Sneak Peek!

Finally done with the first eight chapters of my new novel, DEVIATIONS. Here's a sneak peek from the end of chapter eight. 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

I spin and give the orderly my fiercest glare. “You want me to trust an orderly?”

“I’m not an orderly,” he says, his eyes darting down the street where the shouts are getting louder. “My name is Amos. I’m part of a rebel group, and I’ve been planted in the hall for the past seven months. We’ve been working on a way to get you out ever since your trial.”

I search his face, looking for lies hidden in his expression. “What?”

“Do you really think you’re the type to lead a rebellion?” he asks.

            I shake my head emphatically. “No.”

            “Then let’s prove them wrong.”

            “How?”

            “Get your list. Prove it’s not you.”

Dimwitted idiot. “They can’t find my list!” I hiss.

He exhales sharply. “Lists are kept at the Reserve. In the Archives. You were right; everyone has a list. Yours must still be there.”

“So?”

“So get it. Bring it back here. And prove that you’re not the one they’re looking for. “

I stare at him like he’s lost his mind. Because surely he has. It’s somewhere with my list, in the realm of the unobtainable.

Amos glances down the street. “Look, the only thing that’s going to save your life and those you care about is to prove to the Order you’re not the leader of a future rebellion. The only way to do that is to find your list.”

            “I am the most wanted person in all of Alladia!" I whisper. "What are the chances this will work?”

“What are your chances if you stay here?” he counters.

The truth smacks around inside my head. I see it there: the judge’s stern gaze. The Order’s look of approval at my sentence. The tattoos on the Executioner’s body. I either become an outlaw trying to prove my innocence or stay here and agree with their sentence of guilt.

Shouts echo off the stone wall. I stare up at Amos. “Why do you want to help me?”

His eyes soften. “Because I don’t think you are who they say they are.”

“They’ll kill you, too. Why risk it?”

“Sometimes doing the right thing is worth the risk.”

My eyes bore into his as I try to figure out if he’s honest or the biggest fraud in the world.

            Amos snatches my hand in his and tugs me around the corner just as torch lights spill onto the street we’d been standing on. I race after him, my heart pounding a furious rhythm in my head that I am either the luckiest girl alive or the stupidest person to ever breathe air. We dash down a tangle of streets, Amos pulling me farther and farther away from my iron prison. When we come to the city wall, he squats down and quickly tosses away a pile of garbage, revealing an opening just wide enough for me to shimmy through. He joins me on the other side, his face dim in the moonlight, then he moves in front of me.

I grab his arm. “Where are we going?”

He throws a smirk over his shoulder. “To freedom, Lennan Eastley.”

Fear mingles with hope inside my chest. I have no time to question him farther as he grabs my hand again. And without another word, I let this red haired vagrant lead me away into the night.

Something new

Hello fair friends and readers! I've finally got my brain back (praise Jesus for babies who figure out they can sleep on their stomach and snooze so much better at night!). My new fantasy story is well under way. It's been in my head for ages, and gosh, I'm dying to get it out of my brain and onto paper for crying out loud.

The outline is done (and I never do outlines before I write), and after weeks of struggling, I finally got the 2nd chapter under wraps. This story is definitely going slower than my others have.(babies disrupt ease of writing novels, that's for sure - specially when you still have a part time job). It'll be a while before it's written, but I wanted to give you all a little taste of what it's about.

The title: DEVIATIONS

I came up with the idea one day reading Colossians 2:13-15
"And you, who were dead in you trespasses...God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands."

I started thinking about those words; about a list of all our sins existing with its demands for punishment. And as I was mulling that over, I thought: What if there was a world where there was a literal list of your sins? And you had to stand trial for them?

And thus, the book was born.

The story is based on themes like these:

My main character is Lennan. 

(courtesy of)

17.

Smart.

Loyal.

Dabbles in trading things.

Really good at reading people.

Can't seem to stop lying.

Fiercely protective of her baby brother.

Another main character is Blythe.

17.
Anything but gentle.
Impulsive.
Brash.
Brutally honest (and thrives on it)
Pent on vengeance

Then there's Amos:

(courtesy of)

19.

Passionate.

Zealous.

May be hiding a thing. Or two. Or ten.

