Anya Bast

[Cross posted to The Bradford Bunch Blog]

My husband and I finally saw the movie 300 last night. Yeah, I know. But we’ve got a baby at home so our days of jaunting to the theater to watch the latest flick are long gone.

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Wow. Has anyone seen this movie? There was no body fat anywhere in the whole thing. I know because I looked. Er, a lot. Because, uhm, drool. I guess when I leaned over and told my husband I could feel myself ovulating just watching these actors he might not have appreciated it much. Heh.

And when they marched off to war, it was a full on man titty parade! I had to stop myself from fumbling for the remote control to pause and zoom in, (again with the non-husbandly appreciation).

Yeah, so, I might get it on dvd.

Ahem.

Aside from the exceptional eye candy, I liked the movie for other reasons. See, I am fully aware that I have the theatrical tastes of an adolescent boy. I will watch any movie that is based on a comic book character, no matter how bad it might be. (With the exception of Superman. He just doesn’t do it for me). My favorite by far is The Punisher. I absolutely love that one. It’s Frank Miller flick, btw, just like 300.

I loved the supernatural aspects of the movie. How the film felt not like your regular historical movie, but something with a paranormal edge. That owed, of course, to the fact the movie is based on a graphic novel. It felt like a graphic novel.

So, tell me, seen any good movies lately? Anything you want to tell me about? I love a good film…even if they do make me want to immediately start exercising once the credits roll, (don’t worry, the impulse faded pretty quickly. I didn’t damage my perfect non-exercising track record).

So I discover The Tea Party and develop the The Big Lurve for them…only to discover they’ve been broken up for two years. Ehn.

Ehn. Ehn. EHN!

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I’m sorry I have no nice, neat blogging schedule. I go for days without blogging and then, wham, post three times in one day.

Sometimes I get questions in email from readers. Most of the time I answer them then and there, but this one was good blog material.

“What are the differences between putting out an ebook and putting out a mass market book.”

I’ve been surprised that the process is largely similar. For both I still have deadlines, still submit (by deadline), still get editorial feedback, still have the thrill of the first cover view, still have proof changes to make. That’s all basically the same, except at the end one comes out in ebook and the other in paper. Oh, and one process takes a lot longer than the other (I’m sure you can guess which one)

The only real difference, from my point of view, has been in the feedback…and not necessarily from reviewers/critics. When Witch Fire released I was inundated with emails from readers.  When I release an ebook I might get a couple emails, but this went way beyond that. Duh, you’re probably all saying, it was a mass market release. Lots more people read the book. Yes, that’s true, but honestly I have never emailed an author in my life. Sad to say it’s true. I might love the book, but I generally don’t tell them I did. (Though I might mention it in my blog****) So I was astounded by all the people who actually DO. It’s been GREAT.

Honestly, that’s been the only major change for me. Oh, and also worrying like CRAZY about my sales. Oy. Witch Fire hit pretty high on the Bookscan list and also made the B&N bestseller list (I didn’t know that until recently), so I stressed a lot about how the book was doing. I worry about that with ebooks too, but not quite to the same degree. I guess with ebooks I feel like I might have a little more control, it’s more familiar territory. Releasing Witch Fire produced some anxiety in me.

That’s pretty much it, though.

*****OH….I just finished Stardoc, by S.L. Viehl. I loved it! Sailed through the book, especially the back half. SO GOOD. I practically broke a finger trying to order the sequel last night from Amazon.com. It had better get here fast, man. I’m already going through withdrawal. I love finding a series after a lot of them have been written. That means I can read the whole thing straight through.

I f you have a question for me you can ask it here, or email me — anyabast(at)yahoo.com. I promise I don’t bite.

I wrote “the end” on The Darkest Kiss this afternoon. It’s a bit misleading, though. I’m far from done with this book. The revision portion always takes me a long time and a lot of work. Here’s a quote from the 70 Days of Sweat site that sums it up for me: “I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.” — James Michener.

Total for this week:

82,563 / 85,000 (96.5%)

You notice that bar doesn’t say 100%. That’s because I’ll pick up anywhere from 5 to 7k on the rewrite. It’s like that every time for me. I leave room for it. The Darkest Kiss will be close to 90k when all is said and done.

I wrote about 12k this week!

Here’s a random snippet:

“The scent of blood and sweet, willing human infused Alejandro’s nostrils, but not a wisp of hunger curled through his stomach. These humans were too pathetic, too victimized to be looked at that way. Not even the hardcore animal part of him, the pure Chosen heart of him, could look at these people as food. They needed help, every last one of them.”

Yes, I’ve been quiet. Quiet because I’m thisclose to finishing The Darkest Kiss. I will post word count later, after I have written more. I may even be able to say I wrote THE END on it today. We shall see how much my daughter allows me to write. Someone gave her a hyper pill today (it wasn’t me). Oh. MY. God.

If you’re looking for something to read, I guest blogged over on Jacquelyn Frank’s blog. She went away for awhile and asked some authors to post while she was gone. So, mosey on over and read my blog and the other blogs (all entertaining). I have a contest posted over there too.

