New Beginnings and Older Works

Somehow, my schedule has fallen apart.  January of 2015, I was the picture of organization, the reason I was able to produce a 140,000 word book in eight months.  This year, I'm losing it.  After an initial strong start with Darling, I've had a lot of road blocks, in my personal life and in my writing one.  Besides the soul searching of wondering if I should really be a writer, if this is really the right thing to be writing, and what on earth I'm going to do with a story that is far better than the writer writing it, I'm three months into my year without much book to show for it.

Queen of Time is riddled with problems, so many that I sometimes want to just scrap it and start over.  Wanting to finish Darling before embroiling myself in editing, I keep on pushing it to the back burner.  Today, on an impulse, I grabbed a chapter that has a lot of transitional, important material, and a notebook and started over with the chapter.  Different things happening, different questions being asked, different character development.  If it works out, I will continue.

It's amazing how much of my story hinges on King Uther's reaction to Gwen coming to Camelot.  For any who don't know, Gwen, through a series of events, ends up time traveling from the twenty-first century into Camelot.  This being the case, one of the first things I had to plot out was the reaction people would have.  First, I set up a history with the Crossers (she is not the first one) and the people of Camelot.  I made her what they viewed as the fulfillment of a prophesy, a YA cliche that is tired and old at the moment.  I'm hoping I can remedy that particular story line at some point.  Secondly, I had to picture how the people in Camelot who have been waiting for this fulfillment would view Gwen, a short bespectacled teen who doesn't seem to have a stitch of confidence and a whole lot of fear.  This reaction has morphed three different ways as I've disliked each one after fleshing it out over a few chapters.  My latest take (as of today), is the likelihood that if King Uther doesn't feel she is the one they are waiting for, he would likely not want his people to know who she was because of the Crosser's history of bad blood with the people of Camelot.  This means he would keep Gwen at the castle under outwardly false pretenses.  Gwen, being the girl who refuses to lie, would obviously have difficulty with this.  And thus, a different story than I had this morning is a born.  A lie she has to maintain, a life she is trying to get back to out of her strong sense of not wanting to change the past, and a possible link to someone she doesn't want to be linked with (spoilers!!!).

As I said though, King Uther's decision makes all the difference in the book.  If he forced her to try and go back through the Doorway, she would die.  If he gave her over to the people out of anger, she would die.  If he put her in prison, she would die.  If he sold her off as a slave to another kingdom, she would probably, well, die.

After the king, how Gwen reacts to what happens becomes just as important.  With some of the characteristics shown at the beginning of the book, she could be the kind of person who would just hide in her room and never come out.  Then, she wouldn't meet the people she meets, form the relationships she does, go through the life changing events that she does, and ultimately, bring about the things that bring the book to the climax.

The story is going to need work.  A lot of it.  And it might not pan out at all.  The good news is, I was able to put my story in a whole new perspective today which is not an easy thing.  I was able to write a questioning, logically deducting Gwen like I haven't written before, a shier girl than I'm used to but one who actually felt likable.

Hopefully, this means I can get back to my long overdue edits for Queen of Time.  I think it has the potential to be an awesome story.  I'm just going to have to become the writer to fulfill that potential.

Being the goal oriented person that I am, I came up with some goals of what I want for Queen of Time more than anything else, mostly things I haven't been able to accomplish to my satisfaction in other stories.

• Gwen to be a very different heroine than I normally write but still likable and relate-able. 
• The world building to feel rich and visible.  Being able to take readers to my picture of Camelot would be awesome!
• Having a cast of different and believeable guys
• Having good chemistry between my female and male main character
• A complicated enough storyline to keep the reader guessing but not confused.

Seeing my goals here makes it sound like my book should be so easy.  Unfortunately, I am not good at writing anything on this list.  There's no good way for me to ease into it with a book of this caliber.  I'm just going to write, and rewrite until I'm done!

-Anna Leigh

The Romance of Editing and Book Two

A few years ago, I felt a bit meek about telling people what I liked to do since I felt sure that writing wasn't really a job for "grownups" and was the equivalent of telling people you're going to play in a garage band or your dreams of success hinge on the judges and voters of American Idol.

I'm not embarrassed about telling people anymore.  Mostly because I've come to respect being a writer a lot more than I used to.

Writing can be a casual escape for people, the kind of thing they do randomly when they have a blank notebook sitting in front of them or a great idea strikes.  For me, it's a little more serious than that.  When I see a blank notebook, I have to resist writing something in it.  I get four or five ideas for a book when I'm taking my walk or going for a jog in the morning.

Having a good idea and writing it down doesn't make you a writer but it is a start.  The rest is hard work, total dedication, and watching and learning every time your baby gets ripped apart.

Yes, that adorable little pink flower is my purse and the makeup bag
is what I use to organize my markers since I don't have a pencil bag :)

The last few weeks, it's been me doing the ripping.

