So I made a Facebook fanpage

Yeah I gave in. I'm all over the place right now with my media. It's like playing where's Waldo - except with Nicole.

If you want updates on Rifts or any of the books I'm writing - you can get the skinny here - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nicole-Hamlett/270230679667759

And it's a wrap!

The first draft of Rifts is finished. I came in at 76,197 words. We'll see how much that fluctuates in editing.
I did the Snoopy dance and maybe the Cabbage Patch.  God I love how it feels to finish a draft. :)

Sometimes I actually update my blog...

http://www.nicolehamlett.com/blog/5-writing/22-whoah-nicole-where-have-you-been.html

NicoleHamlett.com is Live!

I have a swanky new website which is where I'll be updating. If you aren't following me there yet, you should be. :)

www.nicolehamlett.com is the address.

We're Moving!

I am really super excited to tell you that nicolehamlett.com is moving to my new website soon!  My friend Troy Pruyt who runs 78 Industries created an amazing, beautiful website for me that will allow for forums, product descriptions, the blog and all sorts of bells and whistles that I can't seem to wrap my head around.

Wooo!  What this means is - the blog will still be here, but the address will change.


In an unrelated note - Rifts is open and I think I'm back to it. Huzzah. The goal was to have it published by August 1st. I think I slipped on that deadline quite a bit. However, not to fear - I have people working on nagging me to finish so we're going to get there and it may just be a few weeks late.

Hunkering Down.... Or Not

The goal was to get the first draft finished by the end of this week.  I uh.. didn't do that.  However, I am on version five of Draft 1. O.O

It occurs to me that there is a reason that Huntress took nine months to write. Between the kid (who just got back last night), the job (which has been demanding quite a bit of attention) and um.. maybe dating (don't ask, it's not worth telling), Rifts hasn't gotten a whole lot of attention from me.

I'm trying to incorporate the feedback from the more positive reviews and I'm reading about creating a better flow. It used to be that Grace would "speak" to me and I'd write whatever she wanted me to. Well she doesn't always have her shit together and insists that I deal with it on my own. Which I struggle with.

Herein lies the biggest problem. In the midst of channeling Grace, I wrote something horribly magnificent for a cliff-hanger and actually just horrible. Because I can't slap it into the middle of my book without nuking the bejesus out of something in the end to top it, I have to fill in a hundred pages of - well - filler.

There is still character development to be done since I have new characters and she's spending a lot of time in Olympus during this book. (Sorry Colorado Springs, I still love you.) So I could make things happen but I find that I'm still exploring different plot concepts. Which - if I were a better, more disciplined writer - I would have done in the beginning.

I swear, I had an outline. But uh.. it got ignored and then burned into a steaming pile of ashes and refuse. Okay, maybe it was followed loosely.

Anyhow, it's coming along. Last word count was 37,198.  I have four days off over the weekend and no significant plans other than hanging out with my child and pretending that I'm an attentive, well balanced mother. I am attentive... but the well balanced is an over-exaggeration of epic proportions.  He accepts it so, I will too.

Maybe I'll strike gold in the inspiration department and get this baby wrapped up. Because then you know, I have to re-write the entire thing once or twice before it goes into editing.

...And your Funny LoL Catz Moment

Grace in the Movies

So you're exclaiming WTF!? You got a movie deal? Hah, I wish. But no.

My friend Jon and I have fairly ridiculous conversations on a regular basis and I'm talking to him about getting a Publicist or a Manager - someone to deal with all of the marketing crap that I don't want to do or deal with.  And invariably, our conversations lead to movies. This is what happened today. The names have not been changed to protect the innocent. Fuck him. He's not innocent.  And I say that with as much love as one platonic friend can have for another.

Jon: books spoil their films so i tend to watch films :P

Me: I don't think that Grace is getting a film honey

Jon:mmm film honeys
look if some idiot paid for Book of Eli or Sucker Punch
you can have a goddamn movie

Me: I want a god damned movie!

