Today

Today I managed to write a pretty good chunk of Shades. I got Saeli started in the portal form, and brought the first of my obstacles, Geris, onto the scene. Today I almost managed to write myself into a corner, when the established rules of magic in my world prevented me from doing something the simple way. Please Login or Register to view this.

Anyway, that’s why we’ve taken a break from our regular schedule of bloggish activities. I’ve actually been, you know, productive.

And the apartment is clean! It’s great! I can actually concentrate on clearing up some areas that always get ignored because I’m too busy trying to catch up with a backload of dishes and laundry.

Tags: editing, Kaladan, Mora, Raphel, revisions, Saeli, Shades, worldbuilding

An update, and some art

Well, I never did get around to posting something in here yesterday. Alas, alas. However, I’ve been pretty productive with my writing, so I say that makes up for it. I finished the chapter that was bogging me down, and am a good ways into the next one. I find myself making Raphel much nicer this time around, in the way he says things..which is interesting, because I’ve apparently also been making him meaner, too. There is a definite disconnect between his words and his actions, and the gulf is growing as the story goes on. He will do something awful to Saeli, but then he will list all his reasonable, unavoidable reasons for doing so, and show himself to be as worried and frustrated and human as she are, and he doesn’t like doing stuff like that, but…and Saeli finds herself nodding her head in agreement without a clear idea of how she got there. It’s all very underhanded. He knows if he’s outright mean, he’ll scare her off for good.

I’ve also been working on a book cover idea. It’s a scene that doesn’t actually appear anywhere in the story, but is rather a nod to the initial dream I had that inspired the story in the first place. I was with some dark-clad people, and we were hiding in a big city from a group of cold, white-robed people marching down the street, chanting like monks. I wasn’t one of the dark people, though, and I had the impression that I was actually supposed to be with the white-robed ones. But I wasn’t really one of them, either, though I was more like them than I was like the dark ones. But the dark ones weren’t really so bad, I found. (Thus, Saeli’s unique position in the world was born). Originally I had called the two groups the Blacks and the Whites, but it was suggested to me that those names were much too un-politically correct, and I agreed.
 
Scan:

This is the scan of the original drawing I did. It’s cobbled together from a bunch of different sources, which I put together in Photoshop and printed out. I then did what many might consider cheating, and traced straight from that composition using a lightbox. I would torn my hair out trying to get that architecture right otherwise. I’ve had to tweak the image sufficiently that I no longer feel guilty about it. (Wait…no. I never felt guilty about it. Oh well.) It looks weird at the bottom because the drawing is bigger than the scanner, and so I had to scan it in two pieces. The drawing isn’t going to show up on the finished piece; it’s only a guide for my Photoshopping. The figures in the foreground are Raphel and Saeli (if that wasn’t obvious). That is the High Priestess leading the line of professors; I haven’t decided who the others are (if anyone). That’s supposed to be the city Temple in the background.
 
Value sketch:

I learned about the concept of an underpainting in one of my Stetson classes, but I think this is the first time I’ve ever actually *needed* to do one. The purpose of the underpainting is to figure out where all the lights and darks will be. Because my source images came from so many places, my source composition had no consistant value scale whatsoever. (Plus, they were all daytime images, and this is a nighttime picture). The final image won’t be sepia-toned.
 
Where I’m at now:

Here’s where I’m at in the coloring process. I made the scene take place in the purple hour, Saeli’s favorite time of day. Right now I’m just filling in the flat colors; I will go back in different layers to put in the shadows and highlights. White buildings at night are interesting, to say the least. Black and white clothing isn’t much better. I’m trying to make it so that the grays on the left side of the image are made from purples, and the grays on the right are made from yellows, so that I have a warm gray/cool gray contrast. Saeli is pretty dead neutral.

