Christine Amsden

I finished a solid draft of “Songbird,” the second book in my Paranormal Mystery series. Since I Only came up with the concept about this time last year, I feel like I’m making excellent progress and best of all, I’m still excited about the story. (When I’m not having the usual author doubts….you know the ones I mean.) My biggest challenge right now is secret pacing. There are a lot of things I’m excited for the reader to learn but I need to find the right balance between revealing enough to keep the reader interested and revealing so much that there’s no longer any point to finishing. I’m beginning to think I’m not very good at keeping secrets because my bubbling tendency is to spill all.

While Songbird is getting its behind kicked by some kind peer reviewers, I am going agent shopping for its prequel, Kiss of Death. I’ll be querying a lot of agents, but what I really need is one who not only likes fantasy, but also mystery and romance.It may be a tough sell to the romance crowd since the love story takes all 4 books to resolve, but IMO, that is still its primary classification. It’s a love story. It’s also a fantasy, a mystery, and a coming of age story.

I know it’s been a while since I’ve updated my blog and I apologize. The truth of the matter is that I’ve been so wrapped up in writing my new series that I can scarcely think of anything else. I can say without hesitation that what I’m writing now is the best work I’ve done. Book one in the planned 4-book series is complete and I will soon be on the lookout for an agent to represent it.

“Kiss of Death: A Paranormal Mystery”  is the full title of the book. It tells the story of Cassie Scot, the daughter of powerful sorcerers, who has no magical abilities of her own. She sets herself up as a private investigator and attempts to lead a normal life, but normal eludes her.

The book is cross-genre, with a strong mystery component and an equally strong romance component. The mystery will be solved in book 1, and new mysteries will frame each of the 4 books. The romance, on the other hand, will be ongoing throughout the series and be the glue that binds them together.

The mystery in book one does involve vampires, largely because this is an easy way to begin familiarizing the reader with the world I’ve created. This is *not* another vampire novel. The vampires are almost incidental and I have no plans to include them in any of the sequels (though anything is possible).

As far as romance goes….in book one, Cassie is trying to decide if she wants to take her relationship with her boyfriend to the next level and is disappointed when she finds out that his idea of “the next level” is moving in together. Meanwhile, she runs into an old friend that she hasn’t seen in years, one who has grown up a lot since she last saw him. She finds herself attracted to him, but he’s a sorcerer and she wants to live a normal life.

I wrote this book from start to finish in 7 months — the fastest yet. Before that, I did spend 2 months working on concept and series development, to make sure that book 1 properly set up the rest of the books and laid out the groundwork for some surprises coming up later on.

I began book 2 right around Halloween and have already finished my first rough draft. That’s right — 3 weeks. Fingers were flying and I was in flow once again, living this story as I wrote. I’m pretty sure I’ll have this book done by this summer and while it might be risky to work on sequels when the first book in a series hasn’t sold, this is what’s in me to write at the moment. The story is simply demanding that I tell it.

I’ll have more updates later.

I realized today that I forgot to update my blog about the completion of my new science fiction novel, The Immortality Virus. I finished the book in November and am now shopping it around.

The Immortality Virus is set in a world in which humanity has stopped growing old thanks to an unknown change that occured in the mid-21st century. The world is overpopulated and warring factions have split the United States into local and regional city-states. No one has learned what caused The Change. Many cling to their near immortality and are unwilling to let anyone else find a way to undo it.

Grace Harper, a blacklisted PI, is among thsoe who feel The Change was a bad idea. There isn’t much she can do about this until one of the richest men in Kansas City, Matt Stanton, asks her to find the man he believes started it all.

I enjoyed writing this book a great deal. It’s more action-packed than anything I’ve written before and Grace will find herself in a great deal of danger. But I still like to write strong characters, and Grace is that. She is a lonely woman afraid to connect with others, who outwardly does not feel she needs anyone else. During this story, she finds herself reunitd with an old lover she has tried to forget and she meets a new man — someone else she might be able to love if she let herself. Which will she choose? I wasn’t sure myself until the final draft.

