The Church of Real Truth

We have been eagerly awaiting news on the title for Downside 4. Stacia has been talking a lot about needing to find a title that both she and her editor liked, and finally it seems we have a winner! Tonight an e-mail went aout to all members of the Downside Army with the title of Downside 4, which is hereby known as: *drumroll*

SACRIFICIAL MAGIC

What do you think? I love it! My first impulse was to try and figure out what it might mean, and according to Stacia “[i]t fits the book *very* well.”. It sounds ominous, but then again, it’s the Downside series, so that’s what we would expect.

Tonight we got a few tidbits from Stacia about Downside 4 on twitter:

“[…]  At 123,000 words final first draft. I have edits now and think I’ll end up cutting another 1-2k, maybe.” Source

“Also, my editor likes my suggested title, so next week (fingers crossed) I very well might have a Book 4 title for you!” Source

Are you as excited as I am about the title? We won’t have t refer to it as “Downside 4” anymore. On the other hand, I’ve almost grown fond of it being called that.

Stacia also mentioned that she’s been thinking of “doing some character trivia/book trivia type stuff” on her website, along with posting the deleted scenes. I think that would be incredibly fun! I know there’s a lot of information I’ve picked up here and there, and that I hope to be able to compile on the website. I always love it when you get the feeling that an author has the complete backstory for their characters and world, even if they don’t write all of it down in the books. 😀

As I mentioned in the last blog post, Stacia has written a guest blog for Book Lovers Inc about what it’s like for an author to wait for a book. It’s a really great post for us readers, to let us know that it can be just as hard for a writer to wait for a book to come out, and that they are dying for us to read it just as much as we are dying to read it.

Stacia writes:

It’s just…it’s like planning a surprise party for your best friend, but that friend’s birthday isn’t for a year and a half yet. You have all the plans laid and the work done, but now you have to keep your mouth shut about it for that long. And you want to tell. You want to tell because you’re excited, as I said above. You want to tell because you can’t wait for the reaction. But you can’t tell, and it’s some weird form of torture, because you’re supposed to be promoting this book and the series, and making people anticipate the next book, while at the same time not telling them anything that will happen in the next book.

To read the rest of Stacia’s very interesting blog post, visit Book Lovers Inc.

Make sure you enter the giveaway for a chance to win all three Downside books, signed by Stacia. 😀

Btw, I love how she calls our favorite Downside residents, her “little gang of ghetto no-hopers”.

There are a couple of opportunities to win Downside books at the moment.

The first is at Book Lovers Inc, where Stacia has also written a great blog post about waiting, and how it’s just as hard to wait when you’re an author, as it is when you’re a reader.
In this giveaway you can win all three Downside books, signed by Stacia.

The second chance to win a Downside book is at Magic and Mayhem Writers.
The contest runs until February 10. If you subscribe to Nadia’s newsletter, you’ll also get the short erotic paranormal romance she’s sending all subscribers on Valentine’s Day.

We got a whole bunch of book updates from Stacia in her blog post today:

1. I turned in my story for the MAMMOTH BOOK OF GHOST ROMANCE. I’m fairly pleased with it, although writing romance really isn’t my forte, necessarily, and you all know sorts definitely aren’t. Plus, it’s a Downside story–or more accurately, a Chess/Terrible Triumph City story–so writing a happy ending was a bit weird, ha. But I think it’s a fairly sweet little tale, and I think there’s enough this-love-thing-kinda-sucks in there to make it work. Plus, kinky hippies.

2. Working on edits for Book 4, and plan to start Book 5 tonight. At some point these books need titles, although I admit the idea of simply titling them “4″ and “5″ has its own ascetic appeal.

3. Working on New Project too. Still pleased with it 3,000 words in, which is nice, since usually the “This sucks” sets in after the first few pages.

So much of this that we wish we could get more information on! We need to get a title for Downside 4 soon, otherwise we really will go on calling it exactly that.

And I can’t wait to hear what the New Project is all about. We haven’t really heard anything about that yet.