Weekly-ish Update:

Collaborating Muses

I just got back from 10 days in Switzerland with a writing friend who I'd never met before.

Let me say, that is NOT like me. 

But I decided mixing up the patterns of my life–and my muse–might be in order.  And it wasn't as if it was totally a blind date.  We've been collaborating on a screenplay for DEFIANT for over a year now, exchanging extremely lo-o-o-ong emails where we plotted and re-plotted, scripted and re-scripted and generally argued collaborated, rewriting the storyline, honing it to make it work for film.

So, basically, we had an online marriage for a long time before we met in person.

I mean, if you can give up your story to someone, have them hack away and hand it back, bruised and battered, and listen to them say, “It's better now, see??” and you don't want to kill yourself, or them, you know you're onto something.

So, we took a  chance, and planned to spend 10 days together in a foreign land, no family around.

It was AWESOME. We wrote like manics, and plotted like fools, said “no, no, no, no,” to each other a hundred times, and “omg, YES!” two hundred.  It was invigorating and exciting and fun!

I'm working on the screenplay now that I'm back, and already losing the sharp edge of driving focus her contributions gave me.  But I'm committed to getting it back, and making this story work for film. 

Also, I know as soon as I send her my over-blather, she'll hack away at it, leaving it once again bloody and battered. #sorelieved

I feel like I have my own personal hatchetwoman.  It's nice to have a knife-wielder you can trust.

Full disclosure: I have a lot to learn.

Do you have any friendships where you know you make each other better, even when–maybe because–it's sometimes hard to handle?

Hope your summer is starting off with good things, and if you need it, your own personal hatchetwoman..or whatever you need!

I was updating the ebook file of DEFIANT, and was reminded of what a bad man Jamie Lost is.  Really, not nice at all.  Eva is convinced he's a menace cast up from Hell to plague her, thwart her, endanger her…tempt her.

True on all counts.

If you haven't read DEFIANT yet and are in the mood for a big (110K words big!) adventure-strewn, road romance set in the time of King John and his not-so-chivalrous knights, go indulge yourself today!

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Here's Eva's first impression of the devil:

…The rogue’s thick fingertips touched the middle of her back and pushed her the rest of the way inside the tavern.  Then he stepped in too and pointed to a table by the far wall.

“Over there. Sit.”

Again with the commands.

She wanted to growl at him.

He tromped over the bulging plank floors toward the back counter that ran the length of the room, moving through flickering shadows of torchlight.

His hair-roughened square jaw could denote either a dull blade or a rough nature, but his hair, barely tethered by a leather strip, long and dark, bespoke only outlawry.

His cape was nondescript, calf-length. Beneath he wore a black, quilted surcoat, sleeveless, covering what she supposed was a mail shirt, although he wore a longer-sleeved tunic over it, as if to conceal what lay beneath. Both surcoat and tunic hung to mid-thigh, slit up the sides. Mucky knee-high boots completed the ensemble, but it was the dark hose, molded tight over his thighs, that kept Eva’s attention riveted far longer than was necessary.

He wore no insignia on his dark surcoat, bore no identifying colors, yet everyone either had a lord or was a lord. Even the most feared, ruthless mercenary, a Brabançon, identified himself with someone. Here in England, that usually meant the English king.

By the look in this one’s eye, ’twas a simple matter to place him there, among the terrible, ruthless sorts.

But somehow, she couldn’t believe something so…beautiful could be so awful.

And he was beautiful, to a hard line, masculine magnificence, all long, lean contours of hard heat and piercing eyes. A beast in his prime.

Her dark-eyed proteus looked over his shoulder, scowling when he saw she had not ‘come,’ was not ‘over there.’

“Sit,” he growled. “And stay.”

A fissure of anger opened up inside her. She narrowed her eyes and, very softly, barked.

***

For the record, Jamie didn't like being barked at.

And so the adventure begins….

HAVE FUN IN THERE!

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