The amount of work I can get done when I’m not at home is astronomical compared to what I do at my desk. I wish Books-a-Million opened earlier than 10AM. Places like Panera Bread and various coffee shops open early, but you really aren’t supposed to just sit in there without buying something (some places have a policy), and that could very quickly get expensive. I suppose I could sit outside and work (maybe when it gets a little warmer, heh). I got a lot of writing done Monday…if I can do that on all the days when Eli is at school, I can have the first book of Shades done by the end of March, which is my goal.

Tags: artwork, Raphel, revisions, Shades

Progress today

Last Friday I used the last of my Barnes & Noble gift card money (you know, the cards that my New Years thief didn’t steal because thieves apparently don’t read…), and bought myself a book entitled: First Draft in 30 Days, by Karen S. Wiesner. I initially picked up the book because the title intrigued me. “30 days? Yeah, right. Maybe if you don’t have a life.”

Well, the book is actually a very comprehensive system for outlining a story before you start writing it. This is something I could use. I immediately saw how one could combine the system with the principles of GMC that I learned at the conference, and do most of the legwork beforehand. Well, there’s a section for outlining a manuscript that’s already in progress, so I’ve spend most of today working the first book of Shades into an outline form. The reason for this is that I’ve reached a point in the rewrite where I feel like I’m running the story into the ground trying to get from point A to point B. I need to reestablish the whole picture in my head.

I’ve really been concentrating on turning what was the first section of the story into a complete book…determining the logical order of escalating stakes, figuring out where the downtime is, where the black moment is, where the resolution is. The good news is, there really aren’t any gaping holes…maybe little minor potholes. I haven’t even had to change the order of any scenes…I’ve just had to occasionally clarify what’s going on. There are a few places where I’m going to tweak little things, and make character motivation more clear, but other than that, outlining has been relatively easy.

Which proves that I have a pretty intuitive grasp of story arc, and I can apparently do GMC without knowing what the heck that is. Good for me! Now with my half a stick and my highly evolved brain *pokes self in the eye with the stick* ouch, I shall make fi-yah! Oh wait, wrong movie. Now I have the tools to do these things deliberately, without it taking several years per story. *cough*

The goal is still to finish the first book of Shades by the end of March. Mid-March, if I must.

I did a little agent research tonight…looking up some of the names I was given at the conference and adding them to my list of possibilities. Added another blog to the blogroll as well…an agent named Jennifer Jackson.

Tags: books, business of writing, revisions, Shades

Splitting Shades

Once again, I am contemplating splitting Shades across more than one book. I’ve thought about this before, and talked about it on LiveJournal. I decided then that the segments of the story weren’t complete enough to stand alone, and abandoned the idea. But now that pesky YA word count problem is cropping up again. I’m honestly not sure I can keep Shades even under 150,000 words without sacrificing story elements, stuff that I want to be in there. Yeah, maybe the story could be told without some of that stuff…maybe it’s not absolutely, positively, vitally necessary stuff…but it just wouldn’t be the same story. Not to me. I don’t believe in sacrificing story just because the publishing industry doesn’t think 16-18 year-olds won’t read long books. (Maybe they should try it sometime!)

While doing this rewrite, I’ve been raising stakes wherever I can: on Saeli, on Raphel, on Aschamon. In doing so, however, I’ve made the buildup to the portal scene much more intense. At this point, that scene is going to function like a climax, whether I want it to or not. And having a climactic scene in the middle of this book is risky, cause I will have established a level of tension that I probably won’t be able to maintain for the rest of the story. This first part could function as its own story now…not a stand-alone, but it has a beginning, middle, and end, and the ending does resolve what the characters set out to do (successfully portal onto another world).

If I combine Dheu and Caosgi into a second book, and have the ending complete the trilogy, it could work. Right now the first section of the second draft stands at 60,499 words…once I get it done, it will probably be somewhere in the 80,000 range (which is the recommended top end for YA). The Dheu and Caosgi stories together come out to 99,478 words, but that’s still including a whole section of Dheu that I’m planning to nix. With a good rewrite, I could probably make it about the same length as the first section. The ending has 35,422 at present, but it’s not done. I doubt it will be as long as the other two sections, but if I can get it up to 50,000 words, it will fall within YA guidelines.

