Crunch Time

August 19th.
Expected release date of Underbelly Series Book 1: Demons Dead  December 26th, 2016.
CRUNCH TIME!
I get in about 1K words a day. Today I went off topic & worked a bit on short stories, I admit. We all know, however, that switching up the work can be a good thing. And I'm being a good little writer, -on a Friday night, sitting up here in my writing cave, with my laptop going and my notebook with my longhand scrawls in it beside me.
I'm just procrastinating a tiny bit by writing this blog post. But see, this post is important, because I need to update my readers on my progress.
 I can reason my way out of anything.

Happy Friday evening!

KR

Writing Update

    Beautiful Sunday! Beautiful steaming cup of coffee on my left, and all my materials for working on Book 2 of the Broken Bloodlines series on my right. Those include my laptop (which I'm using to write this before I really dive in for the day), my Kishi Kishi binder(left hand picture)

full of sections of colored paper devoted to certain subjects, like character details, location details, etc. and a wonderfully designed composition book (right hand picture) (thank you VG!) that I use for chapter starts, writing out plot/character issues, and general writer's block breakthrough. I often find that if I start a chapter by hand it will start to plan itself out enough so that I can switch to the laptop. 

    I had quite a non-writing lull after I published Book 1. I don't know if it was just due to the career transition I was doing around the same time, or if I'll always need a break like that before starting the next. I hope to jump back into the fray sooner. I published Book 1 on Thanksgiving, and I didn't really dive back into Book 2 until about 2 weeks ago. 
  I'm giving myself a full 10 months to write this one, and a month for editing so I'm tentatively planning on getting this one out for Christmas. 
  Book 1: The Awakening has been well-received, and I already have people asking about the second one. If you haven't downloaded your copy yet, you can find it on Amazon here.
   Thank you all, 

  K

Happy Sunday!

Good morning, all you lovelies out there! I hope everyone is having a relaxing weekend, maybe with some reading? Of the paranormal type? Hmm?

 I am dealing with a bit of a headache right now, that I believe is caused by the amount of alcohol I might have consumed last night. A strong cup of coffee will probably take care of it, after copious amounts of water.

We had A's company Christmas party last night at the casino, plenty of shmoozing and good food. I thought my hooker heels would have been too much (Guess 5"ers, love them!) but then every bitch there had sky high heels on so I felt a little dumpy in my flats.

Two wardrobe facts that I have discovered along my journey of Full Time Adult Work Schedule, is
a) I might wear a size 8 in jeans, but with dress pants I wear a size 6, so that the pants sit above my hips and saggy butt is eliminated,
and
b) when buying pumps and any leather/leatherette shoes, buy 1/2 size smaller than you normally wear, cuz them dem babies are going to stretch like a bitch. I now have a pair of dress flats and a pair of pumps that are too big. Awesome.

I've been having a small creative dilemma the last couple of weeks. A few days after I published The Awakening, it occurred to me that while yes, Book 2 needs to be worked on, but technically, I've got a little bit of freedom to explore my other creative desires.
I would still love to make my own clothing line, and I heard that a certain mother-in-law might have purchased me a mannequin to help that along.
  I would also like to get back into painting, something I did when I was a teenager and I wasn't too bad, if I do say so myself.
  I just haven't been feeling the writing bug lately; I've got the first couple of chapters of Book 2 of The Broken Bloodlines series sketched out, but the urge isn't there. I'm still looking for it.

Any of you out there that read The Awakening, would you please leave me a review? Even just a short comment, I want your feedback!!
Love yall,
KelBel

The Journey to publishing The Awakening

My obsession with vampires came after I watched the first Underworld. Oh my God, I fell in love with the sleek pleather wrapped around Beckinsale’s body, and the Gothic blue/black background of the set. To me, that’s how organic vampirism is, with giant castles and dark stormy nights of bloodsucking.

    I first started putting down scenes and ideas for Broken Bloodlines back in.....2006? And when I tell you that this book has evolved over the years, it is so different from what it was originally. 

  Originally, the majority of the action took place in a stripclub (how surprising, I know) and our main lady friend Calissa, started off as Lakyra. I still love that name, too. There was a little more sex in the original version, but I made the sex better in the published version, haha. 

  Back when I started working on it, I was a night owl, still doing night shifts at the club.  I would sleep in till about 1 p.m., get up and make coffee, then write until about 4 when I would start to get ready for work. 

 If work was slow, I would take my notebook and post up at the tables against the wall, and write away until some money came through the door. 

  Here it is, the end of 2014, and the damn thing is finally out there. Much modified, but strengthened. 

  Enjoy! And when you finish it, can you leave me a review? Either here or email me at: kellyraine1818@gmail.com 

  Thank you all :) 

KelBel

In Celebration of NaNoWriMo

In honor of November 1st and the crazy month long writing fest known as NaNoWriMo, I did some research and pulled together three titles that were birthed out of the writing month. I personally have never been able to reach the 50K requirement, but someday.....

 These titles are awesome, and I was surprised at how many I was familiar with. Go WriMos! 

1. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

I actually know exactly where this book is on my library's shelves. I've had my eye on it, as I was reminded of such freakish circuses like those delivered by Ray Bradbury. I must definitely pick it up now that I know it was written by a WriMo.






