Sedonia Guillone

For the first time in what feels like so long, I sat down and did a day’s work on Sudden Heat. I’m not sure what did it, but I suspect it is partially because I’ve been reading through the manuscript and got a “bigger picture” view of the story. Several of the scenes turned out much better than I thought they had and I was really pleased and moved when I read them. The ones I’m not as happy with are still pretty clean but just need some tweaking and extra refinement.

In any case, it’s REALLY good to feel the creative flow start to move again!

Today, I had that moment every writer dreads. As you know, I’ve been reading through Men of Tokyo: Sudden Heat and I noticed today that an entire scene was missing. I looked through what I’d printed out- no scene. I scrolled through the manuscript on the computer – no scene. OMG! I had accidentally deleted it when cutting and pasting!!

Needless to say, I freaked out. Had you been in my house, you would have seen me sobbing over my computer, searching the Help function for the way to recover lost text in a document, all to no avail. But then, I remembered that over the last couple of months, I’d sent a copy of the manuscript to my Yahoo address to store it online in case, God forbid, my computer crashed or the document got lost, any kind of bad thing like that. THANKFULLY I found a draft that contained the missing scene and was able to pull it out and insert it into the current draft I’m editing. I was sooooo happy! The missing portion was about ten typed pages. Doesn’t sound like much, but as an author, I know firsthand how much work went into those ten pages.

The lesson in all this? If you’re a writer, make copies and store them in various places at various stages of writing the book. Even if you’re not a writer per se but you’re working on a paper for school or something equally important, it’s a really good idea to do this. That way, if you lose a piece of it or the whole thing, you’ll be able to get it back. I felt much more fortunate than Ernest Hemingway who once lost his complete body of work by leaving his briefcase on a train and never could get the pages back. They were gone. I can’t even imagine how he felt in the first hour of realizing what had happened to him. Suuposedly, his loss ended up being positive and giving him an opportunity to write a whole bunch of new stuff in which he really found his voice and became the famous writer he is in literary history. But me? I would hope that I’d benefit from such a loss. However, I really love the scene that had gotten cut and am thrilled it will end up in the story.

Don’t forget: Make extra copies of your work and store it in a bunch of places, including printing out hard copy. I learned my lesson today!!

This picture by an artist called artur is a great depiction of how I’ve been feeling lately.

It’s been probably close to ten days that I’ve been having this lack of inspiration thing going on. I’m not used to having my muse take this long a break! Each day I make some progress on my…oh, what’s that word, see how my brain is working? REVISIONS! that’s it. Each day I do work on the revisions for Sudden Heat and feel it’s a good story. Like I’ve been saying. Hiru is incredibly sexy, a character I’ve gotten to like the most, so I’m just guessing that it’s because I feel troubled in other areas of life that the energy isn’t available to be right now.

Anyway, I really think the artist who did this print is incredibly talented. I looked at the other pictures in his gallery and he is good!

I go through these thankfully short phases every so often. Sometimes it’s because there are difficulties in other areas of my life that take away from my creative energy. When this happens, all I can do is go back and edit what’s already been written while the creative juices were flowing.

That’s what I’m doing right now with Men of Tokyo: Sudden Heat. I’m at just about 52k words which is more than three-quarters finished and have pretty much ground to a halt for the moment as far as writing the end. The story arc has almost reached its highest point and from there, it’s not made itself clear in my mind how it all resolves. Of course, the major resolution is a happy ever after, but not the chain of events that leads to it. There is a great deal of complexity in all the characters involved in the conflict and takes more mental juices than I have at my disposal.

I can say, however, that Hiru has turned out to be, for me, one of the sexiest men in the stories I’ve written. He too, is emotionally complex and so sweet and good-hearted, all of that together, put into his brawny physique, is just a delicious combination! So even though the story isn’t flowing at the moment, I am able to spend nice moments thinking about his character. lol.

I’m not disheartened. As a writer, I’ve been going through this dip in creative energy on and off for the last five years and so have learned that it ebbs and flows when it’s meant to. I have faith. In the meantime, I will just enjoy reading over what I’ve done so far and making it better. This I do have inspiration for because I’ve been reading people’s lovely comments on the White Tigers fanlist. If anything, I’ll get to the end of this work-in-progress so as not to let those people down.