The picture above is from one of the three days I spent at Starbucks.  Each day I dedicated a little over two hours to reading my book, intermittently between drinking my hot chocolate (with a shot of raspberry.  It would be so boring if you just got hot chocolate at Starbucks) and watching the passersby.  I live about two miles from an outdoor mall and discovered its a great place to work on my book.  None of the distractions from home and relatively empty when kids are in school.  The above picture is one of my more heavily edited pages but I do have a few with just a plain "x" marked across the page because the whole thing needs to go.  I had a lot of fun doing the marking, telling myself every time "I'm going to fix this so it'll be so much better" and trying not to think about the actual fixing process.  In the last few chapters, I came up with a great plot twist that I've written myself some notes about so when I get to editing it, I'll remember to incorporate it.

Things haven't been moving so quickly on my second book.  I've been busy with life and tying up the loose ends of my first and my second book has barely made it past 8,000 words.  With QoT, I did a lot of work plotting it out before I got more than two chapters into writing it but I haven't even started a plot with Darling, my second book.  I have several key points floating around in my head but I haven't yet found the thread that will tie them all together.  Even though the sequel is hinted at in QoT, it has a totally different cast of characters and a different world of problems.  Mostly, it's based off a different legend.  I have a lot more leeway with the legend/fairytale I'm using in Darling, mostly because it doesn't have any roots in reality.  Arthurian legends do and it's occasionally difficult to differentiate fact and fiction when researching for it.

I'll have more updates next time I blog.  I'm bursting to write about some stuff with Darling but if I do, it will spoil some of the surprises from QoT.  First world problems here!

-Anna Leigh

The Finish Line - Step One of Edits

I've been meaning to post for the last week and a half but I've been so busy with my manuscript, I keep forgetting.  The good news is, I'm looking at having the first draft done by Monday!!

*Confetti*

It's been an odd experience from start to finish with this manuscript.  I've finished the first draft for four manuscripts before and only two of them are even halfway presentable.  One of those two is a 30,000 word novella which I wrote in three weeks two years ago and have never gotten back to.  The other two have long since found their way into my recycling bin, which is possibly too good of a place for them.  The fourth one, of course, is Only Human.

I've been working on Queen of Time since January 18, 2015 which is a long time for a first draft but considering I'm looking at an ending word count of 135,000, it's not too bad.  It's certainly the fastest I've ever written a novel, certainly one of this length.  Only Human was really long before edits for me and it was 115,000 words.  It also took me two and a half years to finish - the first draft.  In editing my 21,000 word chunk to send to my critique group this week, it's now down to 18,500 words so I'm guessing my bulky story will shrink down under the same process.

This year's writing experiences have been informative, painful, and roller coaster like.  I thought I had the story all figured out when I started and it's gone in so many directions I never could have predicted.  I've brought in characters I never cared to include but am now so attached to (i.e. Gawain) and gotten rid of characters I thought would be crucial to the story.  It's going to be a lot of work chipping it down and making a good story out of it but the gem is there.  Buried deep deep deep down where only a determined (and possibly crazy) author would go, but I believe in it.

After I finish on Monday, I'm going to print the whole thing out.  I bought myself a new notebook and a set of highlighters and I'll be setting to work on Friday.  I'm not going to chop it apart yet.  It's too soon at the end of a project.  On Friday, I'm taking it to a local outdoor mall and I'm going to read it in one sitting.  I have a notebook where I'll note all the plot holes/changes in plot I see being needed.  I have four different colored highlighters which I'll be marking different things with.  Orange will highlight sentences out of character, yellow for outdated or discontinued story lines, blue for awkward sentences, and red for repetitive words.  I'll mark that baby so much it will hardly be readable and then it will be going under my bed for a minimum of two weeks.  Enough time for me to detox, work on other projects, and forget about the problems in the book, for which there are many.  I've never really set aside my work for so long after writing the initial draft but I've always been tight on a self imposed deadly.  I'm changing my method up a bit this time.  The few weeks time away from it will allow me to concentrate on other things I've been letting go and even start on the final book of the series.

I cried for the first time while writing this week.  I'd like to say it's because I was so wrapped up in the artistic intensity of the moment but it probably had more to do with the fact I'd been sitting for three hours and was six thousand words deep into my day.  There are some difficulties at the end of my book and *spoiler* some deaths that have to be dealt with. *end spoiler* It was a struggle for me to write them because I've been dreading it since I started seven months ago and then, as I was writing, it occurred to me all the characters were dying.  Not because I was killing them but because I wouldn't be writing them again.  Yeah, I'll be editing and doing rewrites but I'm nearing the second step in the journey where I'll be deepening their characters and it's only going to be harder in the next few months when I finish my edits and really let them go.  If you're not a writer, this will sound like crazy talk to you but if you are, I know you get what I'm talking about :)

I'll make sure to write again, even if it's a short post, when I have the official first draft wrap and then again after I get a chance to study my work Friday and share some thoughts!

- Anna Leigh

A Twist in the Tale

I don't like history.

There's not really a logical reason.  I'm not good at absorbing old facts and even worse at numbers.  I know history is important and it's not like I don't know anything about it, it was just always the hardest thing for me to do.  Numbers aren't my friends.  We have a mutual respect for each other and try not to interact anymore than humanly possibly. I've never been into math, I've always been into words.  