Annoys the crap out of Lennan.

Then there's Griffin:

(courtesy of)

19.

Riddled with tattoos of those he's hurt.

Gentle soul.

Makes a living by hurting people, oddly enough.

I love this story (even though it's not written yet). It has lots of things.

Prophets.

Magic.

A city where the laws are engraved in the walls.

Visions.

Enslaved people.

Romance.

Broken characters.

The hope of redemption for each of them.

If this book were published, and you were to pick it up, here's what it would say on the back:

Before Lennan Eastley was born, her trial date was set. Everyone gets one in their seventeenth year. Lennan’s is set for two weeks after her birthday. Her Deviation List will be read. From the biggest offense, to the smallest thing - everything she will ever do wrong is on that list. Her trial will determine her punishment.

But when Lennan gets to trial, her deviation list is missing. Now her government is accusing her of treason, and wants to try her for leading a rebellion in a future she hasn’t lived yet. Lennan knows there’s no way she can be who they say; she’d never compromise her life and those she loves to betray her government. But without her list, proving her innocence is impossible.

Determined to find the truth, Lennan begins making choices she never thought she’d make and doing things she always swore she’d never do. Maybe her government is right. Maybe she really will lead a rebellion and murder thousands. Now Lennan doesn’t know what’s true. About her country. About herself.

She’s going to be guilty of something. She just doesn’t know what yet. 

Stay tuned for more!

And now for something completely different

Home sweet home

So, I've started working on Book #6. And ya'll, I don't know what is going on chemically in my brain, but this story isn't like anything I've done before. It's still fantasy. Well, more magical realism I guess.

It's set in the 1800's.
In the area I grew up in.
And has no love interest.

*scratches head*

I have no idea how this story got into my head. It's so different from what I normally do, and it is driving me crazy. It's not progressing the way my stories usually do. I keep thinking of plot points, which is weird, because normally I focus on characters and then have to think "oh yeah, I need a plot for these lovely character arcs to rest on."

Not with this one. I keep thinking of what will happen and not about my character, and I gotta be honest, I kinda hate it. I can't figure my main girl out. At all. Normally it takes a while, but my characters always unfold as I begin to listen to them. Not this girl. She is all over the place. Granted, I have been too this week and it's only been a week or so since I started playing around with this one. But I need to get inside my main character's head, and I'm having the hardest time figuring her out. She lets other people influence her, which is coming to life in how I write, because I find myself writing more about secondary characters and her reactions to them, instead of the other way around. Which fits where she is personality wise, but sweet mess, that's a horrible way to write a book. My darling main character needs to drive the plot, and so far I'm trying to use the plot to drive her, and it equals one big mess and one very frustrated writer. I think I need to stop writing scenes and just start somewhere and let the poor girl go. (it's what she'd dying to do anyways. geez, maybe I need to start half way through the book and write from there, then go back and do the beginning).

Anyways, all of that to say I don't even know why I'm writing this one. Other than God has wedged the story in my brain, and well, it won't leave until it's written. So write it, I shall.

My main character, L, is a blond haired, brown eyed feisty thing. She lives with her Mama in a wood cabin that doesn't seem to age, much like her Mama doesn't.

L.

L has magic. Parlor tricks, really, or so she thinks. She has no idea what her power can do. But someone else does. Someone who feels threatened by it. For now, L's magic is contained, like light in a jar. 

Contained

She's going to have to figure out a way to unleash it.

Magic

L's best friends are a boy and an old Cherokee. She hides them, much like she hides a lot of her true self from people. She has big shoes to fill. Obligations. Responsibilities. Always expected to do the right thing.

But what is the right thing?

Something she'll have to figure out.

This is what she wants

L is so different from my other lead characters. She's not as broken, at least in ways that are visible. Not single tragedy she's had to get over like my other MC's. The word that keeps coming to mind when I think of L is "child-like." Not sassy like G or fierce like E. She's dying for the freedom to be who she is. Granted, she has no idea who she is. 

But she does. She just doesn't realize it. She keeps searching for her story in other people (gah, just like I keep doing when trying to write her!), instead of writing her own.

