Moonrise - New chapter: Specimen

Chapter "Specimen" is now available on Wattpad!
 I've never had claustrophobia and luckily I've never been hurt enough to be bed-bound or otherwise unable to move, but even imagining it creeped me out. I had so much fun writing this chapter, even though it was the mwahahaha-kind of fun. :D
In this chapter, you'll find out how Yago fares with the changes his body goes through.

Read Moonrise - Chapter "Specimen"

"Moonrise" now on Wattpad!

Hello dearies!
I'm trying out a new way to do some promo and stumbled across Wattpad. If you've never heard of that, you're in good company- I hadn't, either! Wattpad is a free platform where everyone can publish stories and where readers can comment on the stories and interact with the authors with no hassle. I like that, it reminds me a little of Literotica or GayAuthors.org, birthplaces of my writing addiction.
After having a little browse around, I realized that it's practically tailored for pre-publishing stories because it's really easy to delete them at any point in time, say for example, when you're ready to publish it for realsies and need to remove it from all other platforms.

Now, I've already mentioned "Moonrise" once or twice, and since I'm about to edit and fine-tune it, I chose this novel to try it out. Which means, from today on until I'm done working it over, you'll be able to read one new part of Moonrise every Monday on Wattpad!

Just follow this link: Moonrise on Wattpad

I would LOVE to read your comments there! Or here. Or someplace else. Have I told you about my newsletter?...

Oh well. That's it for today!

Love,
Hannah

"Manastorm - The Quickening, Book One" - Tell me your thoughts!

Hello my dearies!
I've got a special task for you and I really do need your help, so please keep reading :)
My two WiPs (Works in Progress) are coming along swell, but I'm ever the worrier when it comes to my work and I haven't had much luck with finding my special someone, betareader-wise. After a bit of thinking and a little cider, I decided I want to try something new:

A story hook poll! Whee!

Eh... What?
My thoughts are as follows - The first pages of a book decide if a reader likes or hates a story.  Those first few pages, or rather the first chapter, also make or break the atmosphere of a book. They have to be just right, hit that sweet spot so to say, to pull in a reader and drag him along (sometimes against their will, ha!).
Do my WiP stories have what it takes? I have no idea!
Which is where you come in. I've added a link at the end of this post that will lead you to the hook of my primary project, "Manastorm". At the end of the hook, you will find a link to a Google Poll site where you will be asked two to four questions with very basic/simple answering options. All you have to do is read through the hook (or read as far as you like, then scroll down to the link), click the link and answer the questions. No registration necessary, no personal info needed, I will not ask for an e-mail address or anything else. (Of course, if you fall in love with the story and want to be notified when it's up for ARC reading or publishing, I do have a lovely newsletter...)

So yeah, let's try this story hook poll thing. Ready? Here goes:

Manastorm Hook Chapter

New Release: Unwilling

It's here, it's done! I'm so happy!
Six years of personal growth as a writer finally paid off - my second novel, "Unwilling", has hit the shelves! I started this book as a personal dare, long before I ever thought about getting published, and I always promised myself that I would finish Darwin's and Jared's story for all the people who helped me through the beginning.
This has led to two things:

• Firstly, I've become a better person, a better author, because of this story. If the boys couldn't derail me, nothing can!
• Secondly, Unwilling will remain a free read for everyone, as a thank you to my fans who've stuck with me for six (!) years of painfully slow progress.

Please enjoy to your heart's content! If you really, really like it, consider leaving a review and maybe buy a "pay what you like" copy via Smashwords. No pressure!

But now, without further ado - come have a look at my baby!

Unwilling - An m/m shifter romance

[m/m, non-omegaverse, werewolves, urban fantasy, explicit content]

Disclaimer:
This is NOT an omegaverse or [mpreg] story. It does NOT conform to the popular archetypes, although similar wording is used.

Novel length: 110k
Genre: Gay Paranormal Romance

Things aren’t easy for an Alpha-born werewolf. Jared has lived- and run from- this truth for all of his life, happy to stick to a bare minimum of fleeting friendships and romantic encounters, never quite putting down roots or taking on responsibility. When tensions rise and his brother Tobias is forced to kick him out of his family home, Jared takes it in stride. After all, what could be worse than the constant conflict he had to endure with his family?

Darwin doesn’t see life this way. Family is everything and he would do anything to keep his father safe. As a submissive, one who is supposed to be protected and kept safe, he feels the need to take care of those around him, even though things in his pack aren’t as they should be. First of all, they don’t know Darwin is a submissive. And secondly, if they were to find out, his life would be forfeit. Already, his Alpha and leader, Carl, has his suspicions about the brittle young man, but playing the dominant is a sacrifice Darwin gladly makes for the sake of his father.