This being the case, it is complete craziness that I've taken on the book I'm writing

I'm writing a retelling of the Arthurian legend. Not a Arthurian legend, mind you.  The Arthurian legend.  It's a project I took out of love and one I'm living to regret.  I'm not a history buff.  My internet tab consist of Pinterest eye makeup tutorials and blogs written by history nerds.  Granted, my book has a sci-fi angle to it so I have some leeway but certainly not as much as I'd like.  For instance, if I was writing the true legend, my main character wouldn't even be able to understand what the people of Camelot were saying.  The English people in the six hundreds spoke an offshoot Celtic language, something no English speaking person today would ever understand. For those interested and wondering about the crest at the top, it's a concept drawing of the first known documented crest of Arthur Pendragon.

To add to the craziness, I have a main character who isn't a lot like me.  She doesn't talk a lot (I do!), she's a peacemaker, willing to be thought of badly as long as it means keeping others happy (definitely not me), and she's really smart.  I'm not a dummy but I won't even try to compete with the smarts of my main character.  I'm a writer who doesn't like history and numbers writing about a girl who loves them both. 

Along with these difficulties, I hit a bit of a snag. 

My main character was put in a situation which filled a few chapters of my manuscript and influenced the rest of the story.  The situation wasn't working out and it was limiting the places she needed to be.  For the last week I've laid awake in bed at night, trying to figure out how to make it work.  Yesterday morning (maybe a little closer to afternoon), I woke up knowing exactly what I had to do.  I needed to scrap it.  Last night I cut 12,000 words from my manuscript.  Might not sound like a lot but when I have a 40,000 word WIP, it's a chunk.  It needed to happen but it's leaving me a bit breathless moving forward.  I'm going to have to put in a lot of work to stay on schedule to finish, something I've let slip a bit this week.  Every two weeks I have to submit a chapter of this book to my critique group so I've been working overtime on getting it to a place where my critique partners can at least understand what I'm talking about!

Despite my fears, I can tell the story is already tighter.  I have to finish up this blog post to get back to it.  I'm in the middle of the scene where Gwen meets Guinevere for the first time!

- Anna Leigh

Final Edits and Continued Journeys

Two weeks ago I finished what I hope will be the final edit of Only Human! Besides the odd spelling mistake and some rearrangements with the number of pages in a chapter, I'm done. At least for a while.

For anyone interested, I managed to squeak out my 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo! It was scary and there were a few days when I thought I wouldn't make it but I did. As of this week, I've gotten back to my sequel and all the pressures it brings. The thing is, I have a great ending in mind and great characters to bring me there. I'm just stuck on that ever so sticky middle of the book situation. When I finished editing OH a few weeks back, I pulled open Human Nature and plunged right in. I was scared and had my notebook ready to jot down all the problems...and found surprisingly little. I mean, does it need work? Yes! Will it need some definite editing TLC? Oh yeah! But it wasn't the mess my first book. It wasn't even close. It's altogether possible I'm seeing the payoff of all the research I've been doing in the last year.

When I told my Mom I'd finished, the first thing she wanted to know was if I'd saved the last draft before I'd began this last edit. As soon as I have an improved product, I can't wait to get rid of the embarrassing one cluttering up my computer and my writing life. But when she said it, I went to my computer and unearthed the previous copy from the trash bin. She really wanted to read them side to side because she really liked the last draft and she said she's afraid she won't like my new edit as much. I assured her that wouldn't be the case. I think in the future, despite the embarrassment it might bring, I'll enjoy having that old draft. If not for anything else, I can pull it up on a discouraging day and tell myself yes, I have gotten better.

In the meantime, I have all these thoughts floating in the back of my mind about what I want to pitch to a publisher. I have a whole list of them in mind, all sorts of things saved about query letters, and a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that says I'm going to fail. I will fail but only if I look at it that way. Getting rejected once, twice, or even ten times isn't a failure. It's a learning curve. My last draft with it's bulky 115,000 word count and far too many uses of the word 'eye' and 'was' wasn't a failure. It's something I've used to move on.

All that being said, I don't love science fiction. It's what my Human series falls under but it isn't what I really like writing. I enjoy contemporary character sketches with funny moments, sad moments, and an all over feeling about how much you care about the characters. If I pitch something to an agent or a publisher, I want it to be in a genre that I'll keep writing in. As much work as I've put into my Human series, I don't want to be stuck writing science fiction. All these things leave me to figure out what I do want to use to represent myself.

I'll write again soon about the critique group I joined and the book I'm focusing on as the 'one' to send to the publisher. I promise I'll write before the date says 2016 :)

-Anna Leigh

Continued Edits - Side by Side Comparisons

I have not been as diligent as I ought with editing but life has been VERY busy!

I've gotten back to my editing in the last few days and am doing my best to ignore my word count has just hit 96,000. It'll be a long journey still...

As I edit, I cut and paste into a new blank document so I'll never scroll down through what I've already worked on so my final word count is more like 107,000. Considering I started at 115,000, I'm feeling pretty good about it. I removed my first major scene, reworking to hopefully flow better into the rest of the story. I thought it'd be interesting to be a side by side comparison. The first one is what I published in December and is a 1,505 word excerpt. The second one is what I've been working on and is a 1,502 word excerpt. The  highlighted portion on the second excerpt is a part I still want to rephrase or delete entirely.

