Archive for the ‘KATE’ Category

I sat down last night to fiddle with some notes for a menage I’m planning to write. I know I wanted a sci-fi treasure hunt theme. I had no idea the background of this story or really much about any of the characters, except the names I’d given them during a previous and very abreviated session. Now, let me pre-empt this tale by saying that I’m trying out a new writing program yWriter5. Last night was really the first time I’ve used it in great detail to actually write a scene. I think I like it. I feel very much like I’m doing free writing and not bogged down by what it looks like on the screen. I also have to be aware of my own spelling gaffs, since I haven’t downloaded the spellchecker on it yet.

But I digress.

Anyhoo, as I’m writing the “ideas” section,  just letting my mind unfold and doing some free writing in the program, I came upon this beautiful myth unfolding about this civilzation that may or may not share common ancestry with the ancient Egyptians. (I say this because the myth I came up with pretty much sounds like it could have come from the Nile region.) – Though, I doubt very much I’ll even mention Earth or the Egyptians in this story.  But the entire time I’m writing this background legend, I’m amazing myself with my storytelling abilities. I looked around the living room (I was on my netbook at the time) to see if any antennea or microwaves were feeding me information from some alternate universe. No. I was alone save my dog whose only mission in life at that moment was to lick her butt.

I knew then that this story is going to kick some major arse.

Then I started writing the first scene in a shady bar room in a shit side of the galaxy, and what comes out is kind of quirky and funny. I like what I have so far, but it’s not the sensuous read I thought it would be. At least not yet. But I like it. I like the way it flows and the outragous characters that inhabit this little corner of the story. And I especially like my smart ass heroine who has totally taken over the scene like she’s Buckaroo Banzi with tits.

So, even though this might not fit the publisher it was meant for originally. I think it will be a very good story when it’s completed. It might not even make it into a menage if the heroine doesn’t want it to. I think I’ll be taking cues from her on this one. She seems pretty competent and smart, and she’s hell with a cyber-blade.

-Kate

Yes, I know I’m promo-ing another book. This is special (not that all of my books aren’t special in my heart) but this is my first release of contemporary romantic suspense. Yay!

Here’s a tag from an early review -

“This story is action-packed, with unexpected twists at every turn. The imagery sparkles with originality” – Alicia Croft at Got Erotic Romance Reviews

Blurbage -

Ancient artifacts. A vengeful assassin. A beautiful woman. For Section agent, Lucius Capri it’s just another day on the job.     

Romy Douglass, the abandoned daughter of Florida millionaire, Miles Douglass, the jade and emerald idol is the last in a long line of similar gifts from her father. Dubbed by Romy as the Tin Gods, the statues are daily reminders of Miles’s failure as a father and her disappointment as a daughter—that is until the night they’re stolen and her house vandalized while she’s on a date with the sexiest man alive.   

Lucius Capri thought his assignment for the covert government agency titled, the Section, would be a quick snatch and grab to reclaim the priceless South American artifacts stolen by Miles Douglass. Who knew from his first contact with his mark, Romy, that nothing about the case or his feelings for her would be business as usual? With the statues missing and the infamous assassin, El Lobizon, on their trail, Lucius must decide which is more important, closing the biggest case of his career or allowing himself to fully trust the woman he’s come to love. 

 Until next time, Kate

Not to mention people with the inability to hear what the customer is saying. The empoyee (read: waste-of-space) can only read off a script that doesn’t vary, no matter your question, complaint or situation. Dave and I have been fighting with a major auto financing company for days and day because of something they did. They refuse to take responsibility and keep telling us that we are xx days late on our payments – yes, I said payments – because they sent a check back to us with a letter saying that we had the wrong payee on it. Now, let me back up a bit and say that Dave pays our bills online through our bank. Our bank then in turn issues a check. The check the assholes sent back, has their company name in big letters right next to “Pay to the Order of.”

