Happy New Year!

 As I think back over the year, there are so many things that have happened. Here are some highlights with pictures.

1. I didn’t get book three of the Screwing Up Time series published in 2013. Life happens and I don’t want to publish a book that isn’t the best it can be. But it should be out in early spring. (Okay, I don't have a picture for this one, but soon.)

2. Two of my kids moved out. That’s sad, but good too. They graduated from college and are moving on to grad school. 

3. I have people over to our house for dinner a lot. But this fall I hosted a Murder Dinner—it was wonderful. Hosting another one is definitely on my to-do list for next year.

4. I got a Screwing Up Time short story published. “Screwing Up Mongolia” came out in September. (Thanks, Tara, for your awesome cover art.)

5. We got a hand-me-down hot tub. There’s nothing like sinking into 101 degree water when the air temperature is freezing. I’m really hoping for snow soon. There’s nothing like sitting in a hot tub when snow is falling.

Okay, this is before we put the water in. But, I am so NOT publishing a photo of myself in a swimsuit.

6. My husband and I celebrated our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and he took me to Paris! It was the trip of a lifetime.

We're in the gardens of Versailles.

Wonders of the Ancient World

I finished my read through of the rough draft of the Screwing Up Time sequel. Today, I’ll be digging into the text editing and revising. I’ve decided to give you a small hint about the sequel. Part of the novel will take place at one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. I hope that whets your appetite.

I’ve also decided to start a short story involving some of the characters from Screwing Up Time, and I hope to have it finished and available by Christmas. The short story will be set in the period of time between the first book and the sequel.

Here’s photo of the sequel after my first read through. You can see, tons of work to be done.

I also have a brand new Facebook Author page. And if you're interested in reading about "head in a bag plot devices" or why allergies are really the result of viruses created by pharmaceutical companies, visit my other blog, A Merry Heart.

Also, several friends of the blog have recently published e-books. Check them out. (If you have an YA or middle grade e-book you’d like me to mention, email me.)

Fiction:

Clockwise by Elle Strauss

Golden Blood by Melissa Pearl

Biography:

Beyond the Land of Narnia by Joyce McPherson

Editing

Today I start editing. People have asked me what that’s like. So I took a photo of the things I use to get started.

When I edit, I print the entire manuscript for the first time. After I did that this morning, I discovered to my horror that I forgot to insert page numbers. Now I’ll have to go through the entire novel and write in the page numbers. YUCK!

Before you feel too sorry for me, I have to go through each page by hand anyway and highlight (with my pink/yellow/green/blue highlighters) all the notes I’ve left myself in the text. When I’m writing a first draft, I don’t want to get bogged down in the text so I’ll leave myself notes. For example, “This scene is painful, fix it,” or “Add in the backstory for this scene,” or “Character X needs to be in this scene, add in later.” Editing is when I fix those things.

The green notebook and fountain pen are for making notes to myself about the themes, subplots, and character development that need to be added or refined in the text. I use a fountain pen because it slows me down and makes me think more deeply as I write.

The flags (I need a lot more of these) is how I mark the text. For example, in Screwing Up Time all the romantic/relationship scenes got marked with a red flag. The time traveling scenes got marked with a green flag, etc., etc., etc. This makes is easier for me to verify/correct scenes. When you make even a small change in scene, you have to make sure that it doesn’t affect other scenes. If it does, more rewriting.

The post-its are for making notes and sticking them on the page. (Obviously.) Sometimes a section needs a lot of work, and I use the notes to make a list of suggestions to myself. Sometimes I don’t have the time to fix something, but I don’t want to forget what I decided to do so I leave myself notes—occasionally a whole page is covered with yellow post-its. (I need to buy a lot more of these too.)

I think the red pens are self-explanatory. When I’m editing, my purse, my car, my nightstand, and every room in the house has multiple red pens lying around, you never want to waste time looking for a red pen when you have a great editing idea.  The pens in the photo are leftovers from the SUT edit. I’ve got a bagful waiting to be opened for this book.

Then there’s the printout, which looks surprisingly slim. That’s because it’s single-spaced and because I underwrite. When the book is finished, it will be 20 to 30% longer.

Enough writing about writing, my fingers are itching to edit. I’m craving those red pens, which will hopefully turn my first draft into a story worth reading. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Research

In a recent author interview, I was asked about my research into Bodiam Castle and its integration into the novel. And it’s been an amazing experience. When I first started writing Screwing Up Time, the castle existed only in my mind. As I added more detail, I decided to look at pictures of real life castles. When I found the picture of Bodiam Castle, I couldn’t believe it. Here was an almost exact replica of what only lived in my mind. As I researched the castle’s history and lore, I discovered the legend of the woman in red (who in my novel was already Miranda). Then, I knew that Bodiam Castle was going to be the site of my novel.

Of course, picking a real place as a setting can be very difficult, especially if it’s not down the street. So I bought and borrowed books. I looked up websites. I did everything I could to accurately ground my novel in Bodiam Castle. And I thought I was done. I turned my attention to other editing issues. When I was doing a final editing pass, I decided to add more detail to a section on the castle, so I went back to my sources. But I couldn’t find the exact information I wanted. So I googled the castle. I was amazed at what came back. In the time since I’d started the novel and finished it, people had posted their personal vacation photos online. I found scads of photos of all the interesting parts of the castle, usually with people next to them so that I could have a sense of scale. It was an amazing bounty of knowledge. And then, I discovered that some of my resources were inaccurate. Things at the castle had changed. A room that had had a grass floor now had a floor of loose pebbles. Oops. I went back and rewrote that. Most of the changes were small, but so important to render the kind of accuracy that allows readers to be transported.

I would strongly encourage people that are using real locations in their novels to view personal photographs that people make available online. It helps to see what things look like under different lighting and from different angles. View Google maps to see what your character would see as he/she walked down the street. And don’t trust your memory of the places—places change and memory becomes distorted. We have so many options now to keep our writing grounded, use them.                                               

Halfway Celebration

Celebration Time! I’m halfway through the first draft of the Screwing Up Time sequel.

Writing this novel is going quickly—it’s as if the story is writing itself. Because I’m a “pantser,” sometimes the writing is slow because I’m not sure what is going to happen. But