Awakening accepted!

I just keep having more and more good news on here, don't I?

My good news for today is that I just got an email reply from my editor, informing me that I should please consider printing out the contract enclosed and send it back to the publisher for my follow up novel to Unity.

Where Unity tells the story of Darcy's first awareness of the world of Faerie, and her struggle to find balance between it and her real life, Awakening follows her story as she leaves Kinvara and tries to make a life for herself in Killarney. Little does she know that the world of Faerie will follow her down into that town, and Faerie itself will not remain so removed from her world as it used to be.

The story is set in Ireland and shares the mystical history that the land is rich with. I'm very excited to be told that this story has a tenuous release date of March, 2009. So keep a look out for it!

And Unity is still currently available at http://allromanceebooks.com/product-temperanceunity-9894-140.html


Nikki Watson.
http://nikkiwatson.blogspot.com/

What does my Dark Tarot card mean to me?

I seem to be posting a fair bit in this half of the month. Must be a sign that I have more time available to me. Or maybe, since I just started university last Monday, it's a sign that I'm starting to better manage my time.

We can hope. :D

I'm really enjoying the promo for my newest release, Unity. I think it's because, of the novels I have published, this one is the one where I really feel that I have come out into my own. On one of the the chat loops to promote our books, a very good question was asked. "What does your card mean to you?" And it got me thinking.

I was very lucky when I finally submitted my story into the Dark Tarot series. The Temperance card was still available to submit FOR! Unity was already on my computer and written, and I knew the sorts of themes that it explored, yet there were a few cards that I thought it could fit well under.

For me, what cinched it was the wonderful cover art. I mean, look at
it.



Those colors, and patterns, my name there in the middle of it. *grins* Isn't it beautiful?

In Unity, I explore the idea of two girls falling accidentally into
the world of Faerie, a fantasy world above or behind this world. As
fairies and elves are commonly attributed to have wings at their back,
what better for me to find than a cover with that very same
illustration? Add to that the fact that the Temperance card itself
means balance -something that my girls Celeste and Darcy find through
the passage of their travels- and I was sold! I hope you all are too. ;)

I'd like to thank the creative team at Tease for creating something so
perfect. I know I'm not the only author here to think so.

Unity, published by Tease Publishing. Available Now!
http://allromanceebooks.com/product-temperanceunity-9894-140.html.


Nikki Watson.
http://nikkiwatson.blogspot.com/

Unity pre-release and an excerpt

Well, it's that time you've all been waiting for. Well, it's what I've been waiting for, at least!

All Romance eBooks now has my novel Unity on pre-order. http://allromanceebooks.com/product-temperanceunity-9894-140.html Come Tuesday this week, you could have a copy all of your very own for the reading!

Now that I've wet your appetite for that much, let me share with you an excerpt from the novel.

***

Night art classes were held at the local dojo twice a week. Celeste's teacher was a slight blonde woman who had missed her calling as a teenage cheerleader and, through affiliation with the younger--and therefore cooler--students of the class, was trying to recapture her youth. Currently, Susanna was strolling up and down between the crooked rows of canvases in her class, murmuring, “Yes, very good, very good”.

When Susanna arrived by Celeste's canvas, the dark haired girl looked at her expectantly. As Susanna stared at the half finished painting, Celeste expected her to make some original comment. When Susanna only smiled accommodatingly and told her to “Carry on”, Celeste deduced her teacher was quite blind or very deluded. She had been trying for something abstract against the central figure, but the perspective was all wrong, the colors didn't quite mesh, and there was a weird thing going on with the eyes that she couldn't quite seem to fix.

'Creepy, 'Leste,'

Jasper said to her, taking some time apart from his current work of art as Susanna moved on to another round of appreciative, “Ooh, very good” to other students.

Celeste shot him a sideways look at his sudden appearance there. Jasper shrugged.

'So, who's he supposed to be?'

Celeste looked back at the canvas. There was no salvaging it now. The best she could hope for was that Susanna's blind streak would continue into the marking phase, but at the same time, she didn't really want to depend on an ignorant eye for the benefit of her marks.

'I think I saw it in a dream.'

Celeste answered him shortly, pulling the canvas down from the board and turning to the paints on the table behind her to start putting them away. From the floor, the man stared out in all his magnificence, garbed in a medieval style tunic bearing some sort of intricately designed crest on the front of it.

As Celeste moved away and started sorting through the brushes she was going to have to wash, Jasper stepped closer to the discarded canvas, still staring, bringing his hand to cup his jaw as he studied Celeste's work.

'His gaze is striking… and the colors…'

'You're my friend; you have to say that,'

Her words were dismissive. Celeste walked to the sinks and started soaking her brushes before washing them there.

'Anyway, are we on for tonight?'

'Photography at the beach? Wouldn't miss that for the world. What time were we meeting up again?'

Jasper didn't pause at her change of subject as he answered. He straightened, easily coming back to remembering there was a whole other world outside of Celeste's painting.

All paints were packed, and Celeste stuffed the ones that were hers in her bag. The others she returned to the cupboard in the back of the room.

'After dark. Say about ten?'

Jasper nodded. When she returned to the stand she had borrowed, Jasper had her canvas in his hands and was holding it up to her attention with curiosity.

'So, what are you going to do with this?'

'Nothing. I'm heading off now. It's not like I'm going to get anything more from today. If you want to come around to my place early, Natalia's making chicken curry, mild.'