I'll write again soon about some new project inspirations I've had!

Anna Leigh

The Tunnel

The tunnel was dark, so dark I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face. I reached to the right until my hand came in contact with a wall, then did the same with the other hand. The tunnel was only about five feet across, the walls bumpy like cement.

A breeze caught in my hair, blowing the short layers out of my face. After a minute I realized there was a small ray of light coming from the end of the tunnel, almost impossible to see. I started forward, anxious to get out of this thick darkness and into the light so I could see where I was. I barely caught my footing on the uneven ground, fighting to keep my balance as I tried to walk forward.

I hadn’t gone far when I heard a shout behind me. I didn’t know who it was, but my danger instincts were on red alert. Despite the uneven surface and the darkness I broke into a slow run, afraid to be caught but worried I’d lose my footing if I went any faster. They’re coming after me. They’re going to get me.

I tripped and fell against the wall, dragging my elbow across its jagged edge. I felt the wetness of blood running down my arm but strangely enough didn’t feel any pain. I continued to run but the light was getting more distant and hard to see. At one point it disappeared entirely and I turned, surrounded by darkness and dozens of footsteps pursuing me.

Why am I even running? If I just stopped and let them catch me, at least I’d be out of this darkness.

My legs began to go weak under me and I found I couldn’t support my weight anymore. I dropped into a sitting position. Soon they would be here. Soon, for better or worse, the unknown pursuers would catch up with me.

From out of the darkness, someone took my hand. I opened my mouth to scream but stopped, feeling the strange sensation he wasn’t the enemy.

“You can’t give up.” The voice was quiet in my ear. It was a nice voice. A man’s voice, I thought, but I wasn’t sure.

But I wanted to give up. I was tired. I was bleeding. Besides, no matter how fast and far I ran I couldn’t escape the darkness.

“You can’t give up,” the voice repeated again, the grip on my hand getting tighter. “You have to fight, Abby. You have to fight.”

I frowned. “Fight what? Fight them? How can I fight them?! There are so many…”

“You have to fight yourself,” the voice replied, making me more confused than ever. Why would I have to fight myself?

“If you give up now, you’ll always be surrounded by darkness. You have to fight to see the light. Fight to come back.”

I started to respond but suddenly another voice interrupted, jarring and unpleasant. “You don’t understand what you’re talking about!”

The blackness faded away abruptly and I was opening my eyes with a start. The window to my room was open and a warm breeze blew across me accompanied by the sound of birdsong and someone mowing their lawn. My heart was beating hard as I sat up, reaching over and grabbing the glass of water off my bedside table. Another nightmare. Why hadn’t I just gotten used to them by now?

More annoyed voices carried their way through my window and I realized the neighbors on either side of us must be having an argument again. Mr. Sawyer and Mr. Sullivan seemed to have made a pastime out of finding reasons to fight with each other and the emotional resonance was already starting to give me a headache.

I got headaches from other people’s emotions a lot, but I’d never told a soul about it, not even my mother. She got stressed out if we didn’t have the meat we were planning for dinner: who knows what would happen to her if she found out what I could do.

Uh oh. Dinner.

I glanced down at my watch, my eyes widening when I saw that it was five thirty.

“Great.” I hurried away from the window to check my reflection quickly in my mirror. I hadn’t meant to sleep so late. Mom’s new friend was coming over for the first time tonight and being groggy was not optimal.

I ran downstairs, hearing Mom humming to herself as she worked in the kitchen. I stopped by the doorway pulling myself together. My dad had been gone since before I was born and Mom only talked about him now and then, making him pretty much a total stranger to me. Thinking about the car accident seemed to upset Mom so much she wouldn’t talk about it all, even after almost two decades. She hadn’t ever seemed interested in finding anyone else, either, until suddenly she met Ash. Now things were different.

“Hey, you’re awake.” Mom looked up from her chopping board, her hair back a little fancier than normal and a few extra swipes with her mascara apparent. “Did the two old fighters get you up again?”

I nodded, grabbing one of the carrots she’d cut up and popping it in my mouth. “I really have to remember to keep my window closed if I take a nap. You’d think I’d learn by now.”

“You’d think they would’ve learned to stop fighting over the same things by now.” Mom shook her head, dumping the chopped vegetables into a bowl and pouring dressing over them. “I guess that’s what happens when people get older and don’t have their spouse around to keep them grounded.”

Her happiness dimmed, a twinge of sadness joining it. She’s thinking about Dad again.

“So what time is Ash coming?” I asked, forcing myself to be more cheerful than I felt. I’d had to unload on Callie how much I hated the name Ash. I mean, what things are associated with that name? Ash borer? Ash heap? Cigarette ash?

Callie told me I was being too cynical and I should really be happy for my mom she’d gotten up the courage to start dating again. I didn’t have the heart to say what I was thinking. I didn’t want Mom to date again. I’d always wanted to have my dad come back but since he couldn’t, I’d learned to be happy with just Mom and me. The idea of someone new coming into our lives scared me, especially since I wasn’t exactly normal. Hiding it from one person in my house was hard enough; two would be even more difficult.

