Given the first week with our new illustrious (cough) leader in charge has been depressing as fucking hell, not much has gotten written other than a few lines for the flash fic I promised to Lex. Yeah I haven’t been able to write 500 words.

So why even update? Because I DID finish my whole novel revision of Blood Red Roulette! I’m very happy about that since I’m way ahead of my self imposed deadline. However, four things still need doing. I need to go over the first 10 chapters AGAIN (shoot me). I’ve decided to change one more thing which I think will help Arrigo look less like a selfish ass and a bit more intelligent so I have to go fix that. In the process I should double check Luc’s dialogue. He gets more Cajun as we go so I need to make that more consistent.

There are only three sex scenes in this, two short blow jobs (one very awkward one, done purposefully) and the one time they aren’t having a quickie. Problem: I hate that scene. It doesn’t work. It really doesn’t so I’m going to scrub it. I’m half tempted to not redo it but I think it needs to be there so back to the drawing board with that one.

And then I realize there is something missing. There is a scene in the 20-something chapter range where Arrigo goes to help Luc remove his stuff from his dad’s place which was a nice scene because we finally learn something about Luc’s mother and how much he loved her and the few things he kept that were important to him. That scene is now missing. I’ve been through every flash drive and as far back as last April that scene was gone. It doesn’t exist in the chapter break down files either. In fact in me sending my beta readers chapter by chapter files, I totally skipped over the 20s. I caught them up apparently with the full document instead of chapter files and I know this because I just spent a half hour scouring my sent folder for them.

I want to add that in but there’s a problem. What do I remove to do so? In removing Craig’s whole plot line, I only lost barely 2K. This thing is still about 113K. One of the original complaints was it was too long. I could remove Damien but I liked having him there because if nothing else it gave Taabu something to do and I’m NOT removing her. I wanted a few scenes to humanize her so people care when things go sideways.

I’m not sure what to do.

Once I get these things polished, I’m going to work on the finding new beta readers for it. I’m not looking forward to that. I better brace my ego.

We’ll keep it short as a) there’s not much in the way of actual news b) it’s been a depressing week with little reprieve on the horizon.

I did agree to do a flash fiction prompt thing for Lex Chase’s blog. I have the idea. I just need to sit my butt down and do it and for it NOT to get insanely long.

I find myself wondering if there are any Halloween anthologies out there. I’m in the mood to write something scary but I haven’t gone searching yet.

I’m up to chapter 28 on edits for Blood Red Roulettebut it’s hard going for a couple of reasons. I’m to the point where I’m going to remove an entire plot thread so I have to be very careful that I get it out. Also I noticed another thing I need to do to the beginning so that means rereading the first 10 chapters AGAIN. OMG I am never going to want to see this again by the time it’s accepted somewhere (or I self publish it). But if I do this thing, it will make Arrigo look less like a selfish dickhole so it needs doing.

It’s hard also because every time I fix something it adds word count, not removes it. Sigh. I’ve managed to get 1k out of it but it needs more to go. It doesn’t help that I keep seeing person after person posting about how no one wants fantasy/SF/paranormal romances because they’re not selling. Granted they would never reach the levels of contemporaries but I can’t believe they’re not selling judging by requests I’ve seen in writing challenges, the sheer amount of people in communities like Queer Sci-Fi and how many of the authors who love writing it. I mean, if you love writing it, it stands to reason you’re buying it. It’s the ONLY thing I buy. I’ll be pretty damn sad if I have to stop following some of my favorite authors because they’ve had to give up on genre fiction because they can’t make it otherwise. (I’ve tried to read some of their contemporary stuff and while well written did literally nothing for me).

So wish me luck on getting Blood Red edited and sent to betas. Wish me even more luck on getting this depression under control.