Apple of My Eye - author's bites

I have finally finished my Valentine's Day contest entry... and yes, I've regained my spark for writing again, so hopefully TLAW will continue to be written soon.

I'm really excited for this entry because I've never entered a contest before and I really hope it turns out well! I love the characters that I've churned out and I realize that my male characters have a tendency to follow my temperament while the female characters are usually molded around the kind of woman that I'd like to be but never am.

I love my characters to argue with each other; intelligently of course. Bantering and playful repartee is something that I look for when I date. It's not always easy to find a guy like that so I create him in my head and lash them out in writing!

I'll post the story here once it's approved on LitE.

Valentine's Day Contest

I've decided to take part in LitE's Valentine's Day Contest to help cure this writer's block that I'm having. It will be a one piece submission and hopefully I do not get burnt out before I get to the end of it!

It has to be submitted between the Jan 20th and Feb 5th. I've decided to do a follow up on that random piece of writing in the previous entry and suit it for the Vday contest.

I'm actually quite excited and I'm looking forward to finishing it!

Writer's Block and random story opening.

I realise that after weaving chapters after chapters, my brain stops becoming creative. So while Chapter 8 for TLAW is submitted, Chapter 9 is going to take awhile. I've already written out the skeleton for it but the flowery phrasings aren't coming to me. I don't feel inspired or excited to write this next chapter (although it's quite exciting according to the skeleton).

Instead, I began diddling with another storyline. I have no idea where to move on with it because I only thought of two things- a blind man/wolf [maybe] and a suicidal woman. Here's a rough draft of what I've got so far. I'm not going to write it until I've gotten some solid plot to weave and twist and fuddle my neurotransmitters with but I liked what I wrote so far so here it is:

Her feet were moving but she was lifeless. Every step marked a foot closer to her end. She tried not to think about what she was about to do. Thinking about it would make her doubt herself won’t it? Besides, it might even be painless…

With a sigh, she dumped her bag on the grass and took a breath of the sea. The slight tang of salt invaded her nose and the chill prickled her skin but she refused to give in to her shudder for warmth. 

“This is it,” she whispered to herself as she shuffled her feet closer to the edge of the cliff. She dared herself to take a peek down below and sucked in a deep breath when she saw the great waves crashing against sharp rocks. 

“I’m going to do it! You hear me, you son of a bitch?!” she shouted into the open space although she knew she was alone. Still, it roused her with something like Dutch courage, to jump.

She stood there, shivering just a little and counted slowly to ten; promising herself that she would jump on the last count. 

One. She took a deep breath and prolonged it…

Two. She closed her eyes and pictured herself about to fall on soft pillows…

Three. What the hell was she thinking?

Four. What the hell was he thinking? The guy was married for godsake!

Five. Oh god, oh god… 

Six. Breathe in… and out…

Seven… What’s that?

Her eyes flared open suddenly at the sound of a low growl behind her. Someone… no, something was behind her.

“Great! Trust me to screw up my own death!” she murmured. Obviously when she picked a secluded spot, she hadn’t considered there’d be wild animals around. But would death by being ravaged by a wild beast be a possible option? “Fuck that,” she hissed and turned slowly around to come face to face with a giant, teeth-baring gray wolf. 

She froze for a moment, feeling all the blood drain from her face. She tried to back away, slowly; step by step and…

“Aaa!!! Oh my god! Oh my god! Help me! Help me!” she shrieked, holding on to the edge of the cliff. “I don’t want to die… oh god, I don’t want to die!” She could feel her grip slipping; she could not hold on any longer…

The last thing she saw was a bronzed hand reaching out for her before all became dark and quiet…

***

When she opened her eyes, she was staring at a white ceiling. A surge of panic went through her body as she sat up right to inspect her surroundings.

Is this heaven? She thought to herself. Surely not… Heaven surely did not smell like salty breeze. 

“Oh fuck!” Now she remembered. “Shit, I have to get out of here!”

She pulled the blankets away from her and found herself naked.

“Oh you have got to be kidding me!” she snapped as she got up to search for her clothes. She was so bent on looking for it that she didn’t notice the door opening. 

“Can I help you with whatever it is you are looking for?” She felt herself stiffen at the sound of the gentle deep voice of a man. Her hand quickly snatched the blanket to cover herself before she turned to look at the man.

“Stay back and don’t look at me you pervert! Where am I? What have you done to me?” she demanded, backing away towards the wall. 

“Oh please… I’m not going to look at you. If you’re looking for your clothes, it got ripped and soiled as I was pulling you up from that cliff. Now, why don’t you sit down and have a spot of tea while I fetch you a robe?” The man smiled as he placed a tray carefully on the table near the door. 

She narrowed her eyes at him. He was a suspicious character. Who wears sunglasses in their own homes? Still, she was wary and did not move from her spot until he returned into the room.

“Who are you?” she demanded. 

“Ah mademoiselle, the question is who are you?” he replied with a smile as his hands touched the wall. She was about to retort when she saw that he was trying to find something with his hands.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to find the chair. It used to be here beside this table.”

“It’s right there!” she snapped with irritation and pointed to the chair on the opposite side of the table . “What are you blind?” 

“Touché,” he replied with a laugh. “My name is Wade. And you are?”

She didn’t reply him but inched closer to him and waved her hand in front of his shaded eyes. 

“I can still feel the wind vibrations from your hands and the heat from your body, you know,” he replied, causing her to jump a step back. 

“Oh my god… you’re really blind. I’m sorry. I was just… ah fuck that. My name’s Amara,” she said stiffly.

“Miss Amara, I assure you that I am not a pervert and to honour my word, you may take this robe to make yourself decent,” he said, passing her a white robe before he got up and turned away from her. 