“He should be here any minute.” Mom brushed her hands off on her apron as she checked the clock. “He seemed really interested in meeting you.”

“Really?” I smiled. “Good - I’d like to meet him too.”

The doorbell rang right on cue. “You get it,” Mom said. “I’ll check on the chicken.”

I took a deep breath, telling myself to stop feeling so grumpy and be happy for Mom. If she could find someone who made her happy and who would take care of her, why would I want to stop her?

Ash was a bit taller than I’d expected him to be. He was also a bit younger and just a little too good looking to be real. He was standing there with a bouquet of flowers in his hands, everything in place from his hair to his overly shiny shoes. “You must be Abby,” he said, breaking into a perfectly straightened and whitened smile.

So he was Captain Obvious. Oh well. Didn’t mean he wasn’t nice…

He offered his roses and it was only then I realized he was holding two bouquets.

“For me?” I asked. Maybe I was Captain Obvious too. Who else would he be bringing a second bouquet for?

He nodded and I thanked him rather awkwardly, making sure to take the flowers without coming in contact with his skin. The constant stream of random thoughts and emotions had become my norm but skin to skin contact brought things to a whole new level. Contact with another human being, especially an emotional one made my world cease to exist while I was caught up in theirs. I’d never tested how long I could touch someone before I passed out but with the feelings I got from short exposure, I doubted my resistance was high.

I reluctantly stepped away from the door to give him enough room to come in. He wiped his shoes meticulously on the door mat even though there didn’t seem to be any good reason too. Trying way to hard.

“Come on in, Ash. I’m glad you were able to find your way here,” Mom said from kitchen doorway.

“It wasn’t difficult at all - your house is definitely the cutest in the neighborhood.” He flashed her another of his brilliant smiles, making me cringe a little inside.

“That’s quite a compliment,” Mom said.

The Tunnel

The tunnel’s darkness surrounded me, so dark I couldn't even see my hand in front of me. I felt blindly with my hands, stopping as they came in contact with a wall. The tunnel couldn’t be more than five feet across with walls bumpy like brick.

A breeze caught in my hair, blowing short layers out of my face. A small ray of light had appeared at the end of the darkness, almost impossible to see. I started forward, anxious to get out of the thick darkness. I caught my footing on the uneven ground, fighting to keep my balance as I moved forward.

I’d gone a few steps when a shout sounded behind me. I didn’t know the identity of my pursuers but my body screamed danger. I broke into a slow run, jostling and tripping along the uneven path. They’re coming after me. They’re going to get me.

I fell against the wall, dragging my elbow across its jagged edge. Sticky liquid ran down my arm but the inevitable pain didn’t follow. I staggered onward, watching the light recede and become even harder to reach.

A few steps more, just a few more.

Without a sound, it vanished. I turned in a circle, cold fear filling me with the surrounding darkness and my pursuers footsteps.

Why am I even running? If I’m caught, at least I’ll be out of the darkness.

My weakened legs buckled and I dropped into a sitting position. They’d be here soon. I would be at their mercy.

A hand covered mine, forcing a scream halfway up my throat before I stifled it. Friend.

“You can’t give up.” A quiet voice brushed by my ear, warm and protective. He wouldn’t let them take me. “You can’t give up,” he repeated, his grip tightening. “You have to fight, Abby.”

I found my voice. “How can I fight? There’re so many…”

“Not them. You have to fight yourself.” His voice sounded more urgent now. We were both running out of time. “If you give up now, you’ll never get out of the darkness. Fight to come back!”

Before I could respond, another voice interrupted, jarring and unpleasant. “You don’t understand what you’re talking about!”

The blackness faded away as I sat up, opening my eyes with a start. A warm breeze made its way through my open window, blowing across me and bringing the sound of birdsong with it. I breathed in and out, trying to calm my thudding heart. A little calmer now, I grabbed my glass of water and drank it with slow, deliberate sips. Another nightmare. Why hadn’t I just gotten used to them by now?

More annoyed voices carried their way through my window, revealing the owner one voice from my dream. Living between two old, curmudgeony men made for loud summer afternoons. They’d fought with each other as long as we’d lived here. The emotional resonance pounded away at my head, threatening to bring back my earlier migraine.

I still wondered if I’d done the right thing by not telling Mom about what I could feel. She got stressed out if we didn’t have the meat we were planning for dinner: who knows what would happen to her if she found out what I could do.

Uh oh. Dinner.

My alarm clocked blinked five thirty as I swung my legs over the side of the bed. A quick check of my mirrored-self showed all the side effects of a bad nightmare. I pushed sweaty hair out of my face, shoving it into a ponytail. With Mom’s new friend coming over for dinner, being groggy wasn’t my optimal condition.

Mom’s humming reached me as I took the stairs two at time, stopping just outside the kitchen door. She’d gone along fine after Dad’s death before shocking me by launching back into the dating world. Two decades of silence, all my info about the car accident coming from the papers and now this?

 “Hey, you’re awake.” Mom looked up from her chopping board, her hair curled and mascara applied liberally. “Did the two old fighters get you up again?”