L always goes barefoot

So right now, this girl is frustrating the life out of me. Probably because she's so good at hiding who she is and not being real. She's trying to be who she thinks I want her to be, and not who she is. *why yes, I do talk to and about my characters like they are real people*.  Maybe the more I plow through and write her, the more she'll drop the charade and show herself to me. Elsi was just like this at first (she keeps her cards close to the vest), so it wasn't until the second half of her book that I figured out who the heck Elsi was. I should have known L would be just like her. I said to myself the other day, "I think L and Elsi would be best friends." Go figure. 

What I'm writing now

I always love those first few words of a story that get written down. I wrote about three paragraphs of something new in January, and all of a sudden a story was born. I knew the basic concept but was surprised with what I wrote those first few paragraphs. It added layers to the story I hadn't originally thought of. I'm about 60,000 words into the first draft and it is a big tousled mess, let me tell you. I'm at the terrible-awful-no-good part and today I wrote this for a scene:

[he comes; with mera maybe? escalate conflict. build to person 3]

Um, that's not a scene. ;)

I need to do a read through. I've done this before with first drafts where I forgot what came before or I get stalled and even though the story is far from complete - it has no ending, there are huge gaps in the middle, and it's mostly incomplete scenes - it helps for me to read it all so I can figure out where the heck this story is going and what it's about. Cause it changes as I write it, and often enough I don't know what I want to say until I've already said it, and I have to remind myself of what's already there.

Anyways, wanted to share a bit about this story. It's another YA fantasy. I think I love writing fantasy because you can make up your own rules. Who knew I was such a rebel?

My main character is Gretta. I haven't gone into detail about Gretta. She has dark hair and is average. No ninja skills, archery ability, assassin qualities or smoking hot body on her. Just a girl with brown hair. I imagine her to look somewhat like this:

(via)

I love writing drafts and getting to know characters as I write them. Gretta is always surprising me. She's a lot sassier and sarcastic than I thought. But she's so vulnerable. So in tune with her own grief and wounds that she wraps anger around her heart like a band-aid, trying to keep the hurt from spilling out. Gretta is a dyer - colors are her world. Because of her job dyeing, her hands carry stains of her work and look like this.

(via)

But the colors on her fingers hide Gretta's secret. One she would rather die than let show. And one on which the entire plot of the book is based.

Gretta lives in the capital city of her kingdom, which in my head looks something like this:

(via)

This kingdom is ruled by a very evil King (of course), who has ruined his kingdom with war and whose greed knows no bounds. He is after Gretta because of her secret, and she avoids capture at all costs. She knows the King's evil all too well. 

But she runs into a King's Guard one day who is not loyal to the King. 

Cue Ward. 

Ward is 'fluffy'. I don't know what it is with YA books painting all the girls as smoking hot and all the guys with a freaking six pack, but no. That is not what you are going to see here. Ward is a bit chubby But adorable. Of course, Gretta hates him with a blinding fury at first. But he gets to her. Or does she get to him? Gosh, I can't remember ;)  Imagine Ward like this:

(via)

Um, yes, Ward is stinkin' adorable. But he's not the cutest character in my book. He is solidly beaten by someone else.

All sorts of terrible no good awfulness happen in the book. Things inspired by stuff like this:

(via)

(via)

(via)

This book has taken a much darker tone than I expected. Not sure if that's something I want to keep or not. But I love the premise. I love Gretta's secret, and I love her story. It's one of hope. Of shedding guilt. Of finding no shame in fear. And about the glory of finding a safe place to let your hurt out.

Gretta is becoming more and more dear to me. I can't wait for you to meet her!

NaNoWriMo Thoughts

(via)

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo as it is affectionately called, is coming. Have you heard of  it? I think it's a brilliant idea. It's an online based creative writing project. Participants are challenged to write 50,000 of a novel (either a 50,000 word length one of the first 50,000 of one longer) from November 1 to November 30.

The goal of the project is to get people to write. It gives you a specific goal (50,000 words) to be completed in a specific time frame. 

I had no idea what NaNoWriMo was a year ago, but now that I've delved a little into the writing world, I am familiar with it. And since we are only a couple weeks away from November, NaNo is getting a lot of buzz around the internet. A lot of things I've read about have said it's great because it gets you in the habit of writing every day. Most writers, I have discovered, work 40 hours a week (or more) doing something else. We love to write. We may not be published yet (some are). We have jobs and spouses and kids and houses and other responsibilities. We all want to write, and have to write. But we struggle with making it a habit.

