Lainie-isms

I'm working on book 6 of Daughter of the Wildings. Book 5 and this first part of book 6 have been interesting to write. The series has two main characters, Silas and Lainie, and through the first four books I divided up the viewpoint more or less equally between the two of them, maybe leaning more to Silas. He's a fun character to write, and seeing the world through his eyes is an interesting experience. Because of this, even though I was also spending a fair amount of time in Lainie's viewpoint, I hadn't really developed her as much, and most of the quotable quotes from the books were coming from Silas.

Starting with book 5, due to circumstances the story has been entirely from Lainie's viewpoint, so it forced me to look deeper into her mind and personality and find out just what she's capable of. And I'll tell you, it's pretty impressive. She may be a Sweet Young Thing, but she's also pretty badass, and smart too. So here, to balance out all the Silas quotes I've posted, are some Lainie-isms:

Heading off on a possibly dangerous errand:

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Lainie didn't like it. This was the perfect setup for an ambush. She checked her gun yet again, then climbed down. "Wait here," she said to the carriage driver.
"But, madam, my instructions were--"
She cut him off by pulling a ten-gilding piece from her pants pocket. "Wait here and count to three hundred. If I haven't come running out for my life or if you haven't heard me scream by then, you can go."

Seeing a ladies' fashion magazine for the first time in her life:

Lainie found a seat on a couch just the right size for two people, and picked up an oversize, floppy book--all paper, with no hard covers--with a big picture of an elegantly-dressed lady on the front. 'Ladies' Fashion Monthly,' it said on the cover. Lainie flipped through it; it had lots of colored and black-and-white pictures in it of fancy clothing, fancy houses, fancy children, fancy food, fancy dogs, and short articles--like in a newspaper--about how you could go about achieving all that fanciness.

It's a trap!

She pushed her gun a little harder into the man's back. "What in all the hells is going on?"
"I don't know what you mean--everything seems to be going to plan so far--"
The end of her revolver went to the base of his skull. "The next lie you tell me is going to be the last thing you say."

Facing off against seven enemy wizards (actually eight, since the one she already shot won't stay down):

"I'm not the one who picked this fight," Lainie replied. She drew Silas's gun into her left hand. It was big and heavy, too big and heavy for her, but it made her feel stronger, like Silas himself was fighting at her side. "Show me what you've got."

Getting her first good meal in a long time:

She made her way to the kitchen, which was just as big and shiny and beautiful as the front parlor. The first thing her eyes alighted on was a pie--apple, she thought, smelling it--set out to cool on the counter. She moved towards it, wondering if Mr. Coltor was rich enough that he could afford to hire someone just to bake pies and cakes and cookies for him, like the people who read that 'Ladies' Fashion Monthly' book she had seen at the hotel in Sandostra. She hoped so, because that pie wasn't long for this world.

So, it's been lots of fun getting to know Lainie a little better. Book 6 is coming along; I'm getting to that terrifying point that I've encountered in all the other books of this series, where I know how it's going to end but only have the vaguest idea of how I'm going to get there. I've picked up some good plotting techniques from Holly Lisle's books and courses, which so far have seen me through. (btw, that's my affiliate link for her store. I'm proud to recommend her books, workshops, and courses because they've worked wonders for me.) Once this draft is done, the whole series will go through the first big, deep, major revision as if it was one book, so I can get everything consistent from beginning to end, then it'll go out to the test readers. If you're wondering how long that's going to take, I can't say, but I'm hoping to start releasing the series late spring/early summer 2014.

Also if you're wondering, I'm estimating that the whole series is going to come out at around 300,000 words, or approximately the length of one George R.R. Martin book. So I won't be asking you to spend the rest of your life reading big long honkin' books and waiting years for the next installment. Once I've got the series ready to start releasing, it will (hopefully) only be a few months between releases.

And a final note, I got a look at the sketch for the cover of book 3 a few weeks ago, and am hoping to get the final version any day now. It's gonna be so cool! Stay tuned for cover art reveal news :D

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