update

Posted on June 9, 2013 by Melanie

A few things happening…

1. Goodreads giveaway! I have listed a full Dark Angel Chronicles set under the first book, Starfire Angels, as a summer giveaway on Goodreads here: http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/54843-starfire-angels. All five books signed and sent by me. Sorry, U.S. addresses only. (Shipping overseas is pricey on that many books.)

2. Shards is finished in first draft stage at 29,000 words. I completed that about a week ago.

Before meeting Keeper Korali, I was Commander Rajeun Leksel, one of the best of the Shirat Empire’s elite soldiers, a Keeper killer. My beloved changed me in her life and in her death, but even she wasn’t aware of the dark secret lurking inside. Now, I must confront that secret, even if it breaks me. If I fail, I risk a final rest with my beloved in death. If I succeed, I gain the potential to lead my world from darkness.  The choice is mine.

3. Back to work on Phantoms part 2. It’s not an easy story to tell, but it will be interesting with some major revelations coming about the Shirukan. Actually, in thinking about it, most of Revelations is about the Shirukan and not so much about Keepers. Right now, I guess that’s what interests me most and keeps me going.

4. So far, so good with my horse. He’s working in a full-cheek indoors and right now, I’m only trusting him with the pelham outdoors, for my safety. He’s also been having fun getting turned out in the bigger outdoor arena, but he pushes himself. When he extends past his usual limits, he ends up putting his back out. On the one hand, he needs to do that to build up the muscles that will hold his spine in place better, but on the other, in getting to that point, he needs frequent chiropractic work. But he’s gorgeous when he extends to his limits! I wish I had a video. He might not be an elite warmblood (*snort* like I have that kind of money! I could barely afford him, and then only because yearlings are the cheapest age to buy.); but he does have some fantastic movement in him. I swear when he’s moving that beautifully, he’s overtracking at the trot by a good 3 feet and making it look effortless. He just doesn’t have that front-end movement that the fancy warmbloods do.

5. Depression. This is a cyclical matter anymore. Lack of sleep, dreary days, and the summer sales slump are all conspiring against me. Hopefully, the sun will stay out for many more days now, so I can get out and walk and soak it up. That will help everything for me without medication…except sales. I can’t control how my books sell. It’s the time of year. All I can do is advertise and promote and hope some of you are here because you found my books and enjoyed them. Welcome to the darker side of an author’s life :/

6. The website makeover. I have hired a designer to remake my website. Hopefully by the end of the month, it can be up and running. It’s going to be fabulous! This is another weight on my shoulders, because it costs money. I need to do it. My site is so…dull. Blech. I need something to better highlight the books than the text-heavy pages that are up now. I made the current site (the one showing on this day, 9 June 2013) with a free template. Now, I’m upping my game to a professionally-designed site. It won’t cost a fortune, but it will still be towards the upper limit of my budget. Both melanienilles.com and starfireangels.melanienilles.com will be upgraded. I can’t wait to announce the new sites!

7. Publishing schedules. I may have to make a few adjustments to when I expect different books to be out. I am pushing five books through next spring right now: Phantoms Parts 1 and 2, Shards, Prophecy, and Tiger Born. It will be keeping me terribly busy. Luckily, my kids are better able to entertain themselves this summer, so I don’t have to worry so much and can get more work done, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be doing things together, keeping me away from the computer and writing work.

I hope to get Phantoms Part 1 (exclusively on Amazon and am considering Select for this one), out in August sometime, but I won’t put it online until it’s more thoroughly edited, which could push it back to September. About a month after that, I plan to put out Shards. Probably about two months after that, Phantoms Part 2 (exclusively on Amazon) and the complete Phantoms (SA: Revelations Book 2) everwhere, along with the paperback. Hopefully, I can achieve all this before Christmas.