I haven’t posted a lot about my current projects, mostly because past telling you that there are new novels forthcoming, it’s not interesting to talk about the day in, day out process of writing. But as I’m currently stuck and have nothing better to do, I thought I’d give you an update. :=)

I’m working on “The Immortality Virus,” which I’m sure I’ve described before. It’s a far-future science fiction novel set in a world where everyone has stopped aging. That is, they grow up but they never start going through the process of degenerating, which starts (according to modern theories) somewhere in the mid-twenties. (Yeah, I know, it’s kinda depressing.) The main character is a private investigator charged with finding the man who caused the human race to stop aging — assuming he’s still alive.

I have written an entire rough draft, had it critiqued, and am now doing a plot-level revision. I am adding a major subplot and rewriting the story to fit the new events. There are also a few chapters that are getting complete rewrites because my wonderful and honest readers said they sucked. Not usually in so many words — they’re pretty tactful!

It’s harder to concentrate on this project when my mind is preoccupied with the marketing of “Touch of Fate.” Nevertheless, it’s time for me to finish a second novel and get it out there on the market to see how it does. That is why I have set my goal to finish the novel (100% finished — edits, revisions, formatting, etc.) by May 2008. That still gives me plenty of time to work through the plot changes and then go back and make it sound good.

After finishing the Immortality Virus I planned on moving on to a new rough draft — Born of Two Worlds. Instead, I suffered 3 months of pure, agonizing writer’s block. I couldn’t force myself to put a single word on the page.I don’t want to get into a long discussion of writer’s block today. There are many causes and just as many solutions. For me, this time, the solution was to gtive the first two chapters of “Born of Two Worlds” to a friend who gave me a few tips and assured me that this version i far superior to the original.

Now I’ve written 4 chapters in 2 weeks (and those weeks included Christmas and New Year’s). Sometimes, you need a little outside perspective to help you see the way through.

I thought it would be fun to keep you up to date on what it is I’m working on for the future. Touch of Fate is my first novel, but it will not be my last!

A month ago I put the words “THE END” at the bottom of a new rough draft — The Immortality Virus. Just as with Touch of Fate, The Immortality Virus began as a short story. I came up with it in August of 2005, shortly after sending Touch of Fate to Twilight Times. It did not take me long to realize that The Immortality Virus was too big for its breeches. It needed to be a novel from the start.

I took notes for a few months, had a baby, and then started writing the rough draft this past spring. Over the summer, I started working with two writers I met online who both have promising futures. We exchanged chapters every week and it encouraged me to keep producing.

I wrote The Immortality Virus a little differently from Touch of Fate. I did less planning and outlining this time around. I developed a character, a world, and a story problem. Then I let my main character, Grace, run around the world and try to solve the problem. I had fun, not knowing what was coming next. I introduced a love interest to her and had no idea how it would turn out. (Actually, I still don’t know – I may change it in the rewrite!)

I finished my rough draft just in time to set it aside and work on some marketing for Touch of Fate. My plan is to do a partial rewrite and thorough revision next summer, making use of the comments I received from my readers.

The Immortality Virus is a science fiction novel set about 450 years in the future. Humanity has stopped aging and as a result, there are terrible cultural and political problems. Grace Harper is a private investigator who is charged with looking for the man who messed up the world by stopping the aging process – at least, if he’s alive.

The reason that I have chosen to wait until the middle of next year to finish this is that I want to have time to distance myself from the rough draft so that when the time comes, I can look at it with a fresh eye. Also, since Touch of Fate will not be released to paperback until next year, I am not in a hurry to get this book out yet. I want my first novel to go for a spin.

In the meantime, and in between marketing, I am going to start work on another rough draft. Wish me luck – it’s the first book in the science fantasy trilogy I’ve been working on since I was eleven years old! (Back then, it was a single short story.) Last year I received some excellent advice and feel confident that I know what to do with it this time. (Yeah, yeah, how many times have I said that? But this time I’m older, wiser, and have the experience of having finished a novel.)