NaNoWriMo is all about completion over perfection. Which is perfect really, because, as they say "writing is rewriting." Getting the first draft on paper is (for me and so many others) the hardest part. Once that piece of crap first draft is there, you have something to work with. You can add and delete and mold that draft into something truly great.

I so badly want to do NaNoWriMo, but I'm torn. I really want to keep working on my fantasy story rewrite. But I also love the allure of something new. I don't know if I could do 50,000 words in 30 days (1650+ words a day is easy some days, hard on others). I have a husband who I love dearly, plus the gym, and a job....excuses? Sure. Reality? That too. 

I have a ton of ideas for stories in my head (oh so many, and they must mate like rabbits because new ones pop up every day). But I don't know if I have one solid enough to make a book out of.

But, I love (LOVE!) the idea of trying to turn a loose idea into a book. To take one of my 5-word-Wednesday characters and let the story fly. (Pumpkin Spice Girl got a ton of love from friends...perhaps she will get her own full length novel? New Adult genre! So fun!) So maybe I'll do NaNoWriMo, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll do my 'write a novel in a month' in January or March. We'll see.

Though, admittedly, Pumpkin Spice Girl is dying for her own story...

Plotting a Book

My fantasy story and I are in a wrestling match. I think I am finally winning.

When I was done-ish with my first (what turned into 3) books, I was looking for something else to write. Those first ones had been YA historical fiction. I wasn't too keen on contemporary (though must admit I am dying to write one of those right now!). I decided to go with fantasy, and scoured Pinterest one Saturday morning and put together a rough concept. And the phrase Elsi, wake up popped into my head.

So I pulled up a blank document, typed in that phrase and let the story fly.

And it did. To amazing places. I let my characters make decisions without an outline or end goal guiding them. It was pretty fantastic.

And oh so messy, because I did not plan it out one. single. bit. 

After struggling with an ending, I finally wrote one just to have one down. I had a phone conference with the amazing Janice Hardy and am now doing a story map, breaking down each scene into a 2 page worksheet and identifying plot points. I am very visual so my dining room right now looks like this:

Chalkboard decals and giant post it notes are great for writing down basic plot structure and keeping track of the story goals of a dozen different people/groups. The chalkboard decal is wonderful. If I ever write full time, I will repaint my dining room in chalkboard paint and people will come over and think they've stepped into a scene from "A Beautiful Mind" or something.

The chalkboard was not big enough, so I brought out butcher paper, taped it to the dining room table, and then lined up my index cards of all my scenes and shuffled them around to where I wanted them. Surprisingly, only a couple of scenes are moving.

My notebook of scene worksheets, complete with revision notes. This has taken forever, but I really think it will help. 

This book alternates between 2 POV's so there are a lot of scenes (54 to be exact). It's been time consuming to break each scene down, but helpful because there are just a lot of pieces to this. I created a reality with all these rules/laws, I have a cast of 5 main characters, there are 2 sets of bad guys, and the group hops between worlds (12 total). My scene sheets crack me up because there are notes like this on them:

-Elsi is wearing pants in this scene.

-Who attacks them here? Good guys or bad guys? (cause I wasn't sure myself when I wrote it)

-Remember they haven't kissed yet!

-Is Jep still in the tree here?

All important things to remember when I rewrite ;)

Have you ever tried to create a Rachel Ray "30 minute" meal, only to get frustrated when 45 minutes later, you are still not done? She can do it in 30 minutes because all the prep work is done. Things are chopped and measured out and ready to go. Makes the actual cooking easier.

This book will be my 30 minute meal now that things are diced and portioned out. It's taken an enormous amount of time, but man, it's helping. I've already stumbled across scenes that need to be moved (and I have a better idea of where to put them), scenes that can be cut or merged with another, etc etc.

It's funny how I am so character driven when I write, which is great, but then I do re-reads of stuff, and realize not a lot happens, Turns out plot matters. Which elicits this response:

D'OH!

