Update and Excerpt

     

     Hi! Long time no see! Don't worry no one died.  This won't be another death blog. 

     Now that things are leveling out, I thought I'd let my readers know I'm still here and I'm still working on my writing. 

     A lot changed after Mom passed. We moved my sister Jody here to the house, and it went well. She's getting her entire damage deposit back. How often does that happen? I'm also pretty pleased with UHaul for making the rental process easy and affordable. 

How's it working out? Quite well, actually. Jody is an excellent roommate. She's quiet and considerate. She's vegan and she doesn't drink or smoke. Therefore, she doesn't eat our food, drink our booze or bum smokes. Grendel has taken a shine to her and sleeps on her bed a lot. 

     Shout out to my husband Dan for driving the truck and all his help. Shout out to my bestie Melaida for helping us move. Since we managed to give away so much of Jody's furniture beforehand, almost everything fit and the rest of the boxes were deliverable in the Mazda in a few short trips. I'm so glad it's over. 

     We got Amir fixed finally. That went reasonably well also. Shout out to Mayfield Animal Hospital and Dr. Rebecca Alexander. Now Amir is a homebody that actually prefers to stay indoors, much to my immense relief. He's an absolute sweetie who stays close to Mommy and I love it. 

     NOW, I can concentrate on work and writing. More accurately, editing. I'm working on my final edit for 'Her True Name: Volume Three' and a short story named  'Bad Clown'. 

     The problem with HTN3 is that I got to Chapter Twelve when I realized that Druhi is younger than I made her out to be, and her backstory is more severe than it should be. I need to go back to the beginning and change a few things. No worries. While I'm there, I will make sure Eshma's story flows and see if her character needs more filling out. Eshma is a goat by the way. Her character arc filled out better than I hoped and the previous chapters need to reflect that.

     Bad Clown is half way done. The first half is great, but the second half needs more. I introduced two characters in the first half, but lost them in the second. Fixing that problem actually made it worse and I can see how I simply added superfluous lines that didn't work out. Bad Clown himself needs fine tuning. I think he's scary now, but is he scary enough? Details, details. 

But like I said, I'm pleased with how Bad Clown starts off, so I thought I'd give you a little taste. I hope you are intrigued.


BAD CLOWN

We were asleep when they banged on our door. Must have been two in the morning. Sleep had been hard to come by with the unseasonable heat, and I was pissed.
“Open up!” What the Hell? Why are they bothering us? We didn’t do anything.
Duncan throws his housecoat on, snarling about the intrusion, while I check the windows. Orange lights illuminate the neighborhood from seven black vans. Aren’t police vans black and white? Aren’t they marked with the word POLICE? Who are these assholes? Why are their lights orange? These aren’t cops.
My husband fights at the door, but three men in gray uniforms wrestle him into submission.
“Wait! Where are you taking him? What has he done? Dammit, Grendel! Freya, come back!!” Both cats run out the door in a black and white blur. “What’s going on? Where the Hell are you taking him?” I reach for Duncan, but more officers yank my arms and pin them behind me.
“What is this? What’s going on?” No one answers me.
I need a lawyer. I need my cell phone. I’m wearing nothing but a nightshirt. My phone is charging on my desk. They left my door wide open.
Abigail! My next door neighbor must be seeing this. She’ll take care of the house and the cats. Maybe she can help.
New screams hit my ears. They’re dumping Abigail into another van.
“What have you done with Duncan and Abigail? Where are you taking us?” I stomp on toes and struggle hard.
“Put the bitch out.” There’s a pinch in my neck before I lose consciousness.

Re-Start

This will be my third attempt to write a Christmas/New Year's blog. I found that as Christmas approached and winter closed in it got harder and harder to stay upbeat and not to leak my anger and self pity into this blog.

The truth is, this year, all the fiction I wrote was one single Drabble. 100 words. Don't worry, I've still been editing a bit. Until I spent two months working graveyard shift at a toy store. (Oddly rewarding and educational.) Then edits fell by the wayside.

I only have one New Year's resolution this year. I need to rekindle my passion for writing. I need to let go of my guilt and regrets. I need to give myself permission to be kinder to myself. There's so much I haven't said, but I'm not here to bring people down. I'm here to tell you I will write again. I'm here to tell you I'm returning to my edits in the hopes that I can get 'Her True Name: Volume Two' out soon. I'm going to continue work on my anthology about my dreams.

Thank you Sharon, Sherri and Judy,  Jesse and Michelle, and always Mel, Colleen, Sylvia, Rita, Kevin and Ashley for being there when my father passed, and for sticking with me and supporting me. Thank you to my husband Dan and my perfect cats Freya and Spartacus for the much needed cuddles.

Happy New Year and I'll see you all in 2018.

The Thing About Edits

Yay! You've finished your novel! It took you months, maybe a year or so. You've overcome the dry spells, the self doubt, and constant revisions. You've added extra details and removed superfluous sentences. You gave some characters more to say, and eliminated others. You remembered to show, not tell.

Or did you? Now that you're gazing lovingly at your finished manuscript, it's time to look it over and berate yourself on what a clumsy, amateurish job you did. Oh, edits are fun.

You give it a good once over. Check your spelling, and count the sensory details. (Crap! Excuse me, I have to check Freya's reaction to her new environment in the Prologue. Don't forget to describe the setting.) Make sure the five senses are represented, and if applicable, include the sixth sense hunches and feelings.

Another run. This time you read it outloud, checking for grammar and flow. Did that sentence make sense as you read it? Did everything mesh together properly? Or were there pieces that pulled you out of the moment? Would an Old Norse Viking use the word 'demented'? No. They use the word 'beserk', and it's okay to use it more than once. Put the Thesaurus down.