The first book, then would tell the story of Saeli’s falling in with Raphel, her subsequent falling away from and eventual exile from her school (symbolized, specifically, by her relationship with Brendan), and her departure from Verre. The second book would pick up on Dheu, and chronicle Raphel’s quest and his rise to immortality. The third book would then be about Saeli’s quest to bring Raphel down. Each of these is its own story, and though they ought to be read in order to really get the whole picture, I think I could write them in such a way that one could still follow the bare bones of each story without having read the others. Robin Hobb’s Assassins, Liveship, and Tawny Man trilogies are like that…you get the gist of the characters and where you are in the story even if you haven’t read the others. In fact, I broke my own rule with the Tawny Man trilogy, and read the second book first (I couldn’t find a copy of the first, and I really, really wanted to read it). And yeah, there was a lot of odd stuff mentioned that I figured had happened in the first book, but I was never lost, per se.

There is, however, the whole “no one will buy a trilogy from an unknown author” problem. Well, Shades is just going to be one of those difficult stories, isn’t it? It’s either too long for its intended audience, or it’s a trilogy. Both situations compound the already inherent difficulty of breaking into the publishing industry. Right now, I honestly think that Shades is compelling enough to sell as a trilogy….and I think it has a better chance of being read as three average-length books than it does as one uber-long book. And this way, I can start pitching Book 1 to agents sooner rather than later. The first draft is pretty much written, and rewriting (while taking longer than I would like) does not take me as long as writing. I’m also hoping that the latter sections of the story won’t need full rewrites…just trimming and polishing.

And meanwhile, I can start working on Mask of Eldarmarch and Dragon Singer. I’m actually more enthused about Dragon Singer right now…Mask is such an easy, straighforward story, and most of it is already pretty well thought out, that my adventuresome writer’s bone is going “meh”. But it’s a solid story, and it raises some interesting questions about loyalty, trust, and love. I’m sure I’ll get more excited once I reacquaint myself with the material (it happened with Shades, heh).

I even picked a starting place for Dragon Singer and started writing the other day, just a few paragraphs. Got Rane, Zeke (his griffin), and Avie all on paper (Avie = A.V. = “audio-visual”…she’s in charge of all the speaker equipment). In just a few lines of dialogue, Rane has established himself as careful, methodical, and someone who sticks to the rules. Within that context, however, he’s an extraordinarily brave individual (tell him to go face a dragon and he will, without hesitation…but only after he’s double and triple-checked his griffin saddle-strap). I can already sense the shape of Rane’s internal journey. His personality is easy-going, and his soul is wide open to the world…Rane doesn’t have anything to hide, and he probably isn’t very good at hiding things anyway. I’ll bet he’s a horrible liar, which will make his eventual goal to bring down F.a.N.G down all the harder for him. (This will immediately separate Dragon Singer from Prison Break, where the Corrupt Corporation plotline was lifted from. Michael Scofield was also one of those heart of gold guys, but he had such a closed, mysterious air that you never really knew WHAT he was thinking about).  It will be interesting to see how Miriam does on paper, because she’s a whole lot more secretive in general, and she’s walking into this story with skeletons in her closet.

It just means they’re a good match for each other.

Over the next few days, I’m going to be working on the conference program like a madwoman. Most of the layout and artwork is basically going to be lifted from the registration bulletin I did, so it won’t be so bad. Just plugging in new content.

I also will be working on a pitch for Shades…which I’ve got to rethink, now that I’m going to split it. The first three sentences from my Writing Projects page will probably do well enough for a Book 1 pitch…maybe alter the last line to mention the portal form.