Honestly, I don’t know if they were waiting for me to cover it in sparkles or send it with an accompanying brass band. So, now we call and ask what in the hell we’re supposed to do with the check, and why are they suddenly sending this back to us when they’ve cashed every other one we’ve been sending for over a year? The answer: “You are xx days late and it says here that the check was sent back to you for the wrong payee. ”

Smoke slowly begins to pour from my ears at this point. “Didn’t you hear me? I’m looking at the check right now, it’s in my hot little hand and it has your company’s name on it.”

Dead silence.

“Ma’am you’re xx days late on your payments.”

By this point I want not only claw her eyes out, but my own as well.

My hubby had just made another payment on line, this one a double. I told the braindead woman this and she said. “Ma’am you’re xx days late.”

“How can I be when my husband just made a payment. Here’s the confirmation number.”

For the next four days we contined to get calls saying we were behind. No one. And I mean no one is able to think outside their cubicle here.

I woke to Dave yelling at someone on the phone they were giving him the exact same run-around. Finally, he lost it so bad the dogs hid. He then asked to speak to a supervisor. Things are not quite resolved, but reasonably better now. However, my credit is fucked because of the company’s mistake. Not fair. At all.

Don’t even get me started with the incompetence at my mortgage company. The right hand doesn’t know the left one even exsists over there. We got notified by them that they paid our property taxes and they were raising our monthly payment to cover the escroe account they opened for us – without us asking – the reason – they said we hadn’t paid our property taxes, or our township hadn’t informed them of payment. Whatever. I have receipts that prove I paid. So what’s the problem? They are a bunch of freakin’ idiots. That’s what. It comes down to that alone.

So, today I called a mortgage broker who works with one of my best friends who owns her own realty company. He’s the man who wrote up our original mortgage and refianced us when we bought the house ten years ago. He’s going to see what he can do for us. Thank God!!! Now just cross your fingers and pray.

As for the car. The lease is up in December, so I’m going out on my next day off and looking at new ones. I’m going to talk to the credit union at work and see about getting another car and having the payments taken out of my paycheck. (They do payroll deduction where I work) No muss. No fuss. No drama.

That’s the plan. I am just sooooo over the fucking drama that isn’t even of our making.

Jesus wept.

So, let me hear about your brushes with incompetence. Please, let me know I’m not the only one being bombarded by stupidity.

-Kate

Alright, I’ll admit, I’m not infallible. I’m human. I make mistakes and I learn from them and move on. Therein lies the heart of this post. Consider it a cautionary tale for those of you who may think to do this in the future. Take some advice and don’t do it, no matter how much your mind and body screams for you to. No matter if your muse is standing over your shoulder with a rubber hose threatening you. Simply turn around and give them a hearty face shove.

So, here is what I did that I will never do again–at least to the degree I did it this time around.

Using place holders instead of writing the love/sex scenes.

See, it seemed a good idea at the time since I just wanted to finish the book with plot and characters so I could go back and reread and edit and get the book out the damn door. I thought, hell, I’ll just put holders in the love scenes (bright red ones with notes as to the intent of the scene character-wise) then I’d go back during editing and fill them in. Big mistake. Huge. I can’t even express the mental fatigue I have now after writing 7 love scenes in 5 days each one 1k-2k long. In a word, I’m spent. In order to keep things fresh I kept pushing my personal writing boundries. While that is not necessarily a bad thing while writing an erotic romance, it sure makes you sit and stare at the screen, scratching your chin and wondering what the hell you’re going to write next. Then there are the emotional issues during lovemaking. Now, I have done this before on a much smaller scale. One or two scenes only and not always sex related and I had no trouble going back in. Thus, I thought this instance would be fine. Man, was I mistaken. Hard.

