New Book Day! Heat of the Harpy

Well it's been longer than I would have liked, but I finally have a new book out! Heat of the Harpy is my latest fantasy monster story, although not necessarily tied to my Temple of the Seducer books (feel free to make up your own mind about that). It's about what happens when a young man, Kev, finds himself entranced by a beautiful creature, one that's far more dangerous and lustful than she lets on. Here's an excerpt:

At last the fair man spotted Kev in the crowd and gestured for him to come forward. "And this last creature, gentles, is a true rarity, taken from the peaks of the Shattered Mountains. If you will but draw the curtain back, good lad, and keep your distance!"

Kev grinned, sure he was in no danger, and drew the curtain back. He jumped anyway when a piercing shriek sounded, and something slammed into the bars of the revealed cage with great force. Kev stumbled, and ended up falling on his backside to the amusement of the fair man. The rest of the crowd didn't seem to notice, riveted by the cage's occupant.

Kev looked at the cage, and his eyes widened. The being within appeared to be a woman, taller than any man Kev had ever met, but her skin was a bright, fiery red. She wore a sackcloth that preserved her modesty, but her bare limbs were long and well-muscled, and displayed her unnatural character fully. Her human-like legs ended just below the knee, becoming black, bird-like talons with three toes. Her hands were clenched fists gripping the bars, and the nail of each finger was a thick onyx talon, wickedly curved. 

Red and dark orange feathers sprouted from her forearms, matching the feathers that crowned her skull, giving the appearance of a thick mane of hair, and she had a pair of large wings that sprouted from her back, bound in leather straps and pinned behind her. But it was her face that drew Kev's attention.

It was human, and yet not. Her eyes were large and a luminous yellow, with inky black pupils that darted from side to side, taking in the crowd. The bones of her face were sharp, and she had a long nose that didn't quite hook at the end. Her teeth were bared in a fierce scowl, and Kev saw that her canines were long and sharply pointed.

"Behold the harpy!" the fair man shouted, raising his arms high.

The harpy's eyes fixed on Kev, and he felt his heart seize in his chest, barely hearing the fair man's patter, or the rising applause and shouts of the audience. Those luminous eyes were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, and they seemed to draw him in, showing him a depth of suffering and sorrow that he'd never imagined. He thought of soaring through the sky, the beautiful sky he'd toiled under for so many years, and then felt the weight of chains and nets dragging him down, down onto the cold, unfeeling rock.

And there's a taste! I had a lot of fun writing this one. Aside from being a stand-alone story, it was nice to stretch a little bit in a new setting with a new creature.

Heat of the Harpy is free to read on Kindle Unlimited. If  you like it, please leave a review! Reviews gooooood. And hopefully my next story, a contemporary piece for a change, will be out sooner rather than later. Happy reading!

-Lea

Project Management for Smut Writers, Part 2

Welcome back, all! Last time I was here I talked about project management. I've been modifying my writing process to optimize it a bit more than not at all, using Trello to keep myself organized. Since then I've refined things quite a bit, so I figured I'd give you an update.

First of all, I've created a dedicated Writing board to track my different projects. Previously I had them listed in a list on my personal To-Do board, but that wasn't cutting it for me. Now I have things broken out into books in progress and ideas I haven't started yet. I also have a list of published books, which includes Amazon links for each book so I can do my advertising posts quickly. And I have a list of reference links in case I get time to, y'know, improve my craft.

The in progress entries are important, because that's how I'm tracking my work. Any time I manage to get some writing done or any other work, I just throw down a comment listing what I did. Easy!

So that's my writing board. I'm also still maintaining boards for each project I'm actively working on.

Disclaimer: 19+ year old farm boy.

Here I keep track of what tasks I need to do, but I also generate what is basically a scene block-out. Each card is a scene, and I write down what I want to happen in the details for each one. I'm still massaging this a bit - I can probably move to labeling scenes instead of moving them between lists. Also, I was tracking my work here, but it was too much trouble to break up my word counts between scenes, so I moved that to the Writing board.

So far I'm okay with this setup. I am getting a bit frustrated with Trello's interface - it's not as responsive as I'd like and the click-through to do what I want is a bit high. Still better than Project! (Ask me about my Project 2016 license if we ever meet in a bar. Then duck.) Once I get my system stabilized I might go looking for another solution, but for now I'm staying with it.

For the record I've completed a full 7,000 word short story draft since I got going with this system two weeks ago, and have written about 2,000 words on my next project. Some of you might think that's slow, but not me! Seriously, this is pretty speedy for me. Stop... stop laughing.

Ahem. Aside from writing I've been taking a PMP class - think I mentioned that - and it turned out to be an exam cram - didn't mention that - so basically worthless in terms of mastering the project management craft. But I am learning of a lot of things and I hope to share more with you all as I go.

Oh and once the Amazon Prime Day strike is over, remember to check out my smut. I'm hoping to get my harpy story out by the end of the month and then I've got a really steamy contemporary story in the works. Ciao!

-Lea