I nodded, grabbing one of the carrots she’d cut up and popping it in my mouth. “I forget to close my window again.”

“You’d think they would’ve learned to stop fighting over the same things by now.” Mom shook her head, dumping the chopped vegetables into a bowl and pouring dressing over them. “I guess that’s what happens when people get older and don’t have their spouse around to keep them grounded.”

Her happiness dimmed, a twinge of sadness joining it. She’s thinking about Dad again.

“Ash isn’t here yet?” I forced my tone to stay flat, asking the question out of simple curiosity. I’d unloaded to Callie this morning how much I hated the name Ash. How many nice things were associated with that name? Ash borer? Ash heap? Cigarette ash?!

Callie called me out on my cynicism as she usual, telling me to be happy for my Mom. I’d kept my thoughts to myself, knowing my own selfishness in not wanting her to date again. I’d learned to be happy with just Mom and me. The idea of someone new coming into our lives scared me, considering my total departure from all things normal. Hiding from one person in my house could be hard enough; two would be even more difficult.

“He should be here any minute.” Mom’s voice brought me back to the present. She checked the clock again, running a hand through her hair. “He’s excited to meet you.”

“Really?” I smiled. “Good - I’d like to meet him too.”

The doorbell rang right on cue. “You get it,” Mom said. “I’ll check on the chicken.”

I took my time getting to the door, plastering on a smile before I pulled it open. Ash was a bit taller than I’d expected. His gelled hair challenged an onlooker to find a fault in it, while his chiseled yet youthful face stared back at mine. A good looking smile reflected across his attractive features, making my own smile falter. He had a huge bouquet, far too large for a first home date. Everything from his smile to his shined shoes screamed ‘trying too hard’!

 “You must be Abby!”

I tried not to stare, unsure how he spoke while smiling.

“Uh…”

“You must be Abby,” he repeated.

So he was Captain Obvious. Oh well. I couldn’t really count it against him…

He offered out a bouquet, making me realize the huge bouquet had been two.

“For me?” Great. I must be Captain Obvious too. Who else would he be bringing a second bouquet for?

He nodded and I took it with a short nod, my thanks sticking in my throat. Make conversation, Callie had told me. You have to make the effort.

“Thank you.” I spoke a bit late as he crossed the threshold, closing the door behind him. At least I’d managed to take the flowers without touching him. The constant stream of random thoughts and emotions had become my norm but skin to skin contact brought things to a whole new level. Now would not be a good time to end up in his head.

He wiped his shoes on the door mat even though it hadn’t rained in weeks. “He’ll be nervous if you stare at him with the ‘I’ve spent the last week stalking you online’ expression.” Callie might be sympathetic but she didn’t want me to mess things up for Mom. I dropped my gaze, hoping it would seem welcoming.

“Ash, glad you made it.” Mom had appeared in the narrow hallway, her excitement bubbling over

 “It’s not difficult hard to find your house. I just looked for the cutest one on the block.” He flashed another brilliant smile.

“We try.” I gritted my teeth as Mom’s cheeks pinkened.

“I can tell.” He gave her the other bouquet and her blush deepened. Mom had gone from being a practical mother to looking like a girl on her first date. My gaze shifted to Ash. Besides a few things Mom had told me, I didn’t know anything about him. He’d moved to Rosedale six months ago so the normal gossip channels didn’t have much to offer. Callie had even given Mrs. Johnson two free refills to try and get some info but we’d ended up with a lot of speculation and two less cups of coffee.

He unsettled me for more than one reason. I couldn’t feel him. Even without touch, I at least got a prompt, a wisp of emotion from everyone around me. Mom’s excitement would be hard for a normal person to miss but aside from Ash’s quirked eyebrows and boyish laughter, nothing told me he wanted to be here. Maybe my nightmare had done more to my senses than I’d realized.
I followed them into the kitchen, trying to convince myself it as the nightmare. I’d had a few intense ones burn me out before.

Re-editing: A Seemingly Never Ending Journey

I did it. Faced my fears and dived right in. I opened up Only Human, my first completed 115,000 page novel and got to it.

Two days later, with tired eyes and increasingly large dark circles, I'm starting to feel the worth.

I've known ever since Christmas Eve when I first posted my book on Amazon that another edit at some point in the future was an order. I had a deadline - getting it done in time to be a Christmas gift - and I made it. Unfortunately, I had to sacrifice some things along the way.

Up until a year and a half ago, writing had been a casual hobby. I told friends and acquaintances I wanted to be a writer but past that, I had no expectations and very little knowledge about what it entailed. Even today, I'm not sure I understand the full extent.

Being a writer for me isn't something I can do five minutes a week and expect good results. It's not cathartic or relaxing - a way to get my thoughts out there. It's hard work. Rewarding work when you can sit back and admire your project but hard!

I don't like to use big words (please ignore my use of the word cathartic :) but I tend to ramble. A lot. Reading OH after the merciless editing/deleting I've been doing on my novella was like watching a horror film. Every two paragraphs I wanted to scream and cover my eyes. I put Only Human out there, believing it's a good story. I still believe it's a good story but my 'diamond' is surrounded by a ten foot layer of rock, making the beauty difficult to admire. Editing is my jackhammer.