We are getting there. I need this reorganized and then I can start rewriting, which I am dying, dying, dying to do. I threw up some chapters on my crit board where I played around with Elsi's voice/attitude, and people loved her, so she will need to be remade during this rewrite. So crazy excited about this story. Lots of people have been intrigued by the story line when I threw my query up on my crit board (there's another trick I've learned: write the query before the book, or at least before the rewrite. It narrows the book down to it's meat. I get lost in the gravy and potatoes sometimes.). The chemistry between my two leads is swoon worthy. (Admittedly, I have a major crush on my male lead in this book. He's rough and tough and so unapproachable, which makes him, oh, just delicious I tell you). 

Back to figuring this beastly mess out so I can write it! 

In which no one asks me to dance

Rejection is hard.

HARD I tell you.

I've been querying Book One. Fourteen little queries lovingly and anxiously crafted and sent out to my top 14 agents. I got my first rejection two days after emails were sent.

The next day, I got a request from an agent I LOVE for a full manuscript(!!!).

She later passed :(

And since then, nothing but passes. Passes--not even a standard rejection, just the passing of time which means "Sorry, not for us."

Sigh. Realistically, I didn't expect anything. Did I hope for it? Oh my, yes. (Especially after that request for a full--glory. I could not tame the hope inside of me).  Now, I don't know what to do. Does my query stink? Does my story stink? Is it just not marketable? My little hope balloon has completely deflated. After that pass on the full I got to the point (and am still there) where I expect nothing but passes. I've stopped obsessively checking my email. I ignore the highlighted dates in my planner telling me I should have heard from Agent x, y, or z by now.

I wrote a list after my first couple of rejections titled "What to do if everyone passes". Number one was "Write something else."

So I am. I'm back to my fantasy piece, which I am loving, and which is coming together (the voice still isn't there the way I want it to be, but we're in first draft mode, so that's ok). I plan on querying this one when it's polished, and have set a goal of queries going out in December. That gives me three months to polish, rewrite, polish, rewrite. I get all nervous because even though I've done this before (polished a manuscript), I worry that I won't be able to do it again. I worry that Book One isn't good like I think it is. I worry that getting published won't happen.

I'll still write if that never happens. And love it.

But oh, ya'll, to be able to quit my job and write ALL THE TIME....the idea makes me delirious with joy. What a gift that would be. How many more stories could I create, how many more characters could I get to know if I didn't have to be somewhere else, doing something else, for 40+ hours each week. Imagine.

I feel so late in the game writing wise. Some people on my crit board are young (in their teens) and they already have amazing talent. I often wonder, if I had started doing this when I was 16 or 17, how much better would I be? Would I be published by now? I don't know, and it's stupid to wonder. I'm thankful that I discovered writing. And that I was brave and started doing it despite the millions of fears that made me want to not try. I'm thankful for my stories, even if no one ever gets to read them but me.

Trying to get published is hard. Having people critique your work is hard. Having people say NOTHING about your work is, for me, the hardest thing. I don't like quiet. To me it means rejection and dislike and failure. Heaven help me, I am such a creature of affirmation. Which makes trying to get published - trying to convince someone that my writing is good, that my story is good - crazy hard.

I just want to write. And to share these stories--stories mean so much to me. They affect me in ways few other things ever have...maybe more than anything else ever has. If I could do that for someone else - affect someone in the core of their being in a way that they can't even articulate; to have my story resonate truth to someone in a way only a story can do -  that would be the world. Stories are beautiful...even the hard ones. I hope I write a million more stories, late in the game and unpublishable though I may be.

What to write next?

So, I officially have Book Three drafted. It came in at 50,000 words, a good 15k short of my goal. But I ended it today, printed a hard copy, and sat it on the dining room table. Then promised myself to walk away for a while. 

Book Three was hard, but also glorifying. I killed my main characters in Book Two. I mean, slaughtered them in some sort of fit of masochistic frenzy.

Book Three was hard to write because my MC enters it at a really hard place. She finally gets back to what she thinks is normal life, only to find that there is a new normal. And the new normal is hard, and not at all what she wants. Book Three is full of this:

Brokenness. Raw, horrible, nowhere to hide brokenness.

And this:

Lots of tears. Shed in secret. Tears of guilt, and shame, and hurt.

