New Blood - Melrose (Progress #4)

The first post of the weekend is an update on how my writing of New Blood - Melrose is coming along.

The main news? The draft manuscript is complete! At 83,000 words it was put to bed last night and left to cook a while. Woo Hoo! As always, the end of the book totally tied me up with non-stop writing - 18,000 words in the last 3 days, with 9,000 of them alone coming on the last day. When a book needs to come out, it comes out!

So, now there are a couple of people I'm going to send the draft manuscript to. As I've mentioned before, this is a little of a departure for me and I want to get a gut feel reaction from a couple of readers. I'm pretty sure I've hit the nail spot on the head, so I'll keep my fingers crossed.

There will obviously be a lot more posts on New Blood over the next few weeks, and I'm planning for a release (as big a release as possible) in the fall. I'm excited.

The other good news is that for the first time this year I don't have to write anything (novel-wise that is). It's a wonderful feeling. To date this year I've written well over 250,000 words of new books. I think that's enough for anybody!

So, what's the book about? As I've said before, New Blood is something a little different from my usual genre of YA Fantasy. New Blood is aimed at older Young Adults - 16+. The book has adult themes and younger adult characters (22 -25 years of age). It's also set in contemporary times and touches on the paranormal. But, it's no vampire story (or if it is, then it's vampires like you've never seen them before!). The story revolves around a dark and powerful antagonist and his target, the beautiful and innocent protagonist. It's a love story with a very different twist. As my hook says:

A single kiss can get a girl killed. But what if he's the most handsome man you've ever met? What would you do?

It's been a different experience writing a book based on places I know (as opposed to the land of fantasy in which I usually stay) and using characters that you may even meet on your next trip down the street (although there are certain characters I would hope you never meet - for your own sake). I'm excited to publish this first Melrose novel. I definitely think this is my best novel yet...


Back to the plot... I'll give you more background next week. Until then, try a little of my fantasy stuff - buy a copy of Xannu - The Prophecy. It's only $0.99 for a full 125,000 word novel - that's a pretty good deal. It's available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. Think Harry Potter meets The Chronicles of Narnia, during The Lord of the Rings!