The first thing I noticed is my habit of over describing. Three to four sentence paragraphs were used to describe locations or random thoughts of my MC and I had multiple uses of three to four commas in a sentence. YIKES!

I didn't want to do my find and search of the words 'like, that, was,' and 'there', knowing it would be painful. I started with 'that', coming up with a whopping 1567 times. I'm at 295 now but I'm hoping to get it down even more. I started on 'like' today but my starting point was 525 or something so it should take less time. I'm sure 'was' will be in the two thousands - I overuse it a lot!

A few scenes read stiffly which I'd felt in my initial release but hadn't had much time to remedy. Now's the time for book surgery! I have to be daring and dive in!

I haven't worked on my novella in over a week and should get back to it before I get to caught up in OH. It's a cute little story and with a few more changes, I'll be pretty proud of it.

Way Too Much Information!

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been doing a lot of research on editing and how to properly present a book. With every discovery made, I want to get my hands on Only Human and rip it apart! It needs so much work!

There seem to be several general rules of editing and then everyone's personal rules that they hold themselves to. A few things I've learned/am learning:

• Telling rather than showing: This shows up quite often in books, especially with first person manuscripts. The biggest way for me to identify my own 'telling' is by going through sentences and getting rid of an overabundance of the word 'was'. "I was looking down into the dark, sad eyes of a young boy." The sentence is okay but gives me more the feeling of being told and not shown."I looked down into the dark, sad eyes of a young boy," has a much smoother flow with the removal of one word! It was an exciting and scary thing when I learned this and did a find and search of my 30,000 word manuscript. 'Was' appeared 400 times!
• Omitting Five Senses: When going through my first edit, I have to get rid of a lot of 'He said, she said,' and turn things into what's known as an action beat. The reason for doing so is simple. Too many descriptions can bog down a book and distract from what should be quick dialogue. In my instance, I tend to forget to include the five senses. My characters 'feel bad', 'feel angry', 'feel hungry', etc. but they don't make use of the senses that we as humans do. I know dinner is being cooked because I smell it, not because I walk down the stairs into the kitchen and see Mom holding a pot. 
• Flashbacks/Back-story: Again, this has to do with telling instead of showing. I've read several books where the characters have flashbacks or the impromptu telling of their past that jolts me from what I'm reading into three pages of explanation. I can't be too harsh since I've made this mistake myself but I do recognize it interrupts flow and interest. The easiest way to get around both of these things is to reference things in conversation or a strange comment your character might make that alludes to something that happened to them in the past. Rachel hated listening to classical music since it reminded her of all those nights home alone, listening to the neighbor's Bach album that did little to cover the terrified screams. You could do this since you're not explaining everything but it's an overload of information. I would write the scene rather like this: Rachel shuddered as classical music filled the room, trying to force her thoughts away from the terrifying nights alone and the sounds of screaming. Since I'm still a newbie writer, it's obviously not perfect but much closer to what I'd enjoy reading. You want your readers to ask questions and be at least a bit in the dark about the characters past. Cliche, over explained characters come off as 2-D and contrived.
• Too Many Thoughts: I write first person 90% of the time. It's very easy in the telling aspect to constantly be going into the characters head and hearing their thoughts about what's happening. I have to resist! No one wants to hear all those thoughts that should be obvious from the MC's reaction anyway. I have one book  where the girl thinks a lot of cynical things she doesn't actually say but even with that, I have to ditch a lot of the thoughts and show how she's thinking in her reaction.
• Cut The Boring: If it's boring for me to write, my readers don't want it. It can be hard getting rid of stuff you've spent hours, days, maybe even weeks working on but if you get rid of the slack, you'll get closer to the core of your book. Only Human had a lot of baggage - repetitive scenes, useless dialogue, over long explanations, etc. The comment I've gotten from everyone who's read it is how hard it was to put down. I'm in no way a professional writer or even a great editor but I learned to be harsh with my book. I'm getting ready another round of editing and I'm sure more dead weight will be cut away.
• Favorite Words: Everyone has their favorite words and they show up in their writing. Favorite words are great in moderation but they can get old really fast. If the word is unusual, you should only use it once or twice in the entire story. With Only Human, my Aunt pointed out my constant use of the word 'gingerly'. My characters would 'gingerly get off the chair,' 'gingerly take a sip', 'take a ginger step', and so on. It's a good word in moderation but overuse is just me getting lazy.
• The 'ly' rule: Words like suddenly, gingerly, happily, excitedly are so easy to throw into a sentence for me. I didn't know until two months ago that it was even wrong to use them too often. Using words ending in 'ly' is a lazy way to describe something. 'The man gingerly stepped forward, not wanting to hurt his leg anymore'. I would change that to: 'The man took care as he stood, favoring his uninjured leg.'
• Consistent Character Speak Patterns: All my characters have a different way of reacting, speaking, and understanding. In Only Human, Connor is likely to use proper words and the correct grammar while Zack is sloppy and uses more slang. If Zack said, "I would like to have a drink of water," it would sound out of character and stupid. If Connor were to say it, it would be much more accepted. Zack is more likely to say "Get me a drink before I hit you."
• Over-describing Characteristics, Features: I read a lot of teen books and most of them are filled with romance of some type. One of my personal pet peeves is the constant description of 'chocolate brown eyes', 'powerful physique', 'soft looking lips', etc. Give readers a few pointers as to what the world in their head should look like and move on. Say that a certain character has chocolate brown eyes and then don't say it again. You might mention the occasional, "His dark eyes turned to meet mine," but past that, don't repeatedly make your reader feel stupid by jamming down their throat what the characters appearance is. In first person, it's also a no-no to have a sentence like this: "I pushed back my mid length, golden brown curls, tucking them behind my elf like ears." Yes, it might give a better picture but I don't think of my hair color when I'm pushing it out of my face. If it were me, the sentence would more like this: "I pushed back the golden fuzz of curls around my face, tucking it securely behind my ears." If I'm tucking back my hair, it's either out of habit or because it's fuzzy and annoying me.

