Keeping Bad Company - First Look

I wanted to share a whole chapter this time - chapter 3, since I want to withhold chapter 1 just a little longer. It's a pretty explosive first chapter ;) All text under the cut because of spoilers and language. So if you haven't read God Love Her - you can find it here - and don't want to be spoiled, stop reading now!

Raw text, so apologies for typos.

Happy Friday, and happy reading.

Workshop Wednesday - Covers, Front and Back

Today, I forced myself to knuckle down and get my covers done - front and back. I'll be honest, formatting photos and back cover copy is tedious and my least favorite part of this whole book thing. I'm a storyteller, not a marketing guru. It has to be done, though, and I'm always happy with the outcome.

Front cover: I like covers that are unexpected enough to catch my attention, and subtle enough to make me want to know more. I always make at least three, show them to my beta readers, and see which one they gravitate toward.

Less is more - The more complex and layered the image, the less memorable it will be in the readers' mind. You want a distinct, clear focal point that leaves a definite impression. When I do book events, everyone comments on Made for Breaking. It's a strong image, but not a cluttered one.

Keep the audience in mind - for some people, sweaty, tangled bodies on a front cover will be a repellant (like for me. I don't read any books with writhing, unclad couples on the fronts). But those same tangled bodies will attract other people. Think about the content of your book, and why your readers are choosing your books. My books contain explicit sexual content, but those scenes are not the reason my readers read my books. The focus for me is on character and story and setting, so the covers are never explicit.

Back cover: There's a great blog post about persuasive back cover copy here.

My personal spin on the process is:
- Play the trailer in my head. I cram the story into mental images, complete with music and voiceover, and imagine what big points the trailer would focus on. The book's snapshot, if you will.
- I set out the conflicts, and signal that characters will be forced to make choices. You'll have to read the book to see how it works out. The back cover is all about setting up conflict.
 - Focus on the big conflicts, and keep it short and thematic. What are the big issues? Who has the most to lose?
 - I don't talk about the sex because half the fun is finding out when, where, how. Sex is a given, might as well not spoil it.

Back cover copy is like flirting with the audience, intriguing them, making them want more. It's not exactly what the book's about, but the vapors of it. A hint. There is such a thing as too much information, when it comes to fiction. You want them to experience the novel, not pick it apart or mark their places by certain expectations.

Sometimes, I shorten and punch up the online book summaries, make them even snappier and more appealing, though I may have longer synopses on the books I have in stores. Online shoppers have reviews, blog links, Twitter links, and other factors that help them decide, whereas an in-store customer has only the book.

I'm so glad to have Keeping Bad Company set up. Glad I took the time this morning. Full synopsis below, subject to tweaking, because that's my prerogative :).

When their family was threatened, the Russells made a pact: no more secrets. But Johnny’s secret isn’t one he can share. To keep his father safe, he prospects with the Black Dogs Motorcycle Club, diving headlong into a whole new depth of counterculture, tangling himself in a war that his family started…and his new biker family is going to finish. If he wants to patch in, he must prove his unswerving loyalty to the club. If he wants to protect the people he loves, he’ll have to learn to live with outlaws.

Arlie Scott, runaway, bartender, longs to escape the mess she’s made of her life. It gets messier the night she flirts with the cute biker boy across the bar…and witnesses a murder. Now she’s swept up in the dark world of the Black Dogs, forced to trust Johnny Russell when he says he won’t let anything happen to her, determined to find her own place in this antiquated land of leather and lies.
 

Evil lingers in the shadows, threatening families of blood and brotherly bond. In this third installment of the Russell saga, the family will be put to the test, fighting a common enemy alongside the might and malice of an unstoppable outlaw force. Johnny must choose between two worlds, because he can’t belong to both, and he can’t betray either.

Keeping Bad Company,  Copyright © 2014 by Lauren Gilley

 

 

All American Magic Roses

 

 

 

 

Casting Shadows

I was making shadow puppets on the wall of Markus's stall the other night while I filled his water buckets. Because filling water buckets is one of those small drudgeries of horse ownership. He was unimpressed. He's an unimpressable kind of horse.

The shadows got me thinking.

The things that have impressed us in life - they've left shadows over us. A shape fell across us and we looked up and marveled. And at some point, we got big enough to realize we were casting our own shadows, across the things we love. The shadows are the un-retouched, honest shapes of ourselves. And we can't pull a Peter Pan and slough them off, go looking to have Wendy sew them back on again. They're with us always.

My shadow falls across my writing and that used to frustrate me. There were things I refused to do, and I hated that I couldn't stop refusing them. It was like wishing not to be spurned by the cool kids, though I'd never buy a new wardrobe, toss my hair, and try to become one of them. I've come to realize, on this book journey, that it's not a matter of refusing to do things. I can't change the shape of my shadow, is all. Becoming aware of that has gotten me to a comfy spot. It's enabled me to more fully embrace the joy of writing a male lead like Johnny Russell, who doesn't fit the mold and is so much more fun because of it.