Shortly after that, I’d like to get out the newly edited version of Tiger Born with a new cover. You might have noticed that I have taken this off sale. My apologies to anyone who wanted to read it. While I feel the writing is stronger in this book than in any of my other books, I want to rewrite the first few chapters and the blurb to go with the new cover (by Paul Davies, who has done all three of the white dragon books).

Last of all, the true first book of the White Dragon series, Prophecy, will finally be released by late spring 2014. This is a project that has been on my mind for some time but which I have delayed because I basically have to rewrite half of it. That’s a lot of work, especially since I haven’t really done anything in the world for over five years (not counting the editing the others received before being released two years ago). My writing has changed since then and it’s going to require some work to adapt everything. Since readers have been demanding more Starfire Angels, that’s the series I’ve been focusing on.

8. Thanks for your continued support! I couldn’t continue doing this without you :)

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Blurb writing 101

Posted on June 3, 2013 by Melanie

The first thing readers notice is the cover. Next, it’s the blurb. This is your “back cover copy” describing your book. For either ebook or print, it’s what the retailers list as the description online.

Writing the blurb is a skill unto itself. How do you condense that whole story into a few lines of interesting text to tease the reader into opening the book? It’s no simple feat. It takes a lot of trial and error and practice, although I’ve had books where the blurb wrote itself and required only a little tweaking.

More often than not, it’s harder to write than the book was, but I do have a few tips to make it easier.

Here’s what I make sure my blurb includes:

1. Main character/s

2. Setting

3. Main Conflict and maybe one or two other secondary conflicts (depending on how closely they are interrelated)

4. Consequences of failing to complete the most important task/resolve the conflict

5. Written in the same POV and voice as the story

It’s really that simple. Right now the writers out there are snorting their coffee and yelling “Yeah, right!” Truthfully, these are the basic elements but making them work is a challenge.

I’d like to use my most recent blurb as an example, for my fall release of the novella, Shards:

1. (First attempt, written before I finished the story): He was destined to be one of the best Shirukan, one of the Shirat Empire’s elite soldiers trained to eliminate Keepers, until a chance encounter with a special Keeper named Korali changed everything. Now, Rajeun Leksel must confront a dark secret he buried long ago for the chance at a new destiny.

2. (Second attempt, in the same POV as the story but not quite the character’s voice): These hands will never be the same. I’ve changed and can never go back, only forward, now one of them, like my beloved Korali. She changed me in her life and her death. My life has turned upside down from what I knew as a Shirukan, a meistal soldier of the empire that is no more. I was Commander Rajeun Leksel. Now, I am someone else, although I’m not yet certain who I am.

I never would have expected this. I finally understand what they already knew…

3. (A friend’s effort to combine the two): These hands will never be the same. I’ve changed and can never go back. Korali, my beloved special keeper Korali, she changed me in her life and in her death. I was destined to be one of the best Shirukan, one of the Shirat empire’s elites soldier’s trained to eliminate keepers. Now my life has turned upside down from what i knew as a Shirukan, I was commander Rajeun Leksel. Now, I am someone else and although I’m not certain who I am, I do know i must confront a dark secret I buried long ago for the chance at a new destiny.

4. (My final rewrite inspired by my friend’s efforts): Before meeting Keeper Korali, I was Commander Rajeun Leksel, one of the best of the Shirat Empire’s elite soldiers, a Keeper killer. My beloved changed me in her life and in her death, but even she wasn’t aware of the dark secret lurking inside. Now, I must confront that secret, even if it breaks me. If I fail, I risk a final rest with my beloved in death. If I succeed, I gain the potential to lead my world from darkness.  The choice is mine.

It doesn’t always work the first time, but in trying and failing and continuing to focus on the main elements I want the blurb to convey, it came together with the voice of the character, the story line, and the risk that he faces. It’s not difficult to realize that this is a setting that isn’t Earth.

That’s my process for writing these teasers. I may still tweak that blurb, but you can see with each of the four that they had their own good points and bad points until I was finally able to find a way to bring all the best points together.

