A huge thanks to Frauke at Croco Designs for updating all the backend stuff on both my websites and getting me back up and moving again.  I’d given up trying to blog on here since my formatting was extremely wonky, no matter what I tried.

But now…I’m back!

So before I need to run off to work and caffeinate the masses, let me catch everyone up on my writing life (in case you don’t follow me on Twitter and Facebook yet)

I just turned in Galley checks for Seducing the Succubus, which will release on October 5th and is currently available for pre order.  It’s the first in my Sisters of Darkness series with Berkley, and I promise I’ll get an excerpt up on my site very soon!

The Demon and the Succubus, Book 2 in the series is with my editor and I should be seeing edits on that very soon.  It isn’t set for release until April 2011, so we’ve still got some time.  But hopefully soon I’ll have a cover to post so everyone can see.

I’m currently writing Book 3, which is tentatively titled Taming the Succubus.  No release date set on that one yet or on Book 4, which as of yet has not even a working title, but does have a simple idea/plot from the proposal and synopsis!

Let’s see…other than that, there are a few projects with my agent that I’m waiting to hear back on, and Into a Dangerous Mind, Stone Maiden & Fire Maiden are currently being translated into Bahasa Indonesian.  So if you’ve been dying to see some kick ass gargoyles or a creepy psychic serial killer in Bahasa Indonesian – your lucky day is coming!  I’m just excited that these books will get some more play.  I really love those worlds and hope to some day have time/opportunity to finish the Maiden series.  Dara & Odeda want their stories told as well!

Also, I’m currently booking slots for a blog tour to celebrate the October 5th release of Seducing the Succubus, so if you have a blog and are looking to fill some slots, or if you’re a fan and have a blog you love that you’d like me to see if I can guest blog on – drop me a line!

Anyway, must go change into my superhero…er…Starbucks garb and head off to earn my health insurance

Hope everyone is having a terrific Sunday!

I’ve been working on Triangle of Seduction and trying to finish this puppy up and send it off to my editor because the next book I want to write is already niggling at my brain.

When I started ToS, I had all the motivations of the characters worked out in my head as well as some general things I wanted to happen over the course of the story.  After all, this is the last book in the trilogy and certain things have to be tied up, and of course, I need some hot scenes and some fun twists and turns!

No problem, right?

Wrong.

This heroine is giving me fits!

I seem to always struggle when writing a volatile heroine.  Not kick ass heroines – those come pretty easily to me.  But volatile ones who throw things, have explosive tempers and react–well, NOT how I normally react to things.   In fact, when I was writing Fire Maiden, I had a similar issue.  I can definitely step inside a heroine like that–I’ve known several people with that hair trigger volatility who throw things and blow up and rage at the world–but it isn’t a very comfortable skin for me to wear.

Funny isn’t it, that it’s more comfortable for me to write a psychic serial killer or a killer vamp than a volatile heroine?  (I’m sure psychoanalysts everywhere are rubbing their hands together with glee…lol)

But what would life be without challenges?

So, I’m going to take the advice I gave another writer just a week ago and put my big girl panties on and get comfortable inside this heroine’s head.

If you can’t get comfortable inside your character and BECOME your character, you just can’t write them believably.  Which gives me a hell of a lot of respect for Stephen King and Dean Koontz and all those guys who write those really creepy characters.  It makes my skin crawl to WATCH (see my previous blog on 1408) or READ those types of characters–ick, think about whoever came up with Hannibal Lechter!  I suppose it really does help you work out some violent tendencies on paper that you would most likely never live out in real life, but there are some characters that you come back out of feeling very unclean and icky.  Which in a strange way is good–because they will be a great villain, and readers will identify with that ick factor.

Anyway, back to ToS.  The motivation I set out for my stubborn character at the beginning just isn’t flying, so I’m going to have to step back and do some rethinking about how to motivate her.  Hmmm.  That means rewriting several scenes, possibly entire chapters I’ve already done, but it can’t be helped.  I’ve banged my head against this wall for long enough.

So, my writing goal for today is to rethink this woman and start sketching out some changes I need to make to her before I delve back in.

Has anyone else ever struggled with this problem?

Cassie/Tina