There are so many things to learn in order to craft a good novel and these are just a few things. I'm sure in a few months, I'll look back at my lack of knowledge and shudder again. For now though, I'm working with what I've got. 

On a side note, I've been thinking recently about how awkward most romantic scenes in books are. I think a lot of times it's because the author is describing too much of what's happening and it makes you feel like you've crashed a party you weren't invited too. So many authors talk about the 'earthy scent' a man will carry, or the smell of his aftershave. Maybe it's because I don't live in romance land but I don't notice a lot of distinct smells from people. If I do notice the smell of a guy, it's not usually a pleasant smell. Of course, sweat and unwashed socks wouldn't sound too romantic now, would it?

The biggest instance of over telling and awkwardness seems to be in kiss scenes. I don't write kiss scenes for a variety of reasons but if you read books with any romance, they are almost guaranteed to occur. Some are fine, they happen and you hear more about the reaction of the character than anything else. Several are just plain embarrassing with way to much info as to what the kiss felt like. I'm sure that's something to contemplate if it's happening to you which is the effect the writer is going for but to me, it often just makes me feel grossed out and lose any sense of romanticism at all!

-Anna Leigh

The Joys and Pains of Editing

I made a hard, fast rule when I finished Only Human. Any book I write now has two word documents associated with it; one for the story I'm actively writing and one labeled with the name and then 'edit' next to it. Every thousand words or so, I cut and paste what I've just worked on into editing and don't look at it again until I'm done with the book. As I write, names and ideas change and I leave random notes scattered through the edit document to remind myself what I want to change it to be.

As I've mentioned before, I read the blog Go Teen Writers a lot and learned from Mrs. Stephanie Morrill that it's best to leave your manuscript for a bit before starting the editing process. She recommended six weeks after your original manuscript is written but I would personally go for a month since it would be difficult for me to wait that long.

Human Nature is only a few months old and already I have at least a dozen notes of changes I've thought of as I've been writing. Today was a particularly painful day in which I wrote over a thousand words, realized the story line was falling flat, and proceeded to delete my last weeks worth of work (About a chapters worth). It's painful but I realized it had to change and there was no point in keeping everything I just wrote. It's much easier to delete words several weeks after you've written them since you're not quite as attached after that amount of time but I just went for the whole thing today, ripping the band aid off without a second thought instead of waiting and fussing over it for a few days. This book as been much better about presenting ways out of writing corners than my last one was. I tend to think I'm a lot more experienced and probably the fact I'm writing so much right now and constantly coming up with new ideas makes a writing dry much harder to come across. Whenever I'm feeling particularly uninspired, I hit up the free kindle books on Amazon which immediately make me want to go back to my own writing. Not that they're are terribly, some are actually quite good but...I know I can do better than that, even if it means I'm only selling a 0.99 book which is quite possibly. Hardly anyone paid that much when Only Human was on sale. I know that it's a new book and an unrecognized author and all but it's still a bit discouraging...

Lately, I seem to be bursting with ideas for random novels. I have a bunch started but am forcing myself to work only on Human Nature unless I have an idea I just have to write out in one of my other books. Every time I think of an idea, usually when I'm washing dishes or on a car ride, I make a document for it, date it, and write down all the ideas I've had. At some point, those book ideas will either be deleted or I will collect enough information to turn them into my next project. It would be nice to start on a fresh project since I've spent so long on OH and now am tied to writing the sequel. Not that I don't enjoy it but I'm feeling more in the mood for fluffy contemporary with cute settings, quirky girls, and guys who are both amazing and good looking than writing thought provoking science fiction.

On a random note, I was reading GTW today and Jill Williamson was covering the subject of writing a good love triangle, something that definitely needs to be addressed in today's writing/film world. I personally dislike love triangles with an intensity but considering my intense like for Asian dramas, especially of the Korean variety, I watch more things with love triangles than not. I thought she had some good advice on what to do and will definitely keep it in mind if I ever go crazy and decide to put one in my book *shudder*.

Write again soon. I meant to write earlier than now but it's been so crazy busy this week and I've spent a lot of time babysitting my niece. Hopefully this week will be a bit calmer...

Anna Leigh