Into the Night

I thought I’d share a little bit of my upcoming Project Prometheus novel with you…

In this scene, the mercenary team and the Priestess of Ishtar, Manara, are nearing the ruins of Nineveh.  Manara has been under attack by the demon who doesn’t want her to reach the ruins.  She’s been unconscious, from the most recent attack….

            “Manara!”  Matt shook the woman in his arms gently, trying to rouse her.  He’d been patrolling the perimeter when he heard her cry out, the fear in her scream shooting bolts of pure terror through him.  Trevor patrolled the perimeter now, and Pete crouched near the fire, alert to be of assistance if needed, but his gray gaze trained on the flames to give the couple privacy.

            “Manara, wake up,” Matt tried again, fear clutching in his belly.  “C’mon, baby.”

            She stirred, and relief hit him like a punch in the gut.  Matt sank to the cool sand.  With a quiet murmur in what he assumed was Sumerian, she turned into his embrace, and he started as her hand came to rest at his waist.

            “Sweetheart,” he warned against her ear, so that only she could hear.  “We’re not alone.”

            Her deep gray eyes blinked open, and her soft, sleepy beauty caused his breath to stall somewhere around his lungs.  He wanted to kiss her, to melt away her pain and fear with a kiss.  After a long moment, he finally remembered how to breathe.  Raising a hand, he stroked her dark head gently.  “Are you okay?  You screamed in your sleep.”

            “Matthew,” she murmured brokenly as she burrowed against him.  “It was terrible.  The demon…It knows who I am.  It knows I am coming.”  She clutched his shirtfront in her gloved hands, her eyes filled with terrified tears.  “And there is another danger.  One I cannot fight; one which wants your life-blood.”  Her hands tightened convulsively.  “I sensed the bloodlust, and it… it was terrible, Matthew!”

            “Shh.”  He rocked her, pressing soft kisses to her hair.  “Don’t worry about me, sweetheart.  I can protect myself.”

            She sighed shakily.  “I am so weary.”

            “Sleep.”  He shifted her weight against him so that she lay more comfortably.  “I’ll be right here.  I promise.”

            He watched her eyelids flutter closed, and his throat tightened.  She was so beautiful, and so very precious to him.  So why did he have the feeling that he was about to deliver her into the hands of death?  It was a feeling, and a future, that Matt would gladly sell his soul to prevent.

I’ve had a lot of changes in my life, recently, and it’s left me in a kind of retrospective daze… I keep thinking that maybe it’s just me, and I’ll snap out of it, soon… (So far, no such luck! lol)

 In January, I reached the conclusion that putting all my eggs in one basket (or books at one publisher, as it were) was, in the words of an old adage, not such a bright idea.  So I decided to pull a few, and start looking elsewhere, while still maintaining some at the current publisher…. Hmmm… In hindsight, not a very brilliant idea…

In July, of course, said publisher went belly up and declared bankruptcy, leaving my books still at that house floating in an ocean of “Will I ever get them back?”  Nice, huh?  Stupid, on my part.  But then, it’s not the first time I’ve ignored that little voice that tries to warn me when something isn’t such a hot idea.

Good news came at the end of July, however, when one of my previously-pulled books was taken on by a new publisher with a solid reputation.  Happy, yes.  Still worried about those poor souls of mine out there stuck in limbo, certainly.  Determined to make the best of a bad situation? Growing every day.

On the homefront, things have been a little more chaotic (if you can imagine that!).  My “day job” (what a funny turn of phrase, since I write whenever I can, not just at night, but *shrug*) is killing me in degrees (stress overload), and has decided that I’ve somehow transplanted myself with Supergirl, so can therefore do the work of  three people, while only getting paid for the time of one.  Hardly fair, but find me anywhere in the business sector today that IS, and I’ll quit and go there…lol

I much prefer my writing, and do it every chance I get…. I’m working hard on new books, trying to get new series off the ground, and deal with the fact that I’m now, on average, about ten books behind where I was last year (Yike!) in published titles.  With the overload on the publishing industry and the large turnaround times, I don’t see a remedy to that situation within the next year (although I do hope to have more than just one book out within the next year!)

Anyway, it’s time I got back to writing, while I can.  Chatter away at you later!

 Esther

Here’s hoping someone actually READS these things…lol

;) Sometimes, I feel like I’m talking to myself, which isn’t exactly anything new.  Yeah, I talk to myself… These things happen when you’re neck-deep in a plot, and nothing seems to be working… You have long conversations with your outline, book, characters, whatever, starting by wondering aloud what went wrong, progressing to begging for it to sort itself out, and finally, threatening dire consequences to the character who’s just f***ing everything up for everyone else!  *grins* Or maybe that’s just how I handle it, and everyone else is normal… *shrugs* All I know is, most of the time, it WORKS!

Take my most recent novel-in-progress (I won’t call it work… it’s too much fun!)… In it, I’m working with a cyber-punk Virtual Crimes Investigator… Problem is, she’s just co-operating with the plot.  (Enter Esther muttering “Go THERE, dammit.  No… THERE!” as Calli wanders all over the ether realm of Virtual Reality)  See what I mean?  I’ve already started muttering.  And muttering quickly descends into “PLEEASE do what I say…” and from there into “Dammit, follow the rules or I turn you into the next victim and find another heroine.”  *lol* Brutal, I know, but it usually works.  Well, except in cases like Calli’s, where she just ignores me, anyway… *sighs* Occasionally, these characters just have too much stubborn will of their own to listen to me…

Anyway, back to the writing, and let’s hope I actually convince her to play along…:)

 Esther