Jon: that's better

Me: or at least someone to purchase the god damned rights to the movie
I also need a rich husband who will buy me a new laptop so I can write in the comfort of my deck chair

Jon: almost seems like it could be another kate beckinsale in tight rubber pants movie

Me: she'd have to wear Cargo pants, but yeah, I can see Kate as Grace

Jon: tight rubber cargo pants...work with me lol

Me: okay tight rubber cargo pants.

So if anyone decides to buy the rights - Please keep in mind that only Kate Beckinsale in tight rubber cargo pants will do. <.<

That is all.

Reviews - The probable downfall of a writer

So I'm a Community Manager.  You have to develop a pretty thick skin to be successful in this career.  I've had people tell me that I should be fired for my incompetence. One person told me that I sucked. I had another tell me that I should kill myself and save the company from having to fire me. That was over a contest judgement.  So yeah, thick skin.

I thought that this would come in handy as I read the reviews of my book.  I of course want honest feedback but I can't say that little daggers of hate pierced my soul as I read a few lines from some of them tonight.

The thing is - they were honest and they were right. As I wrote Huntress, I worried that Grace was a little whiny. I also said myself that the first two chapters were boring. You don't get into the good stuff until like Chapter 4.  So I can't get all butt hurt about them. They were right.

The good news is that I get to take away this feedback and ensure that I get right to the good stuff in Rifts.   I have a few concerns about a direction I'm taking with the relationship between Grace and Drew. It's a little Emo to be honest but it feels like it progresses the story. After all the title of the book is called Rifts. It means much more than a chasm between worlds and dimensions.  Rifts are created every day in relationships, in jobs, in life itself as people make decisions. 

Whereas Huntress was about the metamorphosis of a woman dealing with an incredible amount of change in her life, Rifts will be how she deals with the fallout of that change and continues to grow as a warrior and as a mother.

Am I more nervous now as I write the words? Yeah. I am. But the underlying message I received from those reviews is that these people liked what they read overall. That is promising and gives me hope. :)

I'm huge in Belgium

Actually I'm not, but I love the line from Singles and I've been trying to find a way to work it into a post forever!

I just sold my 100th book this weekend which completely unraveled me. I cried. I cheered. I drank a little. But then the migraine came back along with a head cold and I've spent the brunt of the weekend in bed. Nobody needs this much sleep. And my house... Oh yeah it's a disaster.  So today while the Bubby is at his Dad's house, I'm going to clean the crap out of it and do some writing.

Grace is pissed about the lack of attention.  I'll remedy all of this and hopefully I'll be at 50% by the end of the day for Rifts.

Someone asked me what Drew looked like in my head.  So let me tell you.

Chris Pine's Eyes (cause they're beautiful)
Ryan Reynold's Body (Cause it's amaaaaazing)
Jensen Ackle's Hair, lips and Chin.

Dreamy.

However, there's a new man in town. His name is Hephaestus. He's not what you would expect. Or maybe he is.  He's been talking a lot to me.  I don't think that he'll be a romantic entity in Grace's life, but he's going to be a very very big part of it.   He intrigues me so much that I want to tell his story.  I don't know how that will work. I've never thought to write from a male perspective before. We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, my kitchen is calling and so is Riftsd1v4 (Yes, I'm already on Version 4 much to my editor's amusement.)

Chasing Butterflies

So I'm in the midst of a self pity spiral where I'm pretty sure nobody else is going to buy my book and I'm going to be left begging for spare change on the street corner wearing a Giant Banana costume with no panties..and God only knows who's worn those things.. I could die. I COULD DIE! 

And then, my Incredibly Awesome Friend IM's me the link to Hyperbole and a Half's post that she's got a book deal. If I didn't love that blog so much I'd go into "how fucking nice for her mode" but in reality, I'm super stoked for her because she makes me laugh and anything that makes me laugh is good. Anyway - the conversation that followed also made me laugh and I had to share it. IAF's name has been spared - this time anyway - I can't guarantee future anonymity.

Nicole:  I'm supes happy for her!

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     I wish you had that post made for you

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     about your book

Nicole:  Me too

Nicole:  I need to figure out how to market it without actually having to market it with the spare time I don't have.