When Jared meets Darwin, he doesn’t expect to fall madly in love, and he definitely doesn’t expect to care this much about what might happen to Darwin if Jared doesn’t step up and save him from his Alpha. A little heroism doesn’t seem like too tall an order at first, but when he realizes the deep trouble Darwin is in, he finds that he might have bitten off more than he can chew.

Want to read? Click here:  

Universal Books2Read Link

 Love,
Hannah (tired)

Happy New Year! ... and other things

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Back to work - Hannah's Handout newsletter

Phew! November was harsh. I never thought I would actually finish the National Novel Writing Month as a winner, but there you have it, I surprised myself. It's good to know that I could write a rough draft in a month if I put my mind to it. I admit, my November project lacks everything, from consistency to style, but things like that are fixable. Writing nothing isn't.
I already mentioned the things I learned in my last blog post, but now I'm at the point where I'm actually putting them to good use. Unwilling is at the resolution stage, where Jared and Darwin make up, talk it out and clash with George who fights his own guilt over what happened with Carl. Those dudes have problems! Luckily, I have a vague idea how to fix it and get them back home soon.

I've also gotten to know new people who also fight the good fight. I dabbled in ARC reviewing and stumbled upon a handful of really great stories that I shamelessly gushed over on Goodreads and Amazon and I re-read some of my all-time-favorites. I feel ready.

Ready for my own mailing list. *shudder*

I decided on starting a newsletter while drooling over the book cover for "Unwilling". Yes, you heard right, I got the cover today! Now I'm thinking about the best way to do a cover reveal, because honestly, I'm not the most graceful online personality in the world :D Noticed that, didn't you?
I do want to connect with my fans, but it's not easy. There are too many platforms, too much social media opportunities, and if I go by my own experience, at some point it doesn't matter how great an author is. The sheer noise of too many feeds gets overwhelming and you just want it to stop. I'm not a big fan of e-mails, mostly because I'm being spammed by Goodreads and Twitter, but I'd still prefer a newsletter to having to check multiple sites for new content. After all, I can't bookmark all of them and still know who is who and what is what. Nobody can. And I don't want my fans to become social media managers just so they won't miss my ramblings. A newsletter seems like a good way out of that. One e-mail if something new comes up, at most once a month, you click, you read, you're done. Sounds like a deal to me, so I did it. And here it is:

Hannah's Handout on Tiny Letter!

 

NaNoWriMo: Crawling the last meters

I'm so close to done, I can already see the finish line! My usual loss of motivation started late this year, which is simply astonishing and great and much easier to overcome. I don't quite know how I did it and kept going where I normally crumble like a soufflé, but I've learned so much just by taking part in this NaNo.
I learned that a simple summary of the plot is not enough to help me through all the chapters. For this project, I did three rounds of outlining: A summary, a short description for every chapter, and a bullet-point outline for every single scene. Works like magic! I haven't lost my way once and whenever I got stuck, I could pull up the next scene and keep working there because everything was already laid out and planned.
I also learned how to stick with it on a bad day and be calm about the days I missed. My usual daily wordcount for the days that I write is 2.5k to 3k, which is not that bad I guess, and that made it easy to stay calm on those days where I simply couldn't find the time to write.
The last thing I learned is something that in equal parts worries and fascinates me. When I write, I write slowly and carefully, work each scene and sentence over until it's just right, until I'm happy with it. I learned this through chapter-by-chapter-publishing on Literotica and GayAuthors, where it doesn't really matter how much of the remainder of my story is done as long as the latest installment looks good. This NaNo helped me identify that this is the main reason why it takes years to finish my stories, but I'm really unsure if I should change that or not. It's easy to throw all caution to the wind when working on a story that I myself haven't known for long, like my NaNo-project. Doesn't matter if a chapter sucks, I'm just doing it for the word count and the sake of it. I don't know if and when I'll go over it and fix it up, so no troubles there. But if I apply the same 'just get it out'-mentality to my other works, the ones that I've cared for for years, will they still end up as good as before?

We will see. As soon as this NaNo is done, I'm off to finish those last few scenes for"Unwilling" with this new 'devil may care' attitude. And then edit it, because years of learning have passed since I wrote those first six chapters.

Six more days to go! I can smell my winner's plaque!

Love,
Hannah