Tags: business of writing, Dragon Singer, Mask of Eldarmarch, revisions, Shades

Raphel is afraid of the dark

Did that get your attention? It got mine. Blame Saeli for the revelation.

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Tags: characters, editing, ideas, Mora, Raphel, revisions, Saeli, Shades

Goals

Well, Shades isn’t going to be done by January. Maybe if I had like a month on a deserted island with food, my computer and a power plug…but even then, it’d be rushed. I don’t want to rush just to get it done; it’s a good story and I want to do it justice. I’ve paid for an agent appointment anyway, because I think it will be good practice, and I’ll get to ask questions. I started making a list of agents I will want to target once I get done…even going as far as picking out some to pitch Mask of Eldarmarch, Dragon Singer, and even Briar Rose to (if nobody is interested in Shades at first).

I decided a while ago that I’m going to need an agent if I want to make a career of writing. One: more and more of the big publishers are no longer accepting un-agented stuff. Two, and possibly more important for me: I am absolutely terrible with legalese. I don’t want to screw up with a first contract and have it come back to bite me later…I’d rather just leave it in the hands of someone whose job is to handle that stuff. But I’ve realized that I’ll need to be particularly selective in my choice of agent, because I have such a broad range of projects I’d like to do. I did some research and discovered that most agents who handle YA and MG (middle grade) fantasy do not handle adult books and don’t know the adult market, and likewise, agents who handle adult fantasy don’t want YA. My first few novels definitely fall somewhere between YA and MG, but my Tindaari epic, for example, was always going to be an adult fantasy. Will I have to get a different agent for that one?

Also, I did not find a single agent that I thought I could pitch multiple ideas to and have them be interested in all of them. Obviously I have more looking to do, and there were a few that I could probably pitch most of my ideas to. But for example, some want gritty urban fantasy, but no regular fantasy…or more specifically, they want fantasy but no vampires (Briar Rose?), or fantasy but no sci-fi (134340?). I mean once you’re in, I guess an agent will represent anything if it’s good enough, but still, I don’t want to get stuck having to find a different agent every two or three books.

Shades is going to be a hard story to sell anyway, for three reasons. It’s YA, it’s long, and it’s my debut. Most publishers won’t take a chance on a super long YA novel from an unknown. Right now I’m probably in the neighborhood of 200,000 words. I can pare that down, and I will, but not in half. Certainly not down to the 80,000 mark (which is about the max for YA, typically). At that point, I’d be sacrificing story for length, and I refuse to do that. I’ll hang onto it and finish Mask of Eldarmarch and sell that first, if I have to. If it was an adult fantasy I could probably get away with long…but I think the voice is too young, and the people that will really be interested in it will be mostly teenaged girls.

But long YA debuts are not unheard of. Stephanie Meyer was relatively unknown, and Twilight came in at 118,501 words. Christopher Paolini was a complete unknown, and Eragon has 157,220 words (though he self-published it first…it existed for a whole year before a major publisher discovered it). Both fantasy, like Shades…even in YA, if it’s fantasy, it can be a little longer than average. I’ve actually revised my word count goal based on these two books…first I will shoot for 150,000 (comparable to Eragon), and if I can manage that, I can shoot for 118,000 (comparable to Twilight). That way, when I pitch it, I can point to the bestseller and be like, hey, this other book was long too, but it did well because it had a great story, etc. I think Shades has a good shot of succeeding on its own merit…as long as I can somehow prevent a prospective agent from having apoplexy over a 150,000 word manuscript.

I’ve also been thinking about the title of the book. “Shades” is an okay one, but it was really more of a working title in my head because I had to call it something. I had several permutations going, having to do with black and white, and shades, and gray, but none of them really seemed right. But one day last week I was scanning back through my first draft chapters (which are all titled based on a phrase from within the chapter), and I happened upon Chapter 24: Like softly breaking glass. And I thought to myself, “You know, that’s a nice poetic line. That could almost be the name of the whole book.” Especially since the essence of the story is not the abstract notion of good verses evil (though the story does cover that, obviously)…it’s about Saeli’s tragic relationship with Raphel. “Like softly breaking glass” conveys that in a way that’s interesting, and eye-catching, and poetic. (Not to mention glass seems to be a common prop in the story).