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     yes

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     HAHA

Nicole:  I'm feeling super sorry for myself

Nicole:  and it's a little nauseating

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     oh honey

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     what for?

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     the book?

Nicole:  that and I'm in the midst of this inability to write because I wrote this incredible chapter that I have no idea where it came from and it's knocked the shit out of everything else I wrote

Nicole:  it could be the ending

Nicole:  it could be in the middle

Nicole:  but I don't know how to top it

Nicole:  I'm utterly fucking stumped

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     here's what you do

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     you go get whiskey and some porn

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     and stop thinking about it

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     and then you dance around your place like a mad woman to awesome really loud music

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     and maybe you cry about shit at like 3 am

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     and you wake up the next morning and its there

Nicole:  I like this idea

Nicole:  granted, I can't do whiskey and porn until tomorrow night when the kid goes to his dad's house

Nicole:  but I like where this is going

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     haha yes

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     that's sorta like

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     what most of my days are like

Nicole:  lol

Nicole:  My muse left me

Nicole:  she was talking my head off. I couldn't write because I couldn't sit up from the migraine and then she suddenly said "Oh, you're not going to write? Well fuck you then. I'm outta here."

Nicole:  and it all goes back to that one day when I left Alex's god damned laptop in my car and it was stolen and I had to give him mine to make myself feel better as a parent which leaves me writing at my desk on my desktop in this horribly uncomfortable chair where I'm about to go postal on some M&M's because I can't take the pain..

Nicole:  I have to blog this conversation

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     and I find that the THOUGHT of speaking out my ideas into a recorder SEEMS really awesome and CINEMATIC

Nicole:  because it's too ridiculous not to

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     but I have found out that I get stage fright when alone with my phone

Nicole:  Me too@

Nicole:  and then I hate the sound of my voice

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     like it is this frigid cold judging slice of technology mocking me with it's fucking record button & there I am quivering in all of my blabbering nonesense trying to sound really interesting

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     I may as well go hit on people who play tennis

Nicole:  YES!

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     because that is equally absurd

Nicole:  fucking tennis players

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     REALLY?! TENNIS?! IN YOUR FUCKING OUTFITS?!?!

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     with your automatic ball slingers?

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     get the fuck out

Nicole:  It's like they're mocking sweat and dirt. and me for getting both sweat AND dirt on myself when I bother to exercise

Nicole:  I hate tennis players

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     hahahah

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     glad it's settled

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     we went from writers block to porn to tennis in about 5 minutes

Nicole:  hahahahaha

Impossibly Awesome Friend:     new record of tangentalnessnessness

Band of Horses and why I can't write about Hephaestus.

Sometimes I get this song stuck in my head - Band of Horses - No One's Gonna Love You

It's happening right now as I'm trying to sleep. I woke up singing it. O.O (That is my 2 a.m. gotta sleep but eyes are wide open look)  "And anything to make you smile. It is a better side, of you to admire." Aww it's such a great line...

It stops becoming such a great line when you've sung it over and over and over and over again before finally getting out of bed, rubbing your oh-so-tired eyes and said OKAY! I GET IT! I'LL WRITE ABOUT FUCKING HEPH!

That's what I would have screamed if it weren't 2:30 in the morning and every normal person living around me weren't asleep.

Beyond the brain bashing migraine I've had this week, I've found it incredibly difficult to write about Hephaestus.  I want him to be more than the drunken fool who was tricked by Dionysus to free his shitty mom from imprisonment.  The bitch threw him off Olympus and broke him... why should he have freed her?

I kind of also don't want him to be lame.  Not Lame as in - Dude get a life. But Lame as in - Broken. 

Adonis was an easy write. He didn't remind me of anyone. There was no role model for him to spring from. I completely went against all mythology when I made him... mostly...  I think that he wrote himself. I thought to myself.. who is the dreamiest man on the planet? And then I sexed him up a bit and gave him a personality.

Heph doesn't want to be pretty. He wants to be a badass recluse who makes amazing creations from metal and doesn't feel the need to leave his forge. He's a bit grumpy. He's a lot grumpy. He's also a bit pissed off about the bad rap he got with Aphrodite and Ares.  In my head they weren't married, but they may have had a kid. It's important for me to make him something special. I think it's mostly because I'm a defender of the underdogs and he feels like an underdog if there ever was one.