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expanding Starfire Angels

Posted on May 28, 2013 by Melanie

SAClogoSAonly200I’ve had this idea for a while but have been wondering how far it might get. I don’t know if enough interest exists to make it a viable option. You tell me.

I would like to expand Starfire Angels but I don’t have time to do more than what I have planned for the next few years. That leaves me in a bit of a dilemma. The Inari history is vast as a technological culture, especially its intermingling among Earth cultures. I don’t have time for all the research that would be needed or the time to write more books than what I’m working on now. Readers, however, want more. I am only one person.

Although I may not have the time to fully realize the potential in the series, I think many of you have the writing talent, the time, and the desire to play in this world, which allows for so much exploration and diversity. This is why I am opening the world to others, BUT there will be RULES to follow.

Stop whining. They’ll be pretty simple. IF you want to get paid and earn writing credentials, you’ll follow them. Unauthorized work can ruin the experience for everyone. Think of this like the Star Wars expanded universe books and licensing and you’re on the right track ;)

If you want me to go through with this, please comment here. If the interest doesn’t exist, you won’t hear anything more, but if enough people want to participate, I’ll go ahead and post the rules that I’m developing.

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Another first draft done

Posted on May 27, 2013 by Melanie

Whew! What a frantic pace too!

The rough draft of Shards clocked in at 29,000 words, or a tad over but close enough. I started this project just under three weeks ago, so this is a frantic pace for me, averaging around 1.5K/day in word count (especially given the beginning when it started a little slow). I could only do it because the character was so compelling.

This is one character’s back story I have wanted to explore in more detail for some time. Readers of the Dark Angel Chronicles loved him and wanted more. However, I knew his story was dark, too dark and sexual for DAC and its PG-13 rating. I wasn’t sure how I was going to go about writing it. But I knew I wanted to at some point.

Then I realized the Revelations series was going to head for the adult audience and step out of the young adult genre entirely. Deception came along and that led right into Phantoms, and then a song came on the radio that fit this character so well that I started thinking about Revelations book 3 and what I had planned for that and I added in a lot more concepts that I hadn’t expected but are so exciting I couldn’t resist. That led to Shards to set it up. What a thrill ride! This is the part of writing that I absolutely love. When a character takes you on their journey and insists that you reveal their deepest, darkest secrets, it’s impossible to say no.

So, Leksel will tell his story his way, although not as I had considered. Writing first person for him flowed naturally through the whole process. His voice is deeper and more contemplative than you might expect from a soldier of his caliber. He’s not a big talker, but he is a thinker. I guess I always knew that, but bringing it out in this format was different. He revealed far more than I ever expected.

Originally, I expected his story to be only around 16-18,000 words, but as I wrote, I started seeing it expand and then expand more. I’m sure it will be over 30,000 words by the time I finish editing and am satisfied with the final version.

A teaser (not the final blurb):

He was destined to be one of the best Shirukan, one of the Shirat Empire’s elite soldiers trained to eliminate Keepers, until a chance encounter with a special Keeper named Korali changed everything. Now, Rajeun Leksel must confront a dark secret he buried long ago for the chance at a new destiny.

I hope to release this before October, before the full version of Phantoms in November. I’ve numbered it as 2.1, because it actually takes place right after the first part of Phantoms yet will set up the third novel of this series.

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another piece of the puzzle

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Melanie

My horse is the puzzle, a challenge for me to constantly work on. I love challenges, or at least those that are not so far beyond my skills and knowledge that I wouldn’t be able to overcome them without a hundred more years of youthful vigor.

In this case, my horse experience, experiences shared on the internet to search and find, and knowledgeable professionals have given me what I need. I think I have an answer to my horse’s runaway problem and something else I haven’t gone into detail about–his often swerving and sucking back going into the trot.

