Late last year, I blogged about having daily excruciating eye pain and how it was affecting my quality of life. At the time, there seemed to be no answer and no real relief from the pain except prescription painkillers which was The Worst Plan Ever. Didn’t want to become an addict or spend my life in a drugged haze (for the record, all they did was make me extremely dizzy and loopy. Not fun, especially when you were dizzy to begin with…). So I did some digging.
So I saw this great post by Kristin Lamb and thought I’d do one of my own. 😉 Here we go! 1. You might be a writer if…your characters have held an intervention because you weren’t writing (yes, this happened to me. While I was at work no less). 2. You might be a writer if…you spend more time inside your head than anywhere else. 3. You might be a writer if…you know how to do several weird and quirky things because research (my weird and quirky thing is brainwashing. What’s yours?) 4. You might be a writer if…your characters whisper in your ear ALL THE TIME. (Yep, that happens. ALL THE TIME).
So, I’ve been in between projects for a bit. I haven’t felt motivated enough to dive into Fireborn or Survivor yet, so I’ve been noodling about what comes next. Per my muse, it needed to be brand spankin’ new so most of my projects were disqualified. And I have plans of getting back to the waiting ones (**cough** Fireborn and Survivor and maybe Ever Touched **cough**) but I needed a break. So that’s when I rediscovered The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo. If you’re not familiar with the idea of ghost marriage, it’s where a woman is married to a deceased man for various reasons — to placate a spirit that’s restless (hauntings) or to provide lineage to a child, or even to elevate a concubine to wife. (Here is the Wikipedia link that goes into more detail.) When I first learned of this, months upon months ago, I thought it was really intriguing. How would a woman feel to be married to a ghost? Would the ghost acknowledge the wife in any way? And, lastly, how does it work, exactly (apparently using an effigy dressed in wedding attire as a stand-in for deceased spouse-to-be)?
Since we’re less than 2 weeks away from the release of Grave Touched, book 2 in my Fey Touched series, I thought I’d talk about, well, Grave Touched. So, for your reading pleasure, ten facts you must know. Like, now: #1 – I started Grave Touched three years ago in June, right before I released Fey Touched (book 1). It went through three separate rewrites and countless revisions to become the story it is today. #2 – The grave touched were originally zombies, but zombies were getting overdone. And I liked the idea of ghosts possessing people so they can have bodies again.
Erin here. I wanted to give you a sneak peek of Grave Touched, book 2 of my Fey Touched series, releasing May 1st from Turtleduck Press. Not long now! (Also? Fey Touched, book 1, is on sale for $.99 right now. Check it out if you want to catch up!) Whispers. A flicker of thought. My eyes wouldn’t open. Panic sliced through me. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. “It’s okay, Em. You’re okay,” a familiar male voice said. A hand stroked my brow. Nick? Was Nick here? My beloved Nick could always soothe me, keep me from the edge. “Em…you’re really here,” Nick said softly. “You’re alive.” Alive? Of course I was alive. I opened my eyes, wincing. A tall human woman watched me with gray eyes that I was sure peeled layers off of me. “Emily, I’m Doctor Lucia Jonath. You’ve been under my care for a few weeks now because you were in an accident.”
Today is St. Patrick’s Day, and I am Irish, so…ten things you never knew about me (and were afraid to ask). 1. My great-grandfather on my father’s side was from Dublin. He apparently kept his accent even though he was living here. My maiden name, Conroy, is about as Irish as you can get. 2. I have been trying, on and off, to learn Irish Gaelic and have been unsuccessful. It’s beautiful, but tough to learn.
So, as most of you know, I’ve been revising Grave Touched since Feb.1st, and I just hit the halfway mark last night after a marathon session of cutting, condensing, and my personal favorite, second guessing. Yep, that’s right. I got great feedback. I also discussed a few things over email with KD and Siri, and I feel better than I did but…the doubts always creep in.
I turned Grave Touched in to my editor on Jan. 1st, and have been between projects since then. I wanted to work on something, anything, so I started thinking about what I could work on until my edits on GT hit. I decided to write a novella in the Reaper Girl universe and resurrect a languishing novel that needed a rewrite (but only on Sundays. It’s a long story). I also wanted to start Fey Touched book 3, Ever Touched, sometime soon so there would hopefully not be three years between it and GT. With me so far?
Here we are with my final progress report for my Year of No Fear. It has been a crazy year, and I did accomplish a lot. But not everything on my list, unfortunately. So here’s the run down: Ice skating – My first time was 1/4/14, and I didn’t fall! Hubby and I managed to get out another two times, plus one last Saturday, 12/13/14. We are planning on doing more after Grave Touched is turned in.
Those of you who have been following my shenanigans know that since February of last year, I have been suffering from severe chronic eye pain in my left eye. It happened suddenly, and as far as I know, it hasn’t affected my vision. But the pain has been excruciating, and it’s constant. I’m on a nerve pain medication for it, but I have to stay on a low dose to prevent terrible side effects. So I often have breakthrough pain. (I am, however, very thankful that I didn’t go blind. That would have been much worse.)