Even though she knew he was blind, she couldn’t help giving him side glances now and then as she slipped into the robe. To her surprise, the robe was soft and she saw on the label that it was made of cashmere. How the hell could a peasant afford such expensive materials? Amara looked around her. The house was cozy and lived in and the room had decent amenities but it was definitely not a rich man’s house. Narrowing her suspicious eyes, she straightened up and gave a cough.

“I’m done.”

“Well then, I will see if I can get you something to wear then you can be on your way. I’m sure you’d rather be anywhere else but here.” 

“I have some clothes in my bag… Please don’t bother too much. I’ll be out of your house in awhile. I just need to calm myself down,” she said with a sigh. “I… Thank you for saving me. I… I really don’t wish to intrude on you like this… but thank you.”

“It is nothing really…”

Amara kept her eyes downcast for a moment before raising them to look at his face. He was handsome and did not look older than 35 years old. It was a pity that a man in his prime would be blind… and yet, still standing tall. 

“Mr. Wade? Can I ask you something?” He smiled and nodded in the direction of her voice. 

“Being blind… and living in this old, worn down place… must make you feel sad and pathetic at times right? But… but have you ever thought about ending your life to end the misery of living?”

He raised his eyebrows, clearly amused. This woman had no tact at all but he could sense a deep sadness about her so he shook his head and smiled. 

“I guess, I’m always living with the hope that someday I might be able to see again. And that, my dear, is worth living for.” 

The man called Wade gave one last small smile and walked towards the door, using his hands on the wall as a guide. He carefully closed the door and counted the steps towards the living room.

“Master Wade, is she better? Poor woman.”

“Abigail, thank you so much for letting her stay here. Your quarters were definitely closer than the main house and I couldn’t carry her too far.”

“Oh please, Sir. You should have called out to me sooner,” she fussed, adjusting the shirt he was wearing.

“You’re truly a gem, Abigail… Oh, and thank your husband for lending me his clothes. I wasn’t exactly hoping to shift back until I got home but well, circumstances change.”

 

Abigail gave a small laugh as she helped Wade to the door. He reached for his walking stick pressed against the wall and prepared himself for the walk back home. 

“Oh, Abigail, the woman’s name is Amara and she’s under the impression that I live here so just oblige her for now. Say I’m your son or nephew or something.”

“What? You, a servant boy?” she protested but Wade was walking away, fading into the dark even before she could finish what she wanted to say. 

So what do you think? Is it okay? Should I pursue this further? Heh. I might... or I might come up with something entirely different... we'll see. 

***

To Love a Were Chapters 8 and 9

I had an email today from one of the readers who gave me some great suggestions to follow up with the story so far and I'm really geared up to write! It's amazing how others' perspectives and suggestions opens up your crowded mind to possibilities other than your own!

I'm currently finishing up chapter 8 and will send it to my two editors asap! They are the best by the way- always efficient and really funny too! Love love love you two!

So for chapter 8 and 9 I am actually heading up north to Scotland over the weekend to do some research for these two chapters. At first, I didn't want to disclose where the stories were being set but then, I realise that it's better to know where the characters are so you can understand the traditions that are being followed.

As you know, Sydney and Dominic are getting married!!!!

So, as part of their Scottish heritage they're going to have the whole shebang! School doesn't start till a fortnight later so I'm crashing over at a friend's place in Glasgow and maybe learn a thing or two about the Scotts. And it's going to be snowing!!!! Yay!

I'll write more about what I learned soon okay?
OMG I've never been to Scotland so I'm soooooooooooooo excited!!!

On writing

Writing erotica is perhaps a way to feed my alter-ego because in real life I'm quite shy and conservative even. But the writing is different- you can hide behind your characters; experiment with new ones and even step into the shoes of a character that is the complete opposite of yourself!

The characterization for TLAW is, in my opinion, better than The Hunters. They are stronger and more distinct (i hope). Truth is, writing is really difficult. You can churn out a piece of work within a few hours with the right dose of drive but the actual process of writing a novel or essay takes much longer than that.

That's why, each time I go to my LitE site and see people putting up comments, I get butterflies in my stomach. I get scared of people's comments and criticisms but I've learned to deal with them... I suppose that's what authors do...

Anyway, I'm having difficulties writing out the sex scenes for TLAW chapter 8. Mostly coz I'm tired- getting little sleep and pushing my body too hard at the gym. So I guess Chapter 8's gonna take a while.

delay for TLAW chapter 5

It seems I keep making mistakes with my submissions. Tsk. A little annoying maybe but I'll live with it.

I just resubmitted Chapter 5... so that'll take another 3-4 days for them to approve. Which is good because I'm still waiting to look through my Chapter 6 then brush up a little on Chapter 7 and finish off chapter 8 and 9.

Chateau de Fleur, TLAW chapter 8

Castle of Flowers [if my french doesn't fail me- am I right?]

So in Chapter 8 which I'm writing at the moment, we are introduced to Eian's chateau; his real home. So I was searching the web for some inspiration as to how to describe his home and as always pictures always make up for the words. I got them from this website: http://www.dreamhomedesignusa.com/interiors.htm 
and http://www.dreamhomedesignusa.com/Castles.htm
When I saw them, I was like holy shit that's -melts-

Upon entering, this is the view that one would see.

So let's have a walkthrough of the place!

And for my two favourite rooms:

Study

 And Bedroom

Okay someone's going to make love on that bed =) No prizes for guessing! 

Anyway, in this chapter, I mapped out Eian's history and his relationship with Aramis Culzean. It made me cry a bit just writing it because it's quite sad, in my opinion. So do stay tune for that.

In the meantime, I'm going to also plan out drafts for my new stories- I'm wondering if I should continue with Alaron's story perhaps? Or start on a new one? Well, we'll see where my muse takes me then.