I try to have some revelation of character during each love scene. I don’t want it just about tab B in slot A and choreography without meaning. I want the deep emotional responses for my characters as well as physcial fulfillment. Not always easy to accomplish, but better when you are writing linearly and not jumping around. Of course, I went back to a scene or two before the love scene so I knew what was going on and place the action in context, but still. Ugh. I’m one that has always prided herself on letting the sex play grow organically from the plot and characters. Gratuitious action generally turns me off. So, why do I feel, even though I had those place holders there where the sex should have been had I written linearly, that the scenes are in fact extraneous?  Maybe this is just a fear derived from working the way I did on this book. It’s not like me at all. And you  know what? I don’t think I liked it.

How many of you take things out of order and then have to go back and lace things in? Did it seem like a struggle or did you embrace it with open arms? Please let me know, I’m really interested in how it worked for you.

-Kate

Yep, you heard it here first. I can’t tell you how upset this makes me.

Now, I realize our state is in big trouble financially and Governor Christie needs to cut the fat somewhere in order to get us back in the black, but honestly, this is not the way to do it. Does the legistature not realize how many people use a library for services? Especially in times when it is so very tight financially every where else. It’s great to go to the library and pick up a movie or a book instead of spending the 40 bucks to go to the local theatre.

According to the article I read some of the libraries – a good portion  – throughout the state will close . Others services will be cut drastically. Things like inter-library loans, the Braille Center (are you kidding me! How can they cut that? – that’s my WTF moment for this week!), loss of eletronic databases and services. It’s unbelievable.

I’ll let you know more as information becomes available.  What are they? A bunch of book haters?

-Kate

Or at least reconnecting.

There are times when I’m so submerged in my writing that I don’t stick my head up long enough to take a look around me. That’s fine. I’m not saying it’s bad or I need to feel like I’m an awful person. It just means that I’m working really hard and trying to make some money in this gig we call writing.

However, I like to re-energize by picking up a book by my favorite author and just falling into the pages of their worlds for a while. And I miss them.

That’s right. I feel like I’ve had a long absence from my favs. It’s not that I don’t want to read, I just haven’t had the time. The worst part is that I have a lot of new authors (not new in the sense that they are newly published but in that I haven’t read them before) that I want to try, and just haven’t found the time.

I’m very careful when writing certain sub-genres that I don’t read anything in that particular area that might influence me. Sometimes I pick up books that aren’t even romance just to cleanse my brainpan and start fresh. It’s funny how when I do that, though, I always seem to pick up books that have strong romantic sub-plots – it’s almost like I can’t get away from it or something.

But I digress.

What I really love to do – and what I plan to indulge in today before the bad weather hits my area again – is to go to the library and puruse the shelves. So much fun. I could spend all afternoon in the library just looking at books and deciding which ones I’m going to check out and which I’ll leave for next time.

Sometimes I’m going through the shelves and I’ll find a new release from a favorite author that I didn’t know was coming. That’s soooo cool. Or I can find new favorites that I might not be sure about spending money on at this stage.

Anyhoo, I better get going. The library is set to open in about 30 minutes and I want to get there and back before the bulk of my day begins.

-Kate

Yes, I did.

I was on the elevator going home this morning after a semi-long shift and two people got on with me. Not on my floor, but as I’m in descent down the elevator shaft toward the D level.  On the 1st floor, a doctor got on and hits the D button. Um…you might have an MD, but you must not have noticed I had already pushed the button. (None of that was said out loud, only in my head – along with this) – Or is it because of your MD, you think I wasn’t qualified to push the D level button correctly?

The elevator stopped on A. A resident got on. Pushed the D button. (Which is still lit by the way!) And we start on our way down to the D level without further interruption. However, all the while in my head I’m hearing my inner monologe screaming, “Did you really have to hit that damn button again? It was already lit, jackass. It doesn’t make it more offical just because you hit it.”  – In elevators it only takes one time to hit the button to get to your floor. If you get on an elevator and the button is lit, it releaves you of the duty of having to hit it yourself. Score!  Leave it be. That poor little button didn’t do anything to you. Stop poking it. What do you think it is, a scab? Leave off.

Sheesh.

Sorry. It just had to be said. You may all return to your regularly scheduled day.