And this:

Yearning for closure. And it Will. Not. Come!

I cried so much writing Book Three. I remember babysitting one night and working on a particular scene and I was sitting at the kitchen table absolutely sobbing, and thinking to myself that the parents would walk in any moment, see me crying, and think I was a loony bin.

But, but, Book Three is also the conclusion. And so with that came a restored ending. Not the perfect one, but a good one (oh, a good one!). My theme for Book Three was something I heard in a sermon once, and that was "The worst thing is never the last thing." Hope can bloom from even the foulest dirt of life. And that's what Book Three is about. Hope. 

Hope

Hope finds my characters in Book Three and grabs hold of them, despite what they do to shake her off. 

Book Three still needs work. But the meat of the story is there. And we move on.

Book Two needs work. It's no longer maimed and bleeding out at the aid station. But it needs some serious physical therapy to get it to a good condition. 

And then my fantasy novel...ah, must figure that one out! The sucker is 56,540 words long, and I have NO IDEA HOW TO END IT! I mean really, I must figure it out. And never attempt to write political intrigue again. My brain was not meant to handle things like that. Bless it. 

So enjoy your slumber Book Three. I'll wake you up in a month or so and probably tear you apart so that I can completely rebuild you again. And crazy bird that I am, I will enjoy the whole tedious and painful process.

Then all these things I've started will get done and you know what awaits after that???  ALL THE STUFF IN MY HEAD! There are voices in my head people; a cacophony of teenage girls and boys dying to be heard and to know themselves and to kiss people for the love of pete! Sigh....may the Lord bless me to be able to sit and make stuff up for a full time job someday!

Decisions, decisions

I have been struggling with writing ADD lately, and goodness, I am no use when my focus is so split. I've been working on Book one edits, and all the things that go along with seeking publication (query, log line, synopsis, blurb), Book Three draft, My new project, a picture book story I'm entering into a contest, and a collaborative piece that some writers I met on Critique Circle are putting together. And instead of focusing on one thing a day or week, I have been absolutely all over the place.

Finally last week (when my focus was split in every other area of life too) I got organized and prioritized what needed to get done. And I came to a conclusion.

I think it's time to query Book One.

Wow. That feels big and scary to say. Back in the winter I had the goal of starting queries in May (*for those who don't know, a query is a letter you pitch to an agent about your story that is intended to draw them in and request your manuscript, with the hopes that they read your book, fall in love, and convince a publisher to publish it. Sounds easy. From what I've read and heard, it's a horrible experience.)

May came and I knew I wasn't ready (and by me, I mean, my story). But I've been working on edits, I have my second round of first readers going over it right now, and all the assorted things I need to have ready are at least started.

When I realize May wasn't the right time, I bumped it back to August, and I think (by the time we get back from vacation and I tidy things up), August will be it. I had given thought to pushing it back more, but here's what I realized.

This book may never be ready.

It may not be marketable.

I have drafts of the 2nd and third books done, and I will certainly finish them regardless, but if an agent or editor is going to suggest changing the course of my books, then I can let it stop for now.

I don't have to have it perfect, because the truth is, nothing I write will ever be perfect. But I need to pitch Book One, if for no other reason than to go through the process and learn. I'm hoping that I'll get feedback. Maybe my query will need adjusting. Maybe my entire book will need adjusting. Hopefully someone will give me an idea of what I can do to make it better.

In the meantime, I can work on something else. And that's the whole point; write. Write more. Write better. I already have a brand new fantasy draft in progress, and still drafts of Book 2 and 3 that need a lot of revision.

I think I've missed writing. Because mostly lately I've been working on outlines and synopses and queries, and while those are necessary, they're not as fun as writing a story. And man oh man, have I missed creating a story. I think if Book One was out there and I had 6-8 weeks to wait for replies (as that is the normal time), then it would free me up to work on something new. To write something new.

So, August. I have my list of agents (in order of how much I love them and think they would be a good fit for me). The query needs slight tweaking, the synopsis is decent. I need to polish the manuscript, and I do want to rewrite the first chapter to make it better---as best that it can be.

And then there it will go. I will send it off to agent land, pray many prayers, try to grow thick skin, and write a brand new story.