2. Wool, by Hugh Howey

Maybe it's the fact that it takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting, or the fact that the survivors live in a giant silo (so jealous!). Whatever the reason, this book sounds amazing.








 3.  Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen 


Yes, I have a thing for circuses. This book is on my personal top ten- such a good story, tight narrative that successfully crosses generations, humor laced throughout, along with a dangerous love story.

E-Book release!!

                                                                                       

So this happened yesterday....

Meet my baby of almost 10 years in the making (yes, I got distracted a lot over those 10 years!) 

The Awakening, Book 1 of the Broken Bloodlines series. 

It's official e-book release is Thanksgiving Day, but you can preorder it here!

Here are the deets: 

One cold November night, a very special pair of twin girls were born. Little did those screaming, red-faced infants know that on their 19th birthday, they would both be plunged into the middle of a battle between ancient beings ...
Nashel is a large town with a special history. There are different kinds of beings that watch over it, and guard its precious cargo. Calissa and Kaellina Dorr grew up as outcasts on the edge of Nashel and are now sworn enemies. Both want control over Nashel and what its hiding under its many layers. Calissa, with help of the other ancient beings that inhabit Nashel, is trying to keep Kaellina from finding that which she so desperately seeks. Each sister has dangerous, new powers that no one in Nashel has seen before and the future will be decided by the winner of the war between beings.
In this first book of the Broken Bloodlines series, meet the main characters and learn the prestory of the Morgins.

Almost there....

It won't be long now before Part I of my preternatural series, Broken Bloodlines, will be released as an e-book! I am anticipating a Christmas release and I'm very excited! Broken Bloodlines features twists on new and old creatures, a whole lot of action, and an occasional scintillating erotic scene (of course!) There are many more 'parts' in the works and in my brain, so I hope that all my faithful readers will jump on this train and take this journey with me!


Willow Black Files Update (an erotic tale):
  Will Samson give up his post as a Naval Commander, to be able to spend more time with Willow? How will that change their relationship? Is it possible for them to spend too much time together?

Elemental Evil Update (A supernatural adventure series):
Who is Dr. Zoo? More importantly, is he friend or foe? Follow Samila and Morgan on an adventure of several lifetimes- and dimensions!

Catch up with the back story of both web series on the blog: kellyraine.blogspot.com and stay tuned for more!!

Resurrecting The Dead

I'm sitting in bed, using my laptop, with the fan noise to keep my company, and a snoring A downstairs.
 Yesterday, I was working on my 65th page of my manuscript, when I accidentally hit some buttons, and poof! I was staring at a blank document. I tried Edit-Undo, nothing. Searched around some more, nothing. Then I had the brilliant idea that hey, maybe it's floating out there somewhere, and if I save it, then at least it's saved somewhere out in cyber space. No, I just saved a blank document over the file, rendering it a blank document. Bye Bye 65 pages. No, I didn't have it saved in multiple locations, like smart people do.
 Earlier today, while at work, I was quite bummed about it. But then, reflecting on it, maybe it was supposed to happen. After all, it featured a past lifestyle- perhaps it wasn't supposed to be glorified in a novel. To be honest, it was a bit of a relief. I had the plot all planned out and was just really plodding through it (no pun intended) trying to reach the end.
 So, when I got home today, I took a long hot shower, and thought about the several novel ideas I have, and I also thought about my "completed" manuscript that I had fixed up into a somewhat presentable bundle and sent off to a publisher in Florida. This was 2009, before I left my ex-husband.
I had never been satisfied with the manuscript, and I will admit that I sent it off well before it was really ready to get into an editor's hands- early writer mistakes on impatience. Impatient for an agented, published work and the royalty checks. I'm still impatient, but I'm much more schooled on the writing process, especially how long it takes to get to The End and the Land of Royalty Checks.
 I found my old zip drive, which has my manuscript on it. I'm slowly converting it and waking up the cast of characters that I was so enamored with once upon a time.
Hey, it's still a bad ass manuscript.
K

Writing Bits

I still feel these days like I'm spread too thin with too many projects, and thus doing more wallowing than productive, forward-moving work. And eventually soon, I will have to take a full-time job so I can make decent money once again, and then I will have less personal time. Fuckin' adulthood.
 Anyways, I know a lot of you have been waiting for my second published work, and I am still piecing together my dancing adventures. I think I'm going just throw all my memories down, the strange and crazy things that I was a part of or witness to during my eight years.
 For those of you that haven't come (yes, pun intended ;) across my first published work, a wee bit of erotic poetry entitled Exposed, you can buy a copy here.  Reading over those raunchy lines, it always makes me chuckle. I was such a different person eight years ago, a much hornier person. It was exhausting having that constant flow of hormones, good god. I wonder if I hadn't danced, how I would have "distributed" some of that energy....? In that way, dancing was the best way to do so, being as raunchy and erotic as I wanted, within legal limits of course. Quite a few of them are about my ex-husband, and when my bff first read through it, she put it down and said, "---- has never read this, huh?" There was some raw, brutal truth in what I wrote, and to this day, I'm not sure if he has ever sat down and read through all of it. I'm sure I would have remembered his reactions, har har. *sigh* We were such kids.
  There are quite a few books published by ex-strippers, most of which are brilliant, shocking, hilarious compilations. However, I must do more research on whether there are some on dancing + life after dancing? And I don't mean the celebrity autobiographies.
 Keep it kinky, folks. 
K