I also feel like he wouldn't be such an important character if Grace and Drew weren't battling it out right now.  It's like having Mom and Dad fighting. I'm not sure what to do with them and she's already got a female mentor in Athena. She needs to balance that out.

I think I just zoned out there... what was I saying? Oh right - Why can't Heph just write himself and I could go back to sleep. :)

What to do... What to do...

As I finish up the first third of Rifts, I'm struck with the thought that perhaps I'm not doing enough to market this book. Perhaps I'm not doing enough as an Author to further my career.  I can concede that I'm a fairly busy woman. I work full time. I am a mother. I am a friend and I write. I write when I have time and sometimes even when I don't.

I have to ask myself, what could you be doing Nicole that you aren't doing right now? Obviously I need to market the book more but that nagging voice in the back of my head says - You wouldn't have to worry so much if you had an Agent or a Publisher. They would do most of this for you. You could continue to blog, work, Mom and write and not worry about it half as much.

But then I read blogs that claim that most publishing contracts only give the Authors 25% of Net. That's not gross. That's after costs, taxes, etc. That's not much.  It certainly doesn't seem fair.

So I'm left with a choice. I can continue on as I am - write as often as I can, publish as often as I can and try to do the best I can to promote the book. Or - Find an agent and see what comes of it.

I feel like Huntress was a pretty decent book. It is marketable and the series / characters are enough to move forward with.  I've read worse. O.o  This is certainly one of those times when I wish that I had a magic 8 ball that could tell me what the best road to take would be.  It would certainly allow me to stop being neurotic about it. :)

Oh how the mighty have tripped down the stairs and wanged the tailbone

Something has happened in the last few days. Grace has gone quiet. I still wrote 1500 words today, but it's not that chattering dialogue that I enjoy writing and reading.

Honestly, when the magic happens (yes I said magic, don't mock) it's like I'm not even there. The story just happens and I'm along for the ride, allowing my fingers to be used as the instrument of mass destruction.

Grace needs to learn how to create a Rift.  She doesn't know how to do it. I don't know how to do it... We tried to force a solution today and let me tell you straight - Both of us are pissed off about it.  It's a cop-out to send Diana back to Alancea wounded and carting the nefarious Geb.  Then Zeus and Grace looked at each other and realized that the only way she wouldn't come back from that is if she were dead. Grace then smacked me upside (or inside I should say) the head and said - Fix this bitch!

After grumbling a somewhat hurt "piss off" I realized that I wasn't sure how to fix it and gave up before wandering off to the web where I checked out a few new places to haunt.

One of them is http://www.booklending.com/index.htm  I especially like it because you can borrow and lend others your Kindle books. I've already lent out four books. I felt so good that I was spreading happiness and joy because I don't particularly like to lend out my paper books. I'm very very possessive of them because I get them back dog-eared or slobbered on ... or not at all God forbid!

I don't have to worry about it here. So I'm good.

Another new place I discovered but am going to work really hard to avoid is Zappos. Oh my Goodness! Yes, that phrase was said with a breathless sigh.  I didn't buy anything. I stopped myself before adding something to the cart. Next time my darling Maxi-dress.... next time.

No, I have not fallen between the toilet and the tub and expired from thirst....

Publishing the book took a massive amount of energy. I had to copyright, make sure the formatting was correct.. upload... upload again because I'd forgotten the description.. have anxiety.. have more anxiety and then proceed to check the sales every fifteen minutes for an entire day.

It's okay to say I'm neurotic. I am.  Finally after a frenzied bout of insomnia and the resolution that I *would* quit sniffing glue, I settled down and started writing Rifts.

It's going really well. Grace is being saucy and since she's got a new audience, her chattering in my head is nearly constant.  Yes, I've already asked around to make sure that I wasn't suffering from split personality.

For future reference, those who do suffer from multiple personalities aren't usually aware of the others.  So yeah, I'm just slightly schizophrenic! Yay!