Celeste was busy picking the canvas and the stand up as she spoke. She laid the stand next to the others on the rack and then the canvas, she put with the rest of the used canvases, ready to be painted over and used anew. Jasper had his eyebrows raised; she was not usually so dismissive of any artwork she made. However, he returned his expression to normal well before she turned to look at him again.

'Ooh, just the way I like it. Tell her to make lots. I'll definitely be there.'



Unity, published by Tease Publishing. Available from July 15th.


Nikki Watson.
http://nikkiwatson.blogspot.com/

Unity - Dark Tarot

I have just handed in my line edits for Unity and I'm feeling just fine!

It's getting close now, due out in e-book later this month.



:D

And here's a synopsis for anyone who's missed it previously posted:

Obstinate Darcy and artistic Celeste lives cross, starting them both on a path into the world of Faerie, which draws them in and comes alive for them. Their lives become those of true ladies, of balls and gorgeous men in dark cathedrals, as the world of abusive stepfathers and fits of depression are left behind them. As they change for their experiences, they realise that they a balance must be found between their Faerie travels, which they visit in their dreams, and the Real Life of their waking world.

I'll be back soon with excerpts!


Nikki Watson.
http://nikkiwatson.blogspot.com/

Reader/Writers

It's been a while since I wrote here. Time to dust my spot off, I think, and make a long and insightful observation. :D

I still would like to maintain, that after the last three years that I've been finding ePublishers around the place who want to publish my writing, the best part about the ePub industry are the people you come to meet and get to know. It's hardly a controversial statement to make that ePubs open and close, will give you grief and tears of happiness, but the friends you make, people who you can trust to read your work and give you an honest opinion, and the people who's work you can read in return, are the most valuable part of the ePublishing industry, and indeed, the most valuable part of any writer's art.

Having just finished a previous project (a project set after Unity, titled Awakening) which took me the better part of half a year to write to its completion, I have recently started on a new project, the next in that series. I like to think that the series I am creating has something of a Charles De Lint slant. I've spoken about him before. Just check the tags for previous posts I've made about the fantasy author. All of the stories I am writing right now are a part of the same universe, but the characters who are main shift and change and accommodate include new characters that bring new life and interest to a series that I think would be much less if it depended on previous novels.

But these are my novels. Of course I think they are something special.

After coming out the other end of a horrible stint of writer's block, with the help of one of my reader/writer friends, I only want to thank all of the people who are patient with me, who love to read my writing, who love that I read theirs. I think that all of you know who you are. I dearly appreciate you.

Thank you.


Nikki Watson.
http://nikkiwatson.blogspot.com/

What a pretty description, doesn't it completely make the story?

I was having a positive conversation with a friend about this old description in an as yet, woefully... foolishly? unfinished story that was started almost a year ago.

Con lifted her head, shifting the blonde bangs from her eyes. Her walk, she had down to a fine art. Even her mother could not fault it.

From behind, she appeared as a boy. Thick, platform Mary Jane shoes covered her feet, and were covered over by straight black suit pants of a boy’s cut. With that combination, Con looked as tall as many of the boys who walked the halls, and a little taller than some. That her blonde hair cropped up against the back of her head, and only a scant amount of fringe flopped over her eyes, was exactly the look she was going for. She knew she could dip her head and smile at any of the first year girls, and they in turn would smile, and blush, before finding their friends to talk about the very effeminate boy who had just flirted with them.

Con had met up with a Swedish student by the name of Kjell a little bit into her first year at uni. Brunette where she was blonde, Kjell’s walk was nothing like her own, for all that he was a member of the male species. His hair was tied back in a ponytail to the length of his shoulder blades.

‘Trying to impress the newbies?’

His deep voice made her smile, and look up into his kind green eyes.

‘Whatever would make you think that?’

‘The poets shirt. You always wear that when you’re trying to impress someone.'

It got me to thinking of other descriptions that I have used for characters over the last few years, and I was looking at a small book that I had stopped using until recently.

It's only large enough to jot disjointed ideas down in note form when I'm nowhere near a computer or completely in the mind track of doing something else, like sleeping, or being on rickety PT, or having a conversation with someone. But these were some I found, and some characters that I want recreate just based on the fractured descriptions.

Her usually bright eyes were bloodshot above high cheekbones.

Blonde hair that he'd forgotten to tie up that morning framed jaw line and compassionate blue eyes in a disheveled mess.

Chocolate brown eyes asked her a silent question as his dark fringe fell into his eyes, again.

The line of his nose and mouth were thinner, perfect for the look of distaste he pulled when he was displeased.

It seemed like she was only moving to stop herself from curling in a corner and crying the rims around her eyes even redder.

His eyes were watchful, even when his attention seemed to be elsewhere.

Newest Dark Sister

So I'm the newest member of the Sisters of the Dark Moon. My name is Nikki Watson, and it's so lovely to be posting here with the lovely ladies Sabrina Luna and Katrina Strauss. My writing interests tend mostly towards romantic fantasy, with a current leaning towards fairies and folklore. I have already started talking about the facts and fiction of fairy, faeries, fairy tales and fellow authors of fairy fiction over at my personal space on blogger: http://nikkiwatson.blogspot.com/

You will find my writing over at New Concepts Publishing, and I expect that I'll be putting excerpts here from time to time. Currently, my novel Changeling: Of Elves and Men is currently on New Concepts' eShelves and can be purchased! Ascent and Haunted, the second and third books in the 'Of Elves and Men' trilogy, will soon be found in the same place.

Here is the cover, I'm pleased with it


No doubt I'll be posting again here soon. ;) Until then.

Nikki Watson.
http://nikkiwatson.blogspot.com/