So, Shades may become Like Softly Breaking Glass when it’s done.

In other news, I have not been able to write at all this week, due to holiday preparations. However, my gingerbread cookies were a success both at our small group and at MOPS today, and I think I have everything bought that needs to be bought. I have some things to finish making, and things to wrap, and probably things to bag, and cards to sign…and the hubby and I’s anniversary is this Sunday, which will be a pleasant reprieve, but still. *sigh* Yeah, I’m beginning to understand why people dread Christmas.

Tags: agents, editing, revisions, Shades

Love and Shades

I had read somewhere that a writer must love her characters. Seems pretty logical, because if the author doesn’t care about the lives of the people she’s creating, why would anyone else? I got to thinking about this in conjunction with Shades. Do I love these characters? Actually, there was only one character in Shades that I couldn’t respond with an immediate “yes”.

Raphel is my favorite character, hands down. Do I love him? Oh yes. Too much. I occasionally I have to make sure I’m not lavishing too much attention on the guy. He has such a strong personality that if I let him have too much leeway, he would take the story and run. Nix that, he wouldn’t run…Raphel would dangle the storyline in front of my face, smile at me with that sexy, challenging glint in his blue eyes, and dare me to try and take it from him. Who could resist? (Apparently, not me ). I like to think that somewhere in that dark heart of his, he harbors a soft spot for Saeli, but honestly, I’m not sure. Beefing up the world around him, Aschera, the raider culture, etc. has actually helped keep him in line. Raphel might want everyone to think he’s got everything under control, but I have a whole world of problems I can use to take him down a notch, if I have to. I’ve already given him a rival cabal to worry about (that was a godawful chapter to write, btw).

Mora is actually keeping her distance from me in this rewrite. I do love her, though, because she’s always cool, and unflappable, and quietly sardonic, if the occasion arises. She’s such a tragic character, in that Raphel had already stolen her soul before Saeli ever met her. She’s a strong woman though, with a lot of history you only get glimpses of. She represents what Saeli could have become, if Raphel had really had the chance to break her. (I think that Saeli has more inner strength than Mora, and that Raphel would have never been able to completely conquer her, but it would have been a near thing.)

I’m having a lot of fun with Kaladan this time around. He’s a complicated man, and next to Saeli, he probably has the biggest character arc of anyone. You have to love a character who can throw out one-liners like this one:

Geris licked his lips. “You can’t blame me for being careful. This is enemy territory,” he said.
“Aye, we’ve only remained undiscovered in the largest Mantle city in the region for two whole moons,” Kaladan remarked. “Clearly Raphel’s subterfuge skills leave much to be desired.”

But his history is what really makes him fun to work with. In a way, as a Mantle turned Cowl turned Gray, he has the most perspective of any of them.

Cara is great because on the surface she seems like a typical young woman, flighty, scatterbrained, and doesn’t care for much other than socializing. But on the inside, she has an unwavering spirit and deep affection and loyalty to those she cares about. She’s the type of person who would never take charge unless they were forced into it, and then they would do an amazing job. Her early optimism and carefree nature is something I regret taking away from her at the end…but everyone in this story has to lose something.

Brendan…eh, who wouldn’t love Brendan? He’s the classic boy-next-door, who is willing to suffer in silence while the girl he loves dates someone else, just so she can be happy. Until he finds out the other guy is hurting her, of course…he won’t stand for that. Unfortunately, he’s a character that only really becomes important by dying.