Okay, back to the book - Rifts is coming along well and I've done the one thing I said I wouldn't do - I let Grace run away.  With this said, I think that it's integral to the story and in the end, she'll be better off for it.

Teasers (because I'm a tease) are coming soon.  I'm 12k and change words in and trucking on at a decent speed.  The kid is at his Dad's this week so more writing should occur.  That is if work behaves.

So much to do, so little sleep to be had.

That's Gina's awesome final cover. It's beautiful. She's amazing. I wish that she had a website so I could link the hell out of it.

Huntress is published. I've been walking around murmuring, "I'm kinda a big deal now."  Well, and sobbing and laughing and whooping like a 12 year old boy. 

I thought that writing the damned thing was going to be the hard part. No, the hard part is marketing it and getting readers to read it and buy it and review it (hopefully they're good reviews). 

I have amazing friends who went out and bought the book even if they weren't into the genre. I feel so blessed and obviously disconnected because I can't string five sentences together without popping to a different thought or subject.

Anyway.. Huzzah it's up!

Day of Reckoning

Is all of the HTML formatting correct? Did I run a final spell check? Did I swear too much?

All of these things are running through my head as we come to the final moments before I push the button and publish Huntress - A Grace Murphy Novel.   I'm waiting on final cover art and then it's done.

I've been dreaming of this moment for what seems like my entire life. I had my first poem published thanks to Miss Casee Chamberlain who sent it to our High School's newspaper / letter.  I can't remember the name of the Poem or even the words, but I remember that it was full of teenage angst and emotional diatribe. I'd probably be pretty embarrassed to read it now. Yeah.. I was that emo.

I'd wanted to write a book for so long but I was discouraged by people who said "It's so hard to get published. The rejection letters are heinous!"

Now, I don't have to rely on a publisher. I'm going to distribute Huntress through Amazon and SmashWords and try to market the hell out of it and start the next one.  It's a dream that I'm not willing to ignore anymore and thanks to awesome e-book distributors, I don't have to.

I want to thank every single person who has given me encouragement and strength over the last year while I wrote this bad boy.

Thank you and I love you. :)

Female Victims in Writing... WTF?

I'm reading a new book and I realized quite suddenly that females are often made victims in novels. It's something that disturbs and disgusts me.  You see it in bodice rippers - Ramone rips the gown off of Miranda's chest and takes her lips. She struggles at first and then always gives in.. What the fuck Miranda? Seriously, kick the guy in the twig and berries. You don't have to take that crap?

I'm seeing it right now in the new book. The woman's husband is cheating on her and he takes her kids and kicks her out of her own house. Why? Cause she's a vampire and he can't deal. What does she do? She takes it. She just lets it happen. 

This made me realize that Grace gets the crap kicked out of her.  A lot. She's kidnapped, beaten up and tortured at one point. However, never in any of those moments does she give in. She's strapped to a metal table in one scene, completely immobile and what does she do? She smarts off.

I'm not a feminist by any means. I'm too lazy for that title. However, I'm also not a girly girl. I was raised by my Dad and the one time he took me to the mall to buy bras, I ended up in the Navy.  So no, I don't wear dresses and no, I don't burn my bras. I lie somewhere in the middle where I fantasize about sitting under a shady tree, dressed in a sundress with a wide brimmed hat as I type away on my laptop about a badass single mom who does everything she can to provide stability for her kid.

Never in that fantasy am I any sort of victim. I imagine that most of the women I know feel the same. So again, I ask - What the fuck? What's with all of the victimization going on here?

Why the Dentist and Star Wars doesn't work for productivity

I am a delicate flower. I'm the girl that goes camping and then spends most of the week trying to keep her fingernails clean because sticking dirty digits in your eye is not an acceptable lifestyle choice.  I'm not just talking about fingers here ladies. Keep dirty digits out of your eyes. 

I digress. So I'm the delicate flower who also has a nest of 6 pillows, a down comforter, memory foam pad, air mattress and down mattress pad to sleep on in her tent. All of this creates an uncomfortable place to change, but at least it's a decent sleep.   This spawned a conversation one night around the campfire with my Bestie Michelle that I needed to write a book on Camping for Delicate Flowers.  I think I'd had a few too many glasses of mead. It happens. You get around a campfire with booze and you suddenly become prolific.