-Kate

Well, technically it’s tomorrow, but since I post on Mondays, I’m putting it up now. Very sneaky of me, eh?

This is the first in my dimensional traveler series. More like a highly skilled group of military specialists who kick ass in two dimensions.

Here’s some blurbage:

Two hearts are never more than one dimension apart.

A routine fuel run through one of the planet’s dimensional portals explodes in violence when Major Geneieve Lockhart’s Jumper team is hammered with an unprovoked attack. With her ship disabled and contact to mission control limited, Genie faces her worst nightmare—losing her crew on the blood-soaked floor of a foreign desert.

Help comes from an unlicensed freelance mercenary ship, piloted by a man she never thought she’d see again. Her AWOL ex-lover, Lt. Col. Dante Bowen.

Bowen knows answering Genie’s distress call puts his undercover mission to expose a governmental conspiracy at risk. But after faking his death six years ago, he owes her something. Ending up chained in her cargo hold for transport to his own court martial wasn’t the thanks-for-the-rescue he expected.

The bridges between them may be in ashes, but their desire burns as hot as ever. Even as Genie wonders what happened to Bowen’s code of honor, her body betrays her heart at every turn. The hostile race that attacked her ship, though, is coming back to finish them off. The only way to ensure freedom—on both sides of the dimensional divide—is to put her trust in the one man who betrayed it…

High Octane by Kathleen Scott, Samhain Publishing, 2010

*is this a kick ass heroine or what?*

Well, my post won’t be as exciting as Inez’s, but then that is the fate we all suffer, I guess.  Though judging from the size of the mess she had to clean, it’s probably a good thing since something like that would have put me completely over the damn edge and beyond.

My post is going to be about actually clearing my desk of some things.  Can I get an AMEN.

I sent off the requested full of Private Negotiations to Liquid Silver Books. Hurray!!! I finished the rough draft on Vermillion. Yay!!! Now, I only have to write the sucknopsis and then go back through and edit – all this before the Jan. 31st deadline. But that’s all right. I’m on target for it. It will happen. Then I have to break to finish the full I promised LI, and work on the sequel to my February Samhain release. Yay!!!! Here it is the end of January and I’m already seeing progress. That’s good. I’m on track so far. Please, just let me stay there.

However, there is a wrinkle in the fabric that is my schedule – namely the shade of sequels to come. Yes, I’m a sequel whore. So, as I finished up the damn book Private Negotiations, I had two more books set in that world swirling about my head like busted satellites on acid trips. I’ll need to tuck those in there somewhere as I finish up a couple more books.

Thing is, I hate having so many projects left undone on my hard drive. I really am going to get some of them out the door this year. There are some that are almost complete, or at least at the halway point. Come on, that’s good. It’s not going to be that hard to finish, right? Then why am I so far behind on them? Jeez.

Raise your hand if you want to switch to 30 hour days. Six more hours might actually see me getting something more accomplished.

So far, so good.

-Kate

Why, when I have so many projects I need to work on, does my muse decide it’s time to bus da’ move? You’d think she sat around for ages storing up ideas and threw them at me all at once. That would be a lie. Actually, I think my muse might be a trickster male that delights in watching me multi-task. Guys just seem to fall back in awe as they watch the female persuasion juggle apples and spin plates. I don’t know why that is. Anyhoo – I’ve had a slew of new ideas hit me lately. The bounty of my fertile imagination is overflowing.

That doesn’t mean I’m changing the order I’m going to write things in for the next few months, just that I have more ideas to pool from now. As if I needed that, right?

I just wish I could stay awake for any length of time on my days off. It’s horrible. I seem to want to sleep the entire day away. Not productive.

I’m thinking I must be very far behind by now on my work. However, I’m looking for a netbook to take to work with me so I can write on my breaks. I find writing in spiral notebooks not so helpful anymore for some reason. Though I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because I tend to go so far afield when I finally do put the scenes into the computer I figure what good does it do to pre-write them?

Aww, but then I digress as I so often do.

-Kate