Questions, anyone? Anyone?

I'm attending Thrillerfest next week and I have a podcast taping on Friday morning. It's going to be a roundtable discussion with Jordan Dane, Sarah Langan and Kathryn Fox, and me. The panel is called:

The craft of writing a good paperback thriller.

The reason I'm letting you guys know this now is to see if you have any questions for me or any of these other authors. You'll be able to listen online to our responses, of course, so this is my attempt to make it a bit more interactive.

So fire away!

6:22 AM - 7 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Interview for Las Vegas viewers/readers
Current mood: accomplished

Well, as I just got two irate phone calls from my mother and grandmother yelling at me for not telling them I was going to be on local television. My grandmother just happened to stumble upon me while channel surfing. Sorry, grandma. So it needs to be said:

If you're in the Vegas area and want to catch my interview on LUNCHTIME WITH IRA, you can do so on Clark County Television (CCTV), Cox Cable Channel 4 tonight (Friday) at 8 p.m. and Saturday at Noon and 8 p.m.

I swear I made a mental note to tell everyone this, but then I lost my mind.
(If anyone is truly upset about this, I'll give you my editor's email. Talk to her. (This means you, Grandma.))

If radio is your thing, you can hear it tomorrow, Saturday, at 9 p.m. on KDWN AM 720 Talk Radio.

For everyone else, the videocast and podcast will be up soon, and I'll post that when it goes live ... as grandma twists my arm.

I hope you're all well -- I'm just about to turn in my fourth book to my editor, so keep your fingers crossed that she loves it!

Best,
Vicki

Currently listening : Eye to the Telescope By KT Tunstall Release date: 2006-02-07

7:31 AM - 8 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

Number 27!
Current mood: blissful

New York Times, baby!
Yippee!

A big thank you to everyone who went out and bought THE TOUCH OF TWILIGHT in the first week, and who've written to tell me they enjoyed it. I'm working hard on the next book in the series, due at the end of this month (thus the radio silence -- eek!) and I'm thrilled that you're all coming along on Joanna Archer's journey with me.*

Thank you.

*Note: if you'd like to talk about the latest book, or the Zodiac series as a whole, click on the link to the right for my forum. I promise none of the regulars there bite (or, at least, not hard) and we have a great time chatting about books, reading, cupcakes and cocktails. Er...among other things. {G}

2:14 PM - 30 Comments - 25 Kudos - Add Comment

YIPPEE!! Release day!
Current mood: giddy

THE TOUCH OF TWILIGHT is out today!

To celebrate, I am...{drumroll please}

Working on book4!

But I also have a short interview up at Susan Adrian's blog: http://susanadrian.blogspot.com
and she's kindly running a giveaway as well. Yay!

There have already been some sighting, some pics of my cardboard dumps at the B&Ns emailed to me, and general merrymaking by my family and friends. I had the distinct and rare pleasure of seeing my grandmother go wordless and tear up while reading the dedication. And once she found her voice again, what do you think she said?

"I take it all back."

LOL.
Ayup. That's my grandma.

Currently listening : I Stand By Idina Menzel Release date: 2008-01-29

6:12 AM - 37 Comments - 27 Kudos - Add Comment

Sneaky peekie!

Can't wait for the long holiday weekend to be over so you can get THE TOUCH OF TWILIGHT? Want an early peek?

Harper/Eos has uploaded a good 20% of the book online for your reading pleasure!

Go here, if you're interested: http://browseinside.harpercollins.com/index.aspx?isbn13=9780060898939&WT.mc_id=REFL_VP_TOUCH_052308

Happy reading!

1:37 PM - 6 Comments - 9 Kudos - Add Comment

post potpourri

I confess, I've been spending most of my time hanging with my cyber-homies on my bb.

I've also cleared the 100K mark in book4, a little later than wished for, but that's always the case. It's speeding up now that I can see the finish line, and it feels like this thing wants to write itself. I'm just along for the ride.

For the June release (technically May 27) of THE TOUCH OF TWILIGHT, Harper/Eos is giving away advanced bound copies for reviews to readers. If you want to get an early eyeful, go to: http://outofthiseos.typepad.com/blog/2008/05/advance-readers.html

And my first review from Romantic Times is in:

"At the moment, teamwork and trust are in short supply in Pettersson's complex storyline in her Sign of the Zodiac series. Her characters are truly dark and dangerous--the most devastating injuries may be those inflicted on the mind and heart. This is a chilling and intense first-person
novel!"

Back to work!

10:44 AM - 10 Comments - 16 Kudos - Add Comment

Contest for ARC of THE TOUCH OF TWILIGHT

ARC contest!*

Touch of Twilight ARC Giveaway Contest

Vicki's giving away an Advanced Reader Copy of her third novel, Touch of Twilight to one lucky member of this forum.

The theme of this contest is CONDUITS.

Here's what you gotta do to enter:

1~ Name 2 Agents from the series and their conduit. (Jo doesn't count.)

2~ Tell what conduit you would choose and/or design for yourself and why. Remember, Hunter says the relationship between the weapon and its owner is very personal.


Entries can be posted in this thread or sent via PM to me here at the message board.


Deadline is April 17th.

Good luck!