Monday Ramblings

I woke up with words this morning, so it was writing first, blogging second. Some days it's just like that - the alarm goes off and there, hovering over me within easy reach, are the words that eluded me the day before. It's a nice feeling.

I don't know about y'all, but I got my margarita on this weekend, so it's a nice sober Cinco de Mayo for me today.

I spent a good chunk of time painting the veggie garden fence, getting sunburned and paint-spattered. There's still paint on my hands I can't get off. As you can see, I'm far from done. Still have to get the pergola, and go around the inside of each picket. And that's just the first coat. I had no idea a 16x16 garden would take so long to paint. My farrier pointed out that it looks a lot like a cemetery; now, I can't look at it without thinking that. Because it does. Wish I was still blissfully ignorant on that front, but hopefully the white paint will help.

 

 

Mother's Day is coming up. Trying to think which dessert I want to make. Something chocolate, I'm thinking. Maybe a different spin on the ice cream pie I made a couple months ago.

Hoping to get tons of writing done this week, and be able to share the first few chapters of Keeping Bad Company very soon. (Friday, but don't quote me on that)

Have a great Monday.

Lines 5/3

My favorite of the day. I've been planning this scene from the beginning, and am so happy with the way it turned out.

**

 

Keeping Bad Company,

Copyright © 2014 by Lauren Gilley

            “Come on, Preppy,” Mercy said, slipping off his apron. “I need a smoke.”

            Johnny followed him, grateful for the sharp punch of night air in his lungs, the rush of it across his face. Crickets sang in the tall scrub grass and tree frogs answered them. Dew beaded along the top of the van. They put their backs to its hood and Mercy shook out two cigarettes, dangling one from his lip as he passed the other to Johnny.

            He’d never been a habit smoker; he’d pilfered some from Lisa here and there when she’d been blowing through a pack a day, during the dark, post-disbarment days. A part of him had always thought guys like Sly, and the Dogs, smoked out of some deep-seated need to look James Dean-cool.

            Now he understood different. He waited for the lighter and then breathed the tar down deep into the dark corners of his chest and let it counteract the poison of what he’d just witnessed. The white plume of his exhale chased Mercy’s up toward the stars.

            “Preppy,” Mercy said on an inhale. His voice took up a mantle of detached benevolence. A storyteller’s voice. Just one word an invocation to forces higher than the two of them standing here at the van. “Do you know what a black dog is?”

            Johnny glanced sideways at him and lifted his brows to say, You.

            “Not a Black Dog,” Mercy corrected. “But the black dogs we’re named after. The old British legends. You know about them?”

            “No,” Johnny said, and heard the soprano calling of the Muse, as she reached down and laid hands to Mercy, and turned the big Cajun biker into her conduit of ancient tales.

            “The legends go all the way back to the Isles,” Mercy said. “Nobody knows exactly where they come from, but around those parts. Places like Dartmoor. Stories of big black ghost dogs with glowing eyes. Some said they were bad spirits, others said they were hellhounds. Even the devil himself, come up to pay visits to haunted men at crossroads. They meant death.” He took a long drag. “Guardians of the underworld.”

            Cricket song filled the silence. The Muse hovered above them.

            “Our founding father was British,” Mercy continued. “Back all those years ago after World War II. See, most people think all OMCs got started after ‘Nam, but that’s just when they started getting noticed. They were around before then. We were.” He flicked white ash into the night. “We came to life when the dark underbelly needed some…guidance.”

            “Guardians of the underworld,” Johnny repeated.

            Mercy nodded. His fathomless black eyes slid over. “Listen, kid, I know what some MCs do; I can’t speak for them. But I know that when a man gets to a crossroads, and a Black Dog comes to call, he’s brought that shit on himself. Do you understand me?”

            Johnny forced a humorless chuckle. “There’s outlaws among outlaws?”

            “And honor among thieves. But there are people who need sent to hell. That’s what Dogs do. And the dark side of the world knows that.” He leaned in closer. “And respects it.”

            Beneath the slow-thump of revulsion was the pearlescent dawning of acceptance, of having been included and trusted with tradition. Johnny took a hard pull of his cigarette and tried to rectify it all in his mind.

Come What May

It's hard to believe it's May already. Where have the weeks gone? It feels like yesterday when I was typing about the snow, and now the iris are blooming. I need a clone. I need at least one version of myself to be writing at every hour of the day and night. There's too many stories I want to tell, and not enough time in which to tell them. I have to take them as they come, I suppose, and not question the muse.