Geris is like Peter Pettigrew from HP: one of those cowering, whiny villains who are so pathetic that it’s incredible how much trouble they manage to stir up. I like him for that, and because he gets what’s coming to him in the end. The High Priestess, aka Linserae. Avalgo. Othau. Isharyel. Hakarin.  Adna. The Keeper of the Oath. Jalil…those are all my minors that really get screen time, and I love them all, for various reasons. And there are my gods: Yuril, Scisaxar, Naeth.

I considered every single character in Shades, and interestingly enough, the only one that I’m not sure I love is…Saeli. And I was like “uh-oh…I love everyone except my PROTAGONIST? That can’t be good.” It’s not that I don’t like her, it’s just that I don’t seem to have any real perspective on the matter. She is so much of ME, in this story, that I can’t distance myself from her. Saying I love Raphel or anyone else is like saying I love my husband…I’m analyzing my own feelings for another person. Trying to decide if I love Saeli is like me trying to be someone else trying to decide if they like me. She is…transparent, to me.  I have been trying to give her more backbone this time around, and a few definite quirks that are NOT like me. But for the most part, how she reacts to things is pretty much how I would react, were I in her shoes. However, I’m pretty sure she’s not a Mary Sue…she screws up too much. She doesn’t always make the best decisions (clinging to Raphel for so long being the chief of these…but interestingly, I’m pretty sure I would make the same mistake).

The rewriting is going more slowly than I would like. I worry, sometimes, that I just don’t write quickly enough to survive in this industry. Even when I have a block of five hours to work with, I still don’t get a whole chapter done. I don’t know if I could really write a book per year, even if I had huge blocks of time to work in. I guess either it’s something you learn, or you find a publisher willing to let you take two and three years to produce a work. I’m beefing up some of the sexual tension in this story, even though I still don’t think I could market this as a genre romance. But the story is about Saeli and Raphel’s relationship, so I’m trying to keep the focus there, where I can.

Tags: Brendan, Cara, characters, editing, Kaladan, Mora, Raphel, revisions, Saeli, Shades

More reviews, and a new idea

I finished Industrial Magic, and I still agree with my previous post. Urban fantasy, not paranormal romance. Good, though. I’m definitely going to track down the first one.

I also finished:

Hidden Currents: by Christine Feehan

This seems to be part of a series of unrelated books all dealing with the same characters: the Drake sisters. All the sisters are varying degrees of psychic. This story was about the youngest one, seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, who gets to carry on the legacy and have seven (!) girls of her own.

General thoughts: The conceit was interesting, but I think this particular story failed on several levels. It begins with the girl getting captured by this really depraved mega-millionaire, who trades sex slaves on the black market. She is badly abused by this guy, sexually, physically, psychically (oh yeah, the guy’s a psychic, too). Okay, now I understand this sort of abuse really happens, and I think I’m a reasonably sympathetic person who gets appropriately outraged when I hear about it. However, it’s just not something I want to see in a romance novel. Stories like this are supposed to be, first and foremost, entertainment. Abuse does not entertain me. I don’t want to read about it in my free time, thank you.

So then, the girl, Elle, is rescued about three or four chapters into the story (which, by the way, makes the entire back cover blurb completely misleading), by the love of her life (whom she’d given up on) and her sisters’ boyfriends. The entire rest of the story is given over to her recovering from abuse, and rekindling her romance with her guy, Jackson. I hate to say it, but this author has obviously never read accounts or interviewed anyone who had actually been abused. Elle has little panic attacks, in the beginning. By the middle of the book, she’s happily having sex with Jackson and really shows little other sign of trauma other than being a little nervous in crowds. Bullshit. It should have been weeks, months, before she could bear another man to touch her. Hold her. Let alone have sex with her. You just don’t get over that kind of abuse that easily. Epic fail in the realistic catagory.