So where was I? Oh yes. I had to get some extensive Dentistry done over the weekend and because I'm such a huge wuss, my amazing Dentist said - "Nicole, why don't we try Nitrous Oxide for you? It will help take the edge off."  In case you didn't know, the other known name for this is Laughing Gas.  I being the adventurous type and totally afraid of pain said "Hell yeah, let's do it."

The following is how it played out -

They put a pretty pink mask over my face with huge plastic tubes coming out each side and every breath I took sounded like the Dark Prince himself.  Schoooo  Schooooo Schooo..  I texted it to said Bestie and said - Nitrous Oxide mask makes me look like Darth Vader and her reply to me is exactly the reason she's my best friend.

She replied.. Luke... Luke...

I took a picture.  No, I'm not going to share it. It's not very flattering and her response was - Definitely should NOT be your Facebook photo

She was right. It's not going up there. After about 20 more minutes of giggling and feeling oh so dainty I texted - Hey, remind me to write that book on Camping for Delicate Flowers!  I don't remember why I said it or exactly what was going through my mind that is sounded like a profoundly good idea.

She got it and reminded me today why I wanted to do it.

So here is the moral of the story kids... laughing gas, star wars and the dentist don't mix when you're trying to come up with really great book ideas.

Huntress Teaser

I know that I've got a lot of friends who are anxious to read the finished product. Soon my lovies... Soon. However, I'm not a total troll. I'll give you a teaser...

I was so stuffed.  I'd had to unbutton my jeans or run the risk of putting out someone's eye when it popped on its own.  We'd dropped Dylan off at Brandon's place on the way home from Rose's.  I was decidedly lacking in the Christmas Spirit as I refused to get out of the car.  Instead, I gave Dylan a kiss and told him to remember that I loved him more than there were stars in the sky - and that he also had a secret to keep.

Drew had helped cart in Dylan’s bags and I’d smiled as I heard Brandon ask Dylan who he was as Drew got back to the car. Sue me.  It was petty, but I wanted him to think I had a hot boyfriend.

I yawned when Drew got back in the car and leaned my seat back. "I’m glad that the holidays only happen once a year. I’m so stuffed I feel like I could sleep ‘til next Christmas." I groaned and burped loudly.

"Wow, you are such a lady," he said wryly.

"I know. It’s sexy right?" I grinned and closed my eyes.

"Oh yeah, how you’re not already married again is a mystery."

"Screw you. Oh God. I’m going to burst like an over-ripe melon."

Drew chuckled and slowed down to pull into the drive. The car jerked to a sudden stop and I slammed forward into my seatbelt.

"What the fuck!" I exclaimed looking at him in disbelief. "Where’d you learn how to drive?"

"Shut up," he ground out. "Look at the house."

I turned my head and it looked like someone had blown out every window on the ground floor. I gasped in surprise and quickly unbuckled my seatbelt. I was opening the door when he grabbed my arm.

"Wait a minute. You can’t just go rushing headlong in there. You don’t know yet what did that to your house. Pull out your weapons."

I nodded dumbly and called in my kukri. I added a .45 for good measure and looked at him expectantly.

He nodded his approval and slipped out of the car - calling in a short sword and a scimitar. He’d shown me that jabbing and slicing weren’t generally done with the same weapon. He’d been surprised when I’d chosen the kukri because it was a good weapon; small and very deadly – good for multiple types of strikes.

"Follow my lead and don’t make a sound. If I tell you to run, you run like the Hounds of Hell are at your feet. Do you understand?"

I opened my mouth to protest and he shot me a deadly look. "Grace.  Do.  You.  Understand?"

I nodded but there was a mutinous look in my eyes. I’d be damned if he got left behind under any circumstances. It would have been nice if he’d shown me the blinking in and out trick.

In stealth mode, he crept toward the entrance, slipping in and out of the shadows. The door was half off of its hinges. I was surprised that one of the neighbors hadn’t called the cops, and said as much in a whisper.