Yes, he can be difficult, but that was in the loose ring snaffle. Before that, I had tried a few bits on him. The most effective was the pelham–a second rein with leverage when I need it. The next most effective was a full-cheek snaffle. (I started him in a double-jointed snaffle before runaway issues the first time prompted me to try the pelham.) I switched to a Herm Sprenger bit after trying my instructor’s bridle a couple times. But given the issues that came up over last winter and his evasions returning–yes, returning–I should have seen the incident a few weeks ago coming. He could be good sometimes, but usually gave me some difficulty.

Returning to the pelham and the full cheek was not difficult in the least. I even tried returning to the loose ring the other day and all his evasions popped back. As soon as I switched bits, he was prince charming again. I thought the flash attachment might help (don’t worry–it’s only tight enough to keep from slipping around his chin, plenty loose) and then found my full cheek and decided to put that on. No issues.

I can’t get inside his head, but after finding some threads in forums online and talking to a trainer, I think I might have an explanation. Full cheeks provide stability along with the pressure they exert on the sides of the face. Loose rings allow greater movement of the bit but also  pulling of it through mouth, completely unstable in its movement. Every horse is different in what they prefer and/or need to do their jobs. My horse seems to enjoy dressage and we have fun together, but he also has his insecurities.

I believe the pieces of the full cheek offer some sort of security to him that the loose ring doesn’t. He just seems more willing to go forward while maintaining control. I offer the reins slightly when asking for a higher gait, so I can say it’s not because of my hands that he stays steady. His poll is the highest point now, but he’s just as willing to stretch. He’s been collecting better with the bits having the straight metal bars on the outside than in the loose ring, although I admit that that and his improved straightness may be due at least somewhat to the action of the bit. It could be that he needs the security but it could also be that being such a dominant personality, he also needs a little more persuasion, although I’ve noticed an absence of his old leaning habits. Getting him to move from the hindquarters is much easier in the full cheek.

I can only speculate, but I may just keep the full cheek as his usual bit and put away the Herm Sprenger permanently. One never knows, because every day is different.

I’m keeping this online journal more for my own reference, but I hope my discoveries can help other equestrians looking for the same answers.

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New DESTINY cover is here!

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Melanie

Tada!

LOTWD_Destiny1000

Artwork by Paul Davies, who will be doing the cover for the prequel of this series titled PROPHECY. Look for that one in early 2014. The cover will be revealed in a few months.

This new cover is going up at retailers, but it may take a few weeks to appear at some of the smaller stores, like Sony and Kobo.

For now, here are all three covers together of the ebooks you can download and purchase (Legends is free!):
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more than I thought

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Melanie

Shards is turning into more of a story than I had planned. What you can expect will be more than a short novella. Now, it’s looking like it will be around 30,000 words or more, so a $2.99 price point on the ebook. I like that better. This character has too much history to explore, and I’m betting that it will grow even more in editing. Fans of the Starfire Angels series should especially like this one.

I can say that because I’m nearly 20,000 words into writing it and still have a lot I want to write. It’s SO much fun to write too. I am absolutely loving it, even in first person. I never realized how much there was hiding in this character, but it’s been wonderful and saddening to discover. I haven’t been this enchanted in a long time, so it’s very satisfying for me to write.

I can’t say anything more or I tend to lose the flow of the writing, but once it’s done, I will reveal more.

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A few changes to Starfire Angels

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Melanie

I’m leaning towards using my initials for what’s coming in the Revelations series. If you’re not familiar, I use M. A. Nilles for stories that are more graphic and/or contain more mature themes. Soriel was kind of a transition, while Deception was still all right for a younger audience. I feel that Phantoms and now Shards are leaning towards that more mature audience. I can’t sugar-coat the realities of the Shirukan when I’m writing about them directly, not the way I could in Soriel. I’ll be using Phantoms as the transition to M. A. Nilles and am changing the cover of Shards to reflect that change also.

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in-freakin-credible!