The story was just interesting enough to keep me reading, but really, not all that memorable. Everything the characters devised pretty much worked, which should never be the case. Elle’s setbacks are almost inconsequentially small, and are quickly fixed. Example: the climax. The sisters’ guys devise a way to defeat the millionaire villain. They execute said plan. Said plan goes over without a hitch. The villain is defeated. Boring, boring, boring! Most of the writing was given over to Jackson reassuring Elle that he really loved her, how he’d never leave, how he’d never let her abuser find her, etc. Elle also did a fair bit of that, too; she’s not going to give up, she believed in the two of them, blah blah blah. Yeah, characters need that, but it really did get old after the twentieth time or so.

Relationships: The book was too erotic for my taste, plain and simple. I finished it, but I did a lot of skimming, honestly. I guess people must like it, though, because there’s an awful lot of it on the market. I can read a sex scene, but seriously, 8 pages devoted to a blow job? *gagging noises* There were, again, a lot of body parts. I’m a grown married woman, so I’m quite familiar with what the parts do. I care more about the emotions of the characters. Also, and this is a personal peeve of mine, but I really hate it when a penis is referred to as a “cock”. It’s just…vulgar, to me. I cringe every time I read it. Let’s just say that I did a lot of cringing while reading this book. I suppose “member” or some other clever metaphor (spear? sword? let’s not go there) isn’t much better. I say, why name it at all? We know it’s there, we know what it’s doing. I’d rather read about how the characters feel inside.

Another problem was that the sex was too idealized for my liking. Even in the Gardella Vampire Chronicles, the author, along with describing the normal sensations, didn’t forget to mention when the heroine’s hair pins were digging into her head, or a bedpost poking her back, or the coldness of the floor. In this book, there’s none of that. The scenes have a setting, but the setting exists solely for atmosphere…it doesn’t actually interact with the characters at all (at least, not after they are getting it on). Even if I was having the greatest sex of my life, I think I’d still at least notice being bent back on a piano. In reality, I think that would be majorly uncomfortable.

And I guess there’s only so many ways to elaborate on “pleasure washed through his/her body” without getting redundant. Really, really redundant.

In other news, I’ve started a 1500 word short story that I might also submit to Writer’s Digest. This is a different contest than the one I sent the Smell of November to, and the possible cash prizes are higher. I had known about the contest, but wasn’t going to bother with it because I didn’t have any good ideas. I had read on Westerfeld’s blog about the concept of a “dialogue spine”, and how you can punch out the bare bones of a story using only two characters talking to each other. Then I remembered the hubby and I tossing around the idea of what it would be like to be a blind vampire. Then I listened to End Transmission by AFI, and I had my character: a blind vampire who is tired of what he is, and wants to die.

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Shades is coming along. Saeli has her Mantle now, and knows she’s a cleric. Trying to decide how to get her to that party without too many extraneous words.

Tags: ideas, Reviews, revisions, vampires

Reinvisioning parts of Shades

The revision process continues. Please Login or Register to view this.

Anyway, I have precisely three months to get this story done and polished before the conference. (Technically, I may have a little longer, because even if I get a bite at the conference, there will still be a period of days or weeks of querying and conversing back and forth with a potential editor or agent). That’s a little scary, but I’m going to try to do it.

Tags: Brendan, Cara, editing, Raphel, revisions, Saeli, Shades

My voice, and a Shades update

Well, I woke up this morning with no voice. I’ve had a cold since last Thursday or so, though luckily it hasn’t been a really bad one. Lots of throat soreness, which is a change from the I-can’t-breathe stuffiness I usually get. I think I actually prefer the sore throat…not being able to breathe is scary, especially at night when you start having dreams about it. Plus, I’m not using boxes and boxes of tissue. (No, it’s just all dripping down the back of my throat instead )

It’s amazingly difficult to handle a three year old child without a voice. I could whisper this morning, but Eli thought that was some kind of game, and refused to listen to me. *facepalm* My voice has come back gradually throughout the day, but my throat is still very sore.

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Tags: Brendan, Cara, editing, Kaladan, Mora, Raphel, revisions, Saeli, Shades, the High Priestess