Third run. NOW, we're in the thick of it. Read it like a reader, not a writer. It looks different. Are you pulled in? Are you bored? Why? Today, it was show and not tell. Fix it with a dialog between the characters about how they're feeling about arriving on Earth for the first time. Pick apart every sentence. You find a sentence you don't like, and you realize it's because it uses a lame cliche. Why say 'incomprehensible babble' when you can say 'words that fell from his mouth rolled, pitching high and low in an incomprehensible deluge. Like a song.' Answer your own questions. Like why doesn't anyone believe Heimo when he tells the villagers that naked strangers have arrived? Because one sentence claims Heimo has seen fairies. No one believes that either.

When that exhausting exercise is finished, you'll probably go over it again. Just to be sure. Because you're going to send it to Beta readers, people who love to read and will give you important feedback about your carefully polished offering. If they care about you and your work, they'll be brutally honest. Put your ego aside. This is your audience. If they find flaws, examine and correct them. Remember--"No one ever became great by being told they were great." --Stephen King (I think.) 

So we're done now? No. Hand it all over to a professional editor, and squirm as they take your baby and manipulate it into something palatable for the masses. Anyone who trusts their own objectivity and publishes without this step is an arrogant fool. Besides, it will only enhance your work, and make you look that much more talented. If you have a good editor, you'll barely be able to see them in the final product. 

I'm in the third edits of Her True Name: Volume Two. I just finished Chapter One, and it took all day. Here's a sad fact about edits...You'll never quite be satisfied. While I'm here writing advice, I'm clicking back to those pages I did today and tweaking them as I am reminded to practice what I preach. (Ooh...such a bad cliche! This blog is full of them.) 

Here's a happy fact about editing. It's hard work, but I'm glad to be doing it. I feel like myself, and I feel accomplished. If you wrote the book, edits are just a good way to make it the very best you can offer the world. Don't rush. Just enjoy the improvements, and know it's worth it.

Friends with the Editor

The charm I bought when I finished Chasing Monsters

As of this writing, my fourth novel 'Chasing Monsters' is in the last stages of edits. I'm feeling excited and confident, and it has a lot to do with Heather Savage of Staccato Publishing.

I met Heather through Vamptasy Publishing, the original publishers of 'Thoeba'. When Vamptasy couldn't keep me, they recommended Heather. Heather was, at the time, another Independant Publisher. She read 'Thoeba', liked it, and signed me up.

We've been friends since. I rarely speak to Heather--most of our exchanges take place over Facebook Private Messages. But she's become a valuable friend and business partner.

I can't tell you what it means to me to have an editor I can trust. When you spend several months, a year, sometimes longer working on a book, it's hard to hand it over to someone else to fix all the flaws. My novels are my babies. Trust me, it's like mentally giving birth. You know--the long, painful process that makes you want to collapse with relief when it's over. How you love what you've done, even after all the agony. (At least that's what I assume childbirth is like. No disrespect intended.)

But when Heather is finished with my work, I can breathe a sigh of relief. She's a benevolent spirit who glides through the pages, making them clear and shiny. So polished...It makes me happy and I can barely see where she's been. It's still mine, only better. She makes me look like I actually know what I'm doing.

She understands my vision, my BRAND, and knows what needs to be done. She gets my tetchiness and I can hear the smile in her text when she calls me a perfectionist, even when MY text sounds impatient and itchy. She gets it. After all, she's a damned good writer too. Books by Heather Savage

She recently used the word 'genius' to describe this book. She thinks it's my best one yet, she likes it more than 'Aphrodite's War'. On one hand, I'm exploding with pleasure. On the other hand, I want to run screaming from my keyboard. The pressure! But it's so important to me that she likes my work. And I suppose if it sucked, she would tell me, just when she tells me when phrases and words don't work.

She believes in me. I can't stress how valuable that is. She believes that someday soon all our hard work will manifest into success. I really hope so. For both of us.

I am Writer, Dread my Post!

I'm sitting outside, having a smoke break when I am joined by a young friend who works at the restaurant next door to mine. We usually talk shop, his upcoming wedding and Pinterest. He tells me, after eight years, he's leaving his job. Eeeek! "I'll miss you!" I tell him. "I'll miss you too!" he says back. We decide we should stay in touch and exchange cell phone numbers (And first names, I might add. I chatted with this guy for four months and we never knew each other's names.) and I tell him I'll give him one of my bookmarks. I can tell he doesn't know what that actually means.

Later that day, I send him a text to confirm we have the right numbers. I tell him I got sent home early, but it's okay because I've got edits to do. He says "Bummer. Edits arn't fun." And I wonder if he's trying to be funny.

Today I give him a bookmark and tell him the picture is the cover of my second novel, Aphrodite's War. He asks what it's about. I give him a short run down....failing to tell him it's a love story and that I write paranormal romance, but it doesn't matter because he responds with a deadpan-- "Cool...Didn't know that about you." As if it anything BUT. I think I muttered something about marketing being a bitch and having trouble self-promoting.

That's the trouble with being a writer. I'll bet my friend is thinking, "Oh God, ANOTHER one?" Writer is the new 'rock star'. Everyone wants to be a writer.

That's why it's so hard to make a living at it. I'm just one in a couple million, It doesn't matter how hard I work, there are millions of people just like me. We all want to tell a story. And self-publishing has made it that much easier.

I think this is funny. It's happened that people tell me I should write THEIR story. One guy insisted he was so interesting, I'd make a lot more money writing his family history than I could ever make writing fiction of ANY kind.

It's weird to be on the other side, where being a writer might make people find me tedious. I don't think I've ever experienced that before. Interesting. Good thing I'm an armadillo.