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Melanie

This is why I tolerate my horse’s occasional exuberant spats, like the one that had me praying for a miracle Monday:

He is super talented. Sure, he doesn’t have the fancy front-end movement of the elite warmbloods, but he is a warmblood with an athletic ability that has always amazed me. As long as he can activate the engine (pushing from his hindquarters and using more hock action), that’s all that matters. The power comes from behind, not from the front.

It takes a while to warm-up sometimes. He had two days off since a very challenging workout on Wednesday where I really pushed him with lots of fantastic rollbacks on the lungeline (we do downunder horsemanship regularly) and then pushed him under saddle after a brief break to tack him up. Today, he was stiff again on his left side, which has always been a problem and is normal after two or more days off. After lungeing, we did a lot of suppling exercises, first at the walk, starting with medium walk to collected walk and repeated several times, and then a free walk where he stretched nicely. Then we moved onto shoulder-ins, travers/renvers, leg-yields (which only came out well after we had to refresh with some turns on the forehand and some whip reinforcement), and some walk half-pass, which actually went very well. He’s gotten very responsive at just a shift of my seat now. At the trot, we had a few stiffness issues come up along the left side again and had to work hard to supple it. I realized I wasn’t asking correctly for travers and half-pass, and even then it took a tap on his left shoulder to remind him that my leg was asking him to lift up there while bending around that leg. Then things fell into place.

Canter work was pretty good, but finishing up was what got me so excited. I was wrapping up with some trot-walk transitions when I wanted to get out of the way of a lesson student coming around on the outside and asked Beau to move off. He took just a step or two of walk and went into the most beautiful canter to the left, his more difficult side (if you haven’t noticed the pattern already). He had become so loose and soft by then, along with the collection I had been asking, that he just sat deep. I wanted to keep it and asked for a couple 10 m circles to make it easy for a nice canter-walk. Again, the lesson student was coming around so I asked him to turn away from the wall but a little tighter than I wanted. He performed an amazing 1/4 canter pirouette! I asked for a couple strides straight into the arena and he almost gave me a canter-halt, rather than the just the canter-walk I wanted. THAT is why I work through any training difficulties. My horse is AMAZING! I’ve done all his training and we’re both learning as we move up the levels, and he’s only seven, so he has so much potential yet.

These little glimpses into what we can do really help me to get a feeling for what I need to do to make it attainable as a regular training movement. And thanks to my instructor, we can do a medium trot, because we’ve worked on that instead of simply lengthening.

I have to credit my regular instructor for helping us through so many difficulties. It seems like Beau is always having an off day when we have a lesson. And I have to credit an out-of-state instructor who comes up from Kansas every 2-3 months for clinics. As someone who regularly trains horses and riders up to Grand Prix level, she has helped us put the polish on what my regular instructor has done. It is a fantastic combination! And I credit my guardian angels who keep me safe when Beau gets exuberant and I’ve already done all I can to be safe.

I can avoid the troubles if I listen to the warning signs that he has some exuberance to let out. That’s what I didn’t do on Monday. I thought I could handle it, but he proved that he won’t contain himself when he needs to stretch his legs, and he is a big boy who needs to stretch his legs at least once in a while. His run may be good sized, but it’s not enough for him to get any speed.

Once the outdoor arena is dry, I’ll be turning him out regularly when it’s empty for a good run before we ride ;)

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Giveaway Results

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Melanie

Thank you to everyone who signed up for the chance to win one of my signed paperbacks of Soriel through Elle Casey’s Indie Book Giveaway.

Congratulations to the winners:

Crystal

Debby

Sheryl

Shona

Yia

I’ve sent emails to the winners. If you can all get back to me ASAP, I’ll get those books into the mail with some extra swag (who wants to read a paperback without a bookmark or two ;) ).

If you signed up and your name wasn’t on the above list, check back on this blog or “like” my Facebook pages at facebook.com/starfireangels or facebook.com/melanienilles. I do random giveaways and/or contests with prizes. I appreciate your interest.

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