princess book. After all, I already KNEW what was going to happen next. So I wrote it. I couldn’t finish up everything in book three, so book four is…um…coming. Eventually. I swear!!! I’m not TOTALLY sure when I’ll have time to write the last book, but I can promise you that it WILL be written. Ideally, I’d like to have the last book out in late 2012. I’m going to try my very best!! Promise!

And that, my friends, is pretty much it. I’m very lucky to call writing my full time job and I’m grateful to my awesome readers and my fabulous editors for giving me the chance to keep doing this. Life is good!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some writing to do….

Words, glorious words

This post might only be of interest to aspiring authors, but I wanted to do it. It’s always been an obsession of mine when it comes to writing.

Yes, the eternally exciting subject of WORD COUNT.

How much is enough? How much is too much? Amazon used to have a “search inside the book” option that let you know how many words were in a book. I found this endlessly fascinating. Obviously, I don’t have many hobbies. Alas, Amazon doesn’t do this anymore.

It made me realize that one book by a rather famous writer was only approx. 45,000 words long, but since it was set with larger type and spaced out leading (the term for the space between lines), it came out to around 300 pages.

I was going to buy the mass market paperback of Pillars of the Earth, but the type was so, so tiny I couldn’t do it without jeopardizing my already tired eyes if I read it (I ended up getting it on Kindle, a format in which typesetting doesn’t play much of a part…and my eyes are grateful for it).

It all depends on the publisher’s graphics and typesetting department. They need to fit a book on an alotted number of pages. More pages = more printing costs, so I can understand trying to shrink things — but hopefully not jeopardizing readability.

I tend to stay well under 100K for my single titles. I write fairly sparse — not a lot of space given to long descriptions. Since, well, I’m not a fan of writing them. I like writing dialogue, which tends to be a bit snappier in word count and pacing.

I received my ARCs (Advance Reading Copies) of BLOODLUST, which clocks in at 282 pages. I had to go back and double check my word count to see that it was virtually the same as NIGHTSHADE, which clocked in at 325 pages. I guess readers might think it’s a shorter book (if they give this sort of thing any thought), but it ain’t! It’s just typeset that way. And it looks fab — all lean and fit, like a Victoria’s Secret model — if I do say so myself.

(Note: I’ll be doing a blog giveaway for a couple ARCs really soon.)

I always spend way too much time in a first draft worrying that my book is going to be long enough. But it always comes in right where it should, usually between 80-90K. I don’t think I’d want to write much longer than that.

Anyway, thought I’d share my final word count and final printed book page count of some of my books, just for reference sake.

BLOODLUST — 84,800 words, 282 pages

NIGHTSHADE — 86,400 words, 325 pages

BITTEN & SMITTEN — 92,900, 369 pages (If I wrote this now, I’d probably trim 5K from it — at the time I thought a book HAD to be 100K and I felt bad that this wasn’t)

TALL, DARK & FANGSOME — 83,200 words, 334 pages

THE DEMON IN ME — 95,200 words, 323 pages (wow! I had no idea this one was so long!)

SOMETHING WICKED — 94,800, 348 pages (this one too! But more pages than TDiM, so you see what I mean about typesetting!)

DEMON PRINCESS: REIGN OR SHINE — 65,200, 274 pages

Young adult novels traditionally were shorter than single title books, but that’s changed a lot since Twilight and its ilk. For example, the YA I’m writing right now, DARK KISS, will likely clock in at about 80K — it just gives a bit more room to stretch my legs. But I just don’t see myself writing the 150K tomes I’m seeing out there. I don’t think I have that much to say!

I was actually a little surprised by the word counts above — especially those of the Living in Eden series. I don’t actually count words when I’m doing a first draft. I count pages. I aim for about 320-350 manuscript pages. If I can get anywhere near that, then I’m satisfied. I write in Microsoft Word, using double-spaced Times New Roman, 1″ margins at top and bottom, 1.25″ left and right. Here’s an example of how a finished manuscript page looks (and yes, it’s a very small sneak peek of BB&B, which is the next book I’ll be focusing on after I finish the YA):

So, basically, if you’re worried about how long your book needs to be…don’t. Just write the story, don’t try to pad in extra words or paragraphs just to plump things up, and trust the process to turn out a book the length it was meant to be. Just keep in mind, for single titles, try to aim for over 80K and you’re golden!