The art of writing a serial

As you know, I don't talk a whole lot about writing on this blog - I wanted, still want, it to be more about me and my life than about my work.

But I couldn't resist this time.

My alter ego, Josee Renard (who writes erotica, which is the reason I don't talk much about her here), has been writing a 10-part serial for Cobblestone Press called Part Time Lovers.

It's one of those things I thought would be fun - kind of like writing a linked series of stories (which I've done before) and also, though far less obviously, an homage to Charles Dickens, one of my favorite writers.

I had an idea for this series - a website totally unlike e-Harmony or Match.com or any of those relationship websites. It's called Part Time Lovers (and each of the 10 stories except one are also titled using a Stevie Wonder song) and it's a place where you can find the right person for right now. No questionnaires required.

I wanted this serial to have two things - something that linked them all together (the website and the best friends and occasional lovers who ran it) and different, yet compelling, stories for each week.

I just finished the tenth story this morning and I hope I succeeded. I learned a lot.

• it's not all that much easier writing 80,000 words in ten separate stories than it is writing an 80K novel
• you've gotta pay attention to everything that's happened in all the earlier stories - I'm not sure I got this exactly right
• it took me until the 8th story to figure out how I wanted to wrap this all up by which time I was starting to panic about it

It was fun. It was entertaining. I don't know, really, how Dickens did it with a book like The Old Curiosity Shop, writing one of those long chapters every single week for almost a year. It's like running marathon after marathon - at least that's what it must have felt like.

But, in the end, he finished the book to great applause. And I finished my book - my serial.

Will I do it again?

Not right now, that's for sure!

Kate

Living two lives

As most of you know, I write under two different names. I write women's fiction as Kate Austin and I write erotica as Josee Renard. This makes for an interesting life in all sorts of ways.

Okay, maybe it's more than just interesting. It's also complicated and confusing and often stressful. It's entertaining, busy, and difficult. It's funny at times - like when I'm talking to someone about writing and have to refer to myself - whichever self I'm not in at that point - as another person.

Kate might say (and there I go in the third person right there) Josee's working on Part Time Lovers right now, she's busy, so I'm not writing this week. Or Josee might say, Kate's got some revisions to do but she's going to have to wait until Part Time Lovers is finished.

Or those days when Kate, who works at the day job, might say to Josee, "No writing for you, I've been at the office for ten hours." And Josee needs to meet her deadline for a story and has to work around Kate's work - and life - schedule.

Josee's life is, in some ways, far less complicated than Kate's. All of what she does is writing related - she writes, edits, submits, writes blogs, tweets. What she doesn't do is go to the office or have dinner with friends or pay the bills or buy the groceries. She doesn't have a partner, doesn't go shopping (except to the toy store - wink, wink, nudge, nudge). She doesn't have to find time to do the laundry - Kate does that. She doesn't have to make time to go to the gym or Zumba or yoga - Kate does that.

And if it seems like Josee has all the fun and Kate does all the work - sometimes that's true. And sometimes just the opposite is true. Sometimes Kate's going out to dinner, going for a walk on the beach, watching a movie or reading a great book, while Josee is - well, I'm not sure just what Josee is doing under those circumstances. I guess she's waiting for her turn.

But you know what I love about being two people? I love the fact that I can write two different things. It's true that, just like Josee and Kate are related, so is their writing. But it is different - I can tell the difference when I'm writing as Kate or I'm writing as Josee. When I look at the writing of either of them after the fact, I can see the connections, the similarities, the phrasing and word use and grammar that is similar. But when I'm writing?

Josee writes Josee and Kate writes Kate.

Odd, isn't it?

Kate (and Josee)

P.S. You can also see this post over at Josee's blog on Thursday at http://www.joseerenard.wordpress.com/.

The #Pussycat Party!

Come join the What's New, Pussycat? Twitter Party on June 24th, from 4:00 to 8:00pm, PST.  Prizes, Excerpts, Songs, Insanity. 

Join us on June 24 for the Release of my latest What's New, Pussycat? We'll have prizes galore -

An e-copy of What's New, Pussycat?
A copy of The Penis Name Book
A copy of Naughty Bits 3 (a Spice Briefs anthology of short stories, including Kate Austin's Dreamer)
A Josee mug
A Josee pen
A Josee notepad
Josee magnets

So on to the important stuff, how do you win a prize??

Join us for the #pussycat party, tweet, retweet, have fun. Make sure to use the #pussycat hashtag, and @josee_renard to be counted.  Also be sure to like Josee on Facebook for an extra entry for a possible bonus prize. (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Josee-Renard/163055307086304)

At the end of the party, winners will be randomly selected from those who participated.
Kate

Scavenger hunt, anyone?

A few years ago, I met a paranormal writer named Michelle M Pillow and that same year, sometime in the summer, she asked if I would participate in her online scavenger hunt that runs the whole month of October. Of course I said yes, and I've done it every year since. This year, both Kate Austin and my alter ego Josee Renard are participating - what you do is go to:

http://www.ravenhappyhour.com/

click on the image you see next to this paragraph and follow the instructions. There are great prizes and you get to see a lot of great websites and get introduced to a whole bunch of writers you might not otherwise know.

Look for the Raven image on each of the websites in the hunt. I can't resist and do it myself each year and every year I find at least half a dozen writers who go into my must read pile.

It's a lot of fun and I hope you're one of the lucky hunters who win a prize. Good luck.

Kate