Wow, I can’t believe this cover I just received by Dar Albert! It’s incredible! Just wanted to share.

The lovely erotic romance writer, Silapa Jarun, has interviewed me over at one of her special sites, Yaoi and Yuri. If you enjoy m/m erotic romance focusing on samurai, Silapa Jarun is the author to check out. Her most recent release is Katana Duet available at Bookstrand, Amazon and Fictionwise.

The link to my interview is on her blog, so I hope you’ll read my interview then go on to learn more about Silapa.

To read my answers to Five Questions for Sedonia Guillone clickhere

Got back to Florida tonight where I have as much Internet access I need. I really was falling behind there for a while. However, that inconvenience aside and the emergency room trip for my man’s back injury, and the septic tank backup which worked out- our tiny cottage has the septic capabilities of a small hotel now, Georgia is really an incredible place! Where we are, Forrest Gump country – yes, a shrimp boat docks right near our house with fresh shrimp every day, the people are so warm and kind and they have that genteel, rolling southern accent and they really do refer to their father as “daddy” and call each other bubba and are truly hospitable. Also, Savannah has to be one of the most beautiful cities in the entire world, no kidding.

The live oaks and the marshes are intoxicatingly beautiful (and a bit intoxicating too- I developed some kind of weird swamp cough that went away as soon as I got back to Florida, lol). And I had my first encounter with a black widow spider on our front porch. I didn’t kill it. I love spiders, even the poisonous ones, so I trapped her and put her outside. We have deer all over the place and armadillos and possums. Every kind of bird imaginable…I could go on and on. I look forward to getting back.

I am happy, however, to be back in communication with the writing world. I received a bunch of sweet comments on the White Tigers fanlist and a cool one on my guest list. I also got my first Recommended Read from Fallen Angel Reviews for Men of Tokyo: Sudden Surrender. Yay! Here’s a snippet from the review:
Ms. Guillone has continued her incredible White Tiger series with this spell binding book, one that kept me on the edge of my seat from the first page. I enjoy reading about the spiritual ways of the White Tiger and how they affect the lives of the men who embrace its calling. Yuzo and Kiku build a very intense and loving relationship that is enhanced by their spiritual bonding. The men of the White Tiger each have unique stories and add their individual personalities to the plot line. Each book in the White Tiger series gives the reader more of a glimpse into the members past lives and what brought them to where they are today. I will definitely be waiting for the next book in the White Tiger series. Thanks go to Ms. Guillone for another incredible read.

I also got an awesome review for “Enter the Hero” which will appear in Red Sage Secrets, vol 25.
at Cocktail Reviews. The reviewer said:
I love Sedonia Guillone’s stories and this is the first m/f work of hers I’ve read that didn’t feature the Dragon/Tigress concept. It does feature a very hot Asian hero though, and I loved both Kass and Lian. They’re strong, sympathetic characters who complement each other perfectly. I’m not one for futuristic stories but this was great, romantic and sexy and full of action. 5 Flutes.

Aside from that, I’m just getting settled and hope to finish writing Men of Tokyo: Sudden Heat in these coming weeks. I’m about three quarters finished and am happy with the story. I’m not trying to be immodest, it’s just that I’ve grown to love the characters so much and I know that when that happens, we’ve clicked and I’ve gotten down the substance of the romance that I was aiming for. I’ll post another snippet soon.

Oh, one more thing before I go for the night. Later this year when the Secrets volume is out, I’ll be doing my first booksigning! At least, the manager of Books a Million in Delray Beach said that he’s putting a signing together. So I hope that anyone who’s in that area can come and I’ll certainly be annoucning the details when I have them. Talk again soon. Sedonia

I haven’t been able to post lately because I’ve been in our little place in Georgia (Foorest Gump was filmed a few miles away!) and I don’t have Internet access at home. I was supposed to be back in Florida weeks ago but the septic tank in our new place backed up into the house last Saturday, then on Monday, my boyfriend injured his back and we were at the hospital in Savannah.

Now we have a new drain field at our house and Mitch is on the mend but it’s been one thing after the other. Remember what I’ve been saying about the Year of the Rat? It’s got a hold of me for a while longer I think. Just hanging on…

I’ll post again as soon as I can! Thanks for your support.

Sincerely, Sedonia

If you love the White Tigers series, I hope you’ll let me know by signing the new fanlist! sign here