Tempt the Devil is Out!

I'm so excited!

Have I mentioned how difficult it was to write the first book in this series, The Devil's Concubine? Well, Tempt the Devil was just as bad. I'm so relieved that it's finally ready for you to read! I can't wait to hear if you enjoyed it.

Buy links:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MH4IRTI

Apple iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id906818576

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tempt-the-devil-jill-braden/1120075921?ean=2940149656189

Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/tempt-the-devil-4 

I've always loved mysteries. I read every Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Three Investigators, Agatha Christie, PD James, A.C. Doyle, Lawrence Sanders, Dorothy Sayers, E.A. Poe, and true crime (a guilty pleasure of mine) novel on the library shelves. The Devil's Concubine and Devil Incarnate were political thrillers, but this time I wanted to write a mystery. Who knows where these whims come from? But I was determined, so even though I'd never written one before, Tempt the Devil would be a murder mystery even if it killed me.

It almost did. Like The Devil's Concubine, I completely rewrote this one three times. I am a terribly inefficient writer. In the first draft, QuiTai was the detective. She solved it too quickly, because she's The Woman, this planet's version of Irene Adler, the only person to ever outsmart Sherlock Holmes. It made for a very short story. Second version: I made Kyam the detective, but QuiTai was still leading him around saying "Here's a clue." It wasn't until I tossed her into the Fortress that I could let Kyam get on with the detective work uninterrupted.  That version worked. Whew!

The phrase that popped into my mind immediately after deciding Tempt the Devil would be a mystery was "How about a nice, simple little murder for once?" But of course, nothing is simple in Levapur. The personal is the political, and the political is personal. (and yes, I know murder is never nice, but I don't write nice)

(this next paragraph might be considered a bit of a spoiler, so read with caution.)

That got me thinking about How Things Actually Work in Real Life-- a continuing series of reality checks I take with my stories so I write characters who act like real people and not like, well, characters in a novel. We'd like to think our enemies do things because they sat down and logically picked the most evil thing to do, but in reality, I think most of our enemies don't even know they're our enemies, and they blunder through life just the same as we do. If what they do hurts us, it's usually unintended. (When we set out to harm others, we usually just do something stupid to sabotage ourselves.)  So How Things Actually Work in Real Life is that sometimes, the world does not revolve around us. Things happen that have nothing to do with us even though they affect us. The problem starts when we forget that it isn't always about us. 

Was that cryptic enough?

I'm so glad to back on track and proud of how this story worked out. It was worth the three versions. The next book, Devil's Game, is swirling around in my mind in a happy little whirlpool of imagination. I foresee an airship, intrigue on the continent, and Grandfather Zul sitting across a table from QuiTai in a high-stakes game.

What Is The Story About?

The first draft of Tempt the Devil is FINALLY finished.

*toss of confetti*

Before I start work on the second draft, there's a question that has to be asked and answered: What Is The Story About.

You'd think I know, but it's not that clear while I'm writing it. If you had asked me in the middle of the first draft what tempt the Devil was about, I would have said, "One of QuiTai's enemies is found dead in the Red Happiness. If the real murderer isn't found, she'll be executed by sunset." Or something like that, but that isn't what the story is about. That's the plot.

Plot and theme are two different things. They influence each other. Any character action should serve both to some degree. Plot is a timeline of events, cause and effect. Theme is more nebulous, more of a gut reaction, the emotional takeaway.

I'm sure most writers know what they mean to say when they sit down to write a story, but I discover it while I'm writing. It does no good to ask what the story is about while I'm working on the first draft because I don't have a clue. I haven't found it yet.

As I think about what I wrote in the first draft, the theme comes into focus. While I didn't know at a conscious level, subconsciously I was weaving it into the fabric of the story. Looking back, it's all so obvious. Tempt the Devil is about Kyam forgiving QuiTai for betraying him during the rice riot.  (although, if you're team QuiTai, you know there's nothing to forgive) 

Now I can get to work on the second draft.

Tempt the Devil

After a two month break to deal with a ton of emotional crap around a death in the family and another huge setback, I'm writing again. I'm always amazed at how long it takes to drag a story out of my imagination. Ans how many false starts I have. If I wrote a straightforward story, I probably wouldn't have as many problems, but I like all the layers and complicated nature of life in Ponong.

So, what do we have?

When one of QuiTai's enemies turns up dead at the Red Happiness, it's no surprise that she's the prime suspect. The colonial militia is notorious for arresting, and executing, any handy suspect-- as long as they're Ponongese. Even her solid alibi isn't enough to save her. Before they hang her for the murder though, they want her to tell them who really did it. Should she tell them the truth, or get revenge?

Secrets are exposed at every turn, and an inconvenient character arrives from Thampur with orders from Grandfather Zul. RhiHanya and LiHoun work together, but don't dare suggest RhiHanya is LiHoun's assistant.

Ten Books That have Stayed With Me

This is the current meme going around the social networks. You're supposed to list the first ten that come to mind, but pfffft, I revised after some thought.

In no particular order:

1. Dune by Frank Herbert. The first real science fiction novel I ever read. Made me a fan of the genre. Still among my top ten favorites.

2. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. It probably helps that the year I read it, Apocalypse Now was released.

3. No Fight, No Biting by Else Homelund Minarik with illustrations by Maurice Sendak. I still like this book.

4. Green Eggs and Ham. I didn't like it, but it's the book I was looking at when the whole reading thing clicked into place. I didn't want to go to sleep that night because I was scared I'd forget how to read during the night and the thought of that devastated me.

5. The Harry Potter series. This is my first cheat. But if I list the series book by book, I use seven slots on this limited list, and that simply isn't going to happen.

6. Gun, With Occasional Music (tied with As She Crawled Across the Table) by Johnathan Latham

7. Glass Books of the Dream Eaters/The Dark Volume/Chemikal Marriage by Gordon Dahlquist because they are one book in three parts in my mind. And because I'm cheating again and listing a series as a single book.

8. The Sherlock Holmes mysteries by Aurthur Conan Doyle. truthfully, I listed Agatha Christie here first, but I have a difficult time remembering individual stories beyond And Then There Were None and Murder of the Oriental Express, whereas I can remember almost every Holmes story as distinct.

9. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. But you could put any of his books here because I love them equally.

10. We Have Always Lived in the Castle because it is brilliant and horrible as only Shirley Jackson can write.

and because ten is a silly limit:

11. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin because it really is that good.
12. From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler by E.L. Koninsberg because I really identified with a girl who wanted to escape the horrible fate of being a girl.
13.Kiln People by David Brin because science fiction and a mystery! Great concept. Have to admit the ending draggggggggged.
14.  The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
15. The Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters

And my top two for 2013
1. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
2. Alif the Unseen by G Willow Wilson
The reason I'm not including them in the rest of my list is that it's too soon to say if they'll stay with me.

Rainbow Awards

I'm apparently in three categories:

Bisexual & LGBT Fantasy, Paranormal romance and Sci Fi/ Futuristic (Runner up)
Debut Novel (Runner up)
and
Bisexual Novel (Runner up)

You can see the full list here.

Nice to see friends Sassafras Lowrey, Jeff Mann, Laura Antoniou doing well this year, as well as many, many names I know among the finalists.

I lost to Greenwode by J. Tullos Henning in two categories. It won many other awards so Go Read It.

Rainy Days Are Good For Writing

I woke to the sound of rain this morning, which made it easy to huddle under the covers and let my mind wander. I've decided to delete the short scene I wrote yesterday as it doesn't add much to the story.

Here's a plot diagram, if you've never seen one:

See how it's an uphill climb from the start? By the time a writer nears the peak of that graphic, the narrative must narrow focus to the important parts and all energy must be devoted to hitting the crest. The scene I wrote yesterday diluted the focus and sucked energy worse than a space vampire recently out of hibernation. I can sum up everything that happened in those six hundred words with one line of dialog in the next scene. That's tighter writing. Hell on the word count, but hey, it's not as if I'm Charles Dickens and getting paid by the word.


 You'd be amazed how many times I write scenes that don't make it into the final cut of the story. Far too many times. But it helps me to keep the vision of a fully developed world rather watching characters say their lines while standing in front of facades. (I hope that makes sense to someone besides me.)

I had planned to go to the Huntington Library and gardens today, but the rain makes it easy to stay inside, huddle around the warm glow of my laptop screen, and tell stories.

Disney's Frozen

Several years ago, about as long as it takes to develop an animated film, the people at Disney must have sat down and had a real conversation about the messages in their movies. True Love Conquers All was wearing thin and princess isn't a real career option for many real girls  So I think they decided to make an effort to portray healthy female relationships.

Brave was the first step in the right direction. (Yes, I know it was a Pixar film and not under the Disney banner, but still) Brave centered on a mother/daughter relationship. Marriage wasn't the goal. Avoiding it was. But that was only a catalyst for the real story.

(Late addition: The Princess and the Frog. I'm told the two female characters are kind to each other even when it seems they are rivals for the same guy. I really like this move away from the mean girl depiction of women where if you both like a guy, the other girl has to be a nearly homicidal crazy bitch rather than simply someone who wants the same things you do. Anastasia and Druzella are sooooo last century.)

Frozen (Disney banner this time) takes another bold step into the frontier of female characters. It's a story about sisters. And *spoiler alert* that even true love has meaning way beyond finding a boyfriend/fiance. I really loved that. And as a bonus, at the end, the love interest dude Asks Her Permission to kiss her. Yep. Sisterhood and Consent Culture, all in one film. I may swoon.

I should also mention the stunning animation, great voice work, and some interesting musical numbers that seemed to owe a lot to musical theater (in that they moved the plot forward and explained inner thoughts of the characters) rather than being musical numbers (which, while entertaining, could have been cut out of the story and not changed the story). I'd also like to point out that while there was the threat of violence, it was mostly against a character who was different, and negotiating around her differences brought harmony. Giving her crap for being different caused years of misery for everyone.

So good work, Disney folk. Keep having those conversations that lead you to make these kinds of choices.