Which is why I want to get an agent. Because man, the idea of writing stories as a job??  Well, that would be so amazing.

And now for something completely different

So this week I have been on a writing frenzy, and have finished the (oh so very) rough draft of Book 3 (fist pump!) A friend of mine who is a published author once told me the best thing to do after you finish a rough draft is to let it sit and work on something else before coming back to it. I didn't heed this advice at first because I was so stinking excited about my very first rough draft and just wanted to be with it all the time (think high school crush obsessiveness). But now I have learned the wisdom of letting it simmer before coming back for rewrites.

So, now that Book 2 is in the hand of some first readers, and Book 3 is on paper, it's time to move on to something else.

I started writing a story this past winter that I LOVE, but that I abandoned because keeping up with it and the trilogy I was writing became too much. But ah, now that the trilogy is ripening, we are back to this little beauty.

It's a fantasy genre (what?!?) and I love it. (Still YA, but fantasy YA) I had stopped working on it also in part because I was half way through the manuscript and wasn't sure what I wanted to happen. I mean, I knew my character arcs (how my characters change and grow), but I didn't know the plot to get them there. I'm still working on that, but am oh so excited to get back to this little gem.

This new story involves ideas and themes and things such as this:

photo

photo

Ah, intriguing, yes?  I love this story, but man, it's been hard to put together. Writing fantasy is hard because you create a whole new world, which has to have rules and limits and sometimes coming up with those is hard. Especially since I decided to write a story about people who can travel between worlds. Hello, multiple world building!

This story includes worlds such as this:

Worlds trapped in winter. Craggy mountains, deep valleys.

Frosty mountains, tall trees

Worlds of woods;. Forest floors that muffle sounds and secrets and traitorous deeds.

Deep woods. What lurks behind those trees and shadows?

 Ah, and then this. A graveyard. But this is not a typical graveyard, and contains secrets and truths, and will lead more than one of my main character's to do things they never thought they would.

photo

Ah, and the characters in this book---oh man, I love them. Five main characters (five!) plus a colorful supporting cast. Here's a small sampling:

This is E. She's the main lead character of the story. Guarded. Smart. Knows just about everything and can sense what she doesn't know. Gifted. 

Self loathing, but she doesn't know it.

E.

Then there's A. "Feisty" describes her the way "warm" describes July in Louisiana. Committed to duty above all else. More gifted than anyone. Single minded. Purposeful.

Judgmental. Unwilling to compromise. Prideful.

A

Then there's T. Murderer. Criminal. Outcast.

Hot tempered, angry, vengeful.

He's my favorite :)

Kinda pictured him like this.

Oh yeah, and bad guys. Lots of bad guys.

Enemies

Or, are they?  Sometimes who you think is an ally turns out to be an enemy. And enemies can end up being allies.

Or the love of your life.

Ya'll, this story is going to be soooooo good!  

Now I just have to write it...

And, here it is

Ok. So, I have gotten some fantastic feedback from some published writers, one editor, and my super savvy husband, and this is where we've landed. Read it, and tell me whether or not you would be enticed to snatch this book off the shelves and be dying to read it ;)

************************************************

Overcoming her past keeps ruining her future.

Abandoned at birth at a ramshackle inn, Auriella grew up abused and hated by those she was left with. The man who rescued her from a life of servitude, and is now her father, is Captain of the King’s Guard. All she wants is to forget her past, but it haunts her, whispering unworthiness over her every day.

Battling the fear that her horrible past makes her unloveable, Auriella is determined to find a way to prove her worth. Just as a spark of romance with one of her father’s men starts to convince her that love need not be earned, she witnesses the brutal beating of a servant girl and realizes she can no longer hide her brokenness.

Helping the girl could redeem Auriella’s past, but it means breaking the law, and that may be the one thing that rips her away from the father she’s grown to trust and the boy whose love she wants the most. She will need to choose whether to help the servant girl escape a hell that is all too familiar, or turn her back on someone who needs her.  One choice will place the love she’s always wanted at risk. The other may protect her heart, but at the expense of another’s life.

SHATTERED, a YA novel complete at 82,000 words is the first in a planned series. It tells the story of a girl desperate for healing from three points of view:  the girl who can’t see her own worth, the father who rescued her, and the boy who’d wage war to save her, if only she’d let him.