"The house is glamoured. Nobody can see this damage if they’re norms."

He knelt and peered around the doorframe. I knelt too. I wouldn’t have thought to do that. And it was a good thing I had because several darts flew through the space where my head would have been had I just walked into the entryway.

I stifled a gasp. Drew shot me a murderous look and told me to shut up with his eyes. I took a deep breath and nodded to let him know that I had it under control.

He skirted past broken glass and crept into the room. I followed slowly, soaking in the devastation that had been wreaked upon my house.

A taloned foot protruded from the kitchen entry. I touched Drew’s shoulder and jerked my head toward it. His eyes widened in surprise.

He moved so fast toward the kitchen that it looked as though he’d popped from one place to the other. I couldn’t wait until I was able to do that.

Swearing softly, he knelt by the creature. My mouth dropped open. I’d never seen anything like it. Parts of its body looked like they were made of iron. Its gaping maw was filled with razor sharp metallic teeth and prongs of spiked iron protruded from its forehead over a single frost paled eye.

I shuddered and bent over, heaving for breath. The body was missing an arm and part of a leg. A large jagged hole cratered its chest. It looked like Scooter had given this demon a workout. Good dog.

I wasn’t a noob when it came to gore. Hell, I’d killed more Orcs than anyone I knew… Online.  In a game.  But real life has a way of making it all look a little more gruesome.

My eyes scanned the surrounding area and noticed other body parts scattered over the carpet into the living room.  I walked numbly toward where we'd left the loot of Christmas morning and wondered idly if a cleaning service could get these stains out.  I stopped and stared at the utter destruction of one of the happiest days of the year.

"Grace, what are you doing? Get down," he hissed at me.

The tree was shredded.  Presents - so lovingly gifted - were strewn about the room, broken and torn. My eyes fell on the DVD set I’d been so happy to give Drew that morning and it was like someone had flipped a rage switch within my body.

I moved forward, a Christmas ball crunching under my foot. I lifted it to see a miniature picture of Dylan when he was five and closed my eyes, my body burning to murder whoever had done this to my home.

A crunching noise sounded behind me and I whirled, ready to decapitate the intruder. It was Drew. His face was tense. He looked as angry as I was at the destruction.

"Any more?" I mouthed.

He shook his head and nodded at the door to the basement. I took that as a sign that we were going down.

"Don’t forget," he whispered.

"I won’t. I’ll run."

I wasn’t just talking out of my ass this time. After seeing that creature, I was going to run if I had to. 

He silently swung the door open further and I squeezed my eyes shut after seeing what was waiting on the other side. Scooter’s large ebony eyes stared blankly up at me.  His head was lying neatly at the top of the stairs in the same position I’d found him in so many mornings on my way downstairs. Head down, waiting with those soulful eyes for me to come bounding down the stairs for my training sessions.

The problem here was that the rest of his body was missing. I didn’t want to see this. This creature had caused me more terror, pain and agony than any other - but he was mine. He was Dylan’s "dog" for the love of God. Nobody decapitated Dylan’s dog and got away with it. I was going to kill this motherfucker.

Drew grabbed me before I could go storming down the stairs. He took my face in his hands and stared me in the eye, warning me. I shook my head and fought off the tears that were threatening to overcome me.

"I’ll go down first. You back me up," he mouthed.

I nodded and grabbed hold of myself. I could do this. I had to do this. I had to be strong for Drew. I just thanked God that Dylan hadn’t been with us.

Drew glided down the stairs. As his foot touched the last step, iron talons flashed, ripping open his shirt. Had he been any slower, his stomach’s contents would have spilled onto the basement floor.

I stormed after him, raising my kukri as he dodged under the scaled arm, stabbing out with his short sword.

Hello is anybody out there?

The countdown has started. The plan is to publish Huntress on Friday which means that it will be available on both Amazon.com and Smashwords.com Saturday May 21, 2011.   I'm really hoping that the Apocalypse doesn't bork up my plans. Is it cheeky to make the publish date, the same day as Armageddon? Maybe. But I'm nothing if not cheeky.

Here's the latest version of my cover. Isn't Grace gorgeous?