I blogged about books that stick to your ribs over on the Bradford Bunch blog today, if you want to take a peek.

I have decided to declare my own personal Sven. This week, I would like to replace scary Sven from 70 Days of Sweat…..

…with Sven Sundgaard, the weather man from Kare 11 TV in Minnesota…

Because, whereas Sweaty Sven looks like he’s going to kick my ass this week, Sven Sundgaard*** might only, I don’t know, declare a rainy day or two for me. *bats eyelashes* Is that okay?

Erm…because my word count sucks the big one this week.

70,124 / 85,000 (82.4%)

Progress on The Darkest Kiss — Deadline September 30th

I only wrote 8k. Meh.

The good news is that I’m over 80% finished! The other bit of good news is that now I’m coastin’, man!! Coasting right down the hill toward writing The End. Everything I’ve built up is set to explode. From here on out writing this book will be like cutting through warm butter. Then, of course, comes the revision. That’s not so much like cutting through warm butter. But I’ll slice through that chunk of steel when I get to it. Which will be soon!

Snippet from The Darkest Kiss:

Daria drew a breath and concentrated on gathering enough strength to push away from him. How was she going to make it through this without letting him burn her? She drew a breath and closed her eyes, fighting for control. “This is business, Alejandro. Remember? Business. I’m sorry about last night. I wasn’t myself.”

He brought his face close to hers. His hot, sweet breath stirred the fine hair around her face. He cupped her cheek in one callused hand and brushed his lips across hers deliberately. It was a gentle tasting, not a taking. For one wildly insane moment she wished he would take. She wished he would crush her mouth to his and roll her beneath his big body.

*** Apologies to Sven Sundgaard for using him as my nice guy Sven. I’m sure that, if he wants to be, he can be quite intimidating sometimes.

Every year since we’ve lived here, outside our patio door (and by our front door), we get furrow spiders. They start out as wee widdle bebe spiders and get big fast. They’re the classic orb spinner and make huge, beautiful webs. In the mornings during the fall, these classic webs hang all over our house and in the trees covered in dew. It’s magnificent. I know a lot about furrow spiders because at one point I thought they might be brown recluses, so I researched and researched like hell to determine if that might be true. They look much the same, though the furrow spider is much larger and her behavior is much different. (Brown Recluse don’t spin the classic webs, and they don’t climb or tolerate humans well. They lurk in the corners, in the attics, and the closets.)

The furrow spider is not poisonous, though I’m sure I don’t want her to bite me. It would probably hurt. She’s harmless, beneficial even. She just wants to spin her web every night, catch her prey, eat her web (every night), and make more widdle bebe spiders. She does get pretty threatening at full size and she does have a disconcerting tendency to drop down fast and hard on a silk strand if disturbed, her long crab-like legs kicking. It’s enough to produce a gut-level BLARG reaction in anyone. But as long as she stays out of my house, I’m fine with her living her life and spinning her webs. I’m definitely fine with her pest control behavior.

Every night, I watch her spin a new web. However I have never seen her eat her web. She does that at dawn, before she retires to her sleeping place for the day, where she keeps her babies. So, in the evening, she comes out and spins. By bedtime she’s sitting in the middle, once in a while scurrying out to snare prey that has been caught. She’s fast and vicious. It’s truly amazing to watch. Every night she grows larger and larger. (They have a life span of about a year) In the morning, there is no web, but I know where she sleeps, so I can look up to find her there.

She spun her web last night, but at bedtime she wasn’t sitting in the middle of it like usual. This morning her web is still there, insects caught in it. She didn’t eat it like she should’ve. Also, she’s not in her sleeping area. As of last night she was an adolescent spider, about halfway to being a scary adult.

There is, however, a grasshopper clinging to the side of my house. He looks full and has an expression of murderous satisfaction on his tiny green face. He was there yesterday afternoon, too. So I can only assume furrow spider has been made a dinner of. If furrow spider had been an adult, she might have made it.

It’s a brutal insect world out there, man.

But I know it won’t be long before another furrow spider arrives to take the cherry place at the patio door, right under our light that draws all the delicious insects from miles around.

Just one more little bug story from our country yard, where the dragonflies, hummingbirds and butterflies whizz about in profusion. The giant toads (dude, I mean monsterous) live in the pond, and the preying mantises are large enough to star in a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode.

ETA: The grasshopper has been marked off my list of murder suspects. They don’t eat other insects. Huh. Who knew?

Don’t forget the Perseid Meteor shower peaks tonight and into dawn on Monday. I’ll be getting up a little extra early tomorrow morning to catch a few falling stars before work.

I’ll be back later with my Sunday wordcount update.

It’s pretty, yes? 😉

The cover fits the heroine. Isabelle is much more chaotic and impulsive than Mira.

Also, in the process of having my domain and hosting switched (having a new web site designed), the companies involved totally dropped the ball and DELETED my email account. My web site is also currently down. I’m still trying to resolve this issue. Anyway, if you emailed me between 2pm and midnight yesterday, I didn’t get it. Here is my unhappy face: 🙁