*Note: I'm a little late in posting this because Raven, who rules my BB, put this contest together. This freed me up to write, which I did, but I forgot to blog on this until now. I'm going to see if I can get her to extend the deadline for newbies to the board, but for now, don't lollygag! She has a heart of granite, that Raven. {eg}

5:28 PM - 6 Comments - 7 Kudos - Add Comment

The writing front, and a new bulletin board!
Current mood: busy

My, it has been awhile, hasn’t it?

Quietude is good, though. Unlike the rest of the dark fantasy world, I will not be attending the RT Booklover’s Con next week. I’m staying home to scribble. The good thing is I’m grooving and the book is growing and Jo and Co. are talking to me. The bad thing is, this book is growing. I’m looking at its length, and how much story my instincts are telling me I have left, and I could easily double what I already have.

That. Is. Not. Acceptable.

So I’m foregoing my daily word count to drop back ten and punt, reassess and reorder, replot -- which is why plotting up front doesn’t really work for me. The story changes the story, so what’s the point? (Note to self: Do try to remember this next time, dude.)

In other news, I now have a bulletin board designed and run by one of my readers, Raven. She’s amazing in that she’s attentive to detail, knows how to spell {wry g} and kicks me off my own boards when she knows I have writing to do. She’s also a relative expert on all things Zodiac (though I do get to trump her there on occasion {g}). I couldn’t be happier with the way it turned out, and though it’s pretty quiet right now, I expect that will change the closer I get to the release of THE TOUCH OF TWILIGHT in June. I try to hit it daily, mostly afternoons and evenings - as mornings are reserved for fresh words - so if you want to check it out, you can do so here

And now I leave you with a quote from my favorite Transcendentalist, Emerson. He’s long been one of my literary boyfriends, which makes sense since he’s dead and was also allegedly gay. All my ex’s are dead and gay:

Emerson: Do you not yet see, that, if the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.

6:42 AM - 7 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment

Who let the cats out?

Um, Mira. That’s who.
So you’ve all read STRAY, right? Here’s the long awaited sequel (long awaited by me, anyway), and I picked it up on release day, yesterday, and sat down in the bookstore to start reading immediately. I missed Faythe! I suppose I have a weakness for young women who know their own minds and sport tongues sharper than my favorite stilettos, but it’s great to get back into her world (I understand the Marc love, but OMG, one word for you, kids: JACE.). I love reading about someone who is perfect in their imperfections - a work-in-progress, if you will - which is how I feel pretty much all of time. {wry g} Not to mention I respect and genuinely like Ms. Vincent herself. (Even if she won’t tell me her secret to writing faster!) You’ll never meet a nicer person, and her regular blog posts show just how much she values her readers and enjoys her job. So if you’re in need of an UF fix, Faythe is your girl. I know what I’ll be doing tonight!
Thanks, Rachel!

5:37 PM - 8 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

Just a drive-by...

On my way to the text.

I realize I need to blog more regularly, but my first drafts tend to be all-consuming...at least when I’m doing it right. I stopped, dropped and rolled for Easter - it’s frightfully similar to Christmas when you have little people in your life, of which I suddenly have more than a few - but after I kicked the bunny in the tail, I crammed all my appointments and errands into one day, freeing up the rest of this week to write.

I’m having a great time with book4, though it still constantly amazes me (but probably shouldn’t) how much time is spent sitting and thinking, sitting and staring, sitting and dreaming ... and wondering and discarding and re-evaluating. It sounds reasonable enough to say "I’m going to write 2-3K a day until the book is done!" but it doesn’t work that way for me in practice. Because no matter how much I’ve planned, if I’m doing it right the book veers off track in places both big and small. I also leave plenty of room for development as I go, which helps to keep things fresh.

For example, in anticipation of a scene I’m writing now, I "outlined" the following: "Jo enters this room to find Diana, who stole her wallet."

This tells me the who and the why...but it doesn’t tell me what sort of room this Diana would inhabit. It doesn’t describe the surroundings or tell me who else is there. So as I think and sit, and think and stare, and think and discard, I discover more about the setting and more about the character, finding that each influences the other in small increments until I can see the full picture. I jot these images in the text as they come to me, delete some of them as better ones arrive, and once the place is defined and I can see clearly enough, then I’m ready to write.

So what was in that room with the wallet thief and Jo? Well, here’s what I emailed my writing buddy who was helping me brainstorm a bit:

BTW, my simple water room has turned into a scene with a dowsing chinaman, and an underground joss temple. WTF?

Remember, I write fantasy. {G}

So this is one more reason why I have no use for the playful idea of a (non-existent) muse. Inspiration is found by digging deep enough and long enough and hard enough into your own psyche that you finally discover what - of course! - you were looking for in the first place. It feels like it was there all along, that the conclusion was inevitable, the story already written somewhere. That feeling is my dowsing stick, and how I know I’m on the right path and ready to set off around the next bend.

And now I must go research joss temples and dowsers and let Diana tell Jo - in a way that won’t get her her ass handed to her - why she stole Jo’s wallet.

I see more sitting and thinking in my near future. Hopefully there will be a few thousand words by the end of the day as well.

7:20 AM - 12 Comments - 16 Kudos - Add Comment