When your words get ripped to shreds

Fail Better.

I saw this a few months ago and pinned it because it's good wisdom for many things in life, especially writing. I even remember changing the words in my head the first time I saw it to "Write again. Fail Again. Fail better."

Failure is a part of life, and a part of creating. It's agonizing though. I submitted the pitch for my book in a contest recently and got horrible, horrible feedback. It was bad.  Both the feedback, and what I had written.

I understood and agreed with all the feedback and criticism I got. But man, it totally killed me. I think because my manuscript is somewhat done and I had finally felt so proud of this thing I had written and had begun to think 'Wow, this isn't crap." And then I got feedback on what I had written and it essentially said, "This is crap."  I had an awful moment where I felt that I had no talent for what I most want to do, and it hit me so hard it was all I could do to keep from running to the bathroom at work to cry.

But, I got over it. I had some sweet encouragement and even though I told myself I would take a week off, I got into super attack mode (cause that is what I do) and edited the crap out of my blurb. Blurbs and queries are hard. It's like going speed dating. You are trying to convince a total stranger that you are actually a wonderful, lovable person worth pursuing. You have 120 seconds to do it.

Craziness, right?

That is the publishing industry as I understand it, and I haven't even dove into it yet. I'm just getting educated and testing the waters and holy crap, this pool of publishing scares me to death. I am all "do you like my floaties they keep me alive" and a thousand Michael Phelps are in the pool laughing at me because their skill puts me to shame.

Sigh.

But I learn. I take feedback and use it to make things better. And I cling to hope because she is like a wart you can't get to leave and clings to me despite my Debbie Downer attempts to fling her off.  And I try again. I write. I struggle, I edit. I write some more.

The truth is, I would love to get published.

The truth is, that if that never happened, and a time travel fairy came to tell me that she had seen the future and there was absolutely no publishing in my future, I would still write like crazy. Because I love it. Because it is who I am. Because stories are my favorite thing and creating them is the best, wildest, most wonderful thing. And because I have friends who love me enough to read what I write anyways, even if every agent and editor in the world were to tell me it's garbage. 

I would say that I write because it makes me happy, but really, I write because I have to. Because words and feelings and realities and hopes get locked inside of me, but find a way out in a fictional story.

So here's to writing despite someone taking my words and stomping all over them. The victory is not that the words got liked, but that they got written. 

Work in Progress

WIP

So, I'm working on edits for Book #1, along with polishing my query and synopsis.  To help my brain not fry out completely, I am also working hard on Book #2.  (It helps me to have multiple things going on at once so my brain can stretch and not collapse in on itself)

Book 2 has an interesting history.  After I finished Book 1, I was so in love with my characters I wanted to write more.  So I came up with the most horrific thing that could happen, and made it happen.  I wrote Book 2's first draft in about 6 weeks (contrast that to the 9 months it took me to write draft one of Book 1).  I was so frantic to write the sucker I just vomited it out as fast as I could.  It was only about 35k, and after I wrote it I let it sit.

Book 1 went through some serious rewrites (right now it sits at about Draft #14 or so).  Then I started looking at Book 2.  And the more I thought about it, the more I thought that I could turn Book 2 into Books 2 and Book 3.  Which is working because the first draft was so bare bones.  And, the first draft was all from one POV (and book 1 had morphed into a 3 person POV story).  Lots to add.

Drafting is hard for me (I much prefer rewriting and editing).  So I set a goal to have the first draft of the new Book 2 done by May 1.  On March 30 it was at 28,700 words.  As of last night I was at 44,119 words.  That is pretty stinkin' good.  I've hit a groove a couple of evenings and words just keep flying.  A lot of them will end up getting cut or changed, but I just need something on paper to work with.

Average length for a YA is 55-90k.  This second book isn't going to be as long as the first (or the third I think though who knows, because I haven't started that one).  My goal for this one is around 60k.  Not that I'm aiming for a specific word count--I just want to tell the story well--but I think 60k is about where it'll land once it has all it needs to.

First week of April and I'm only 15k or so words short of my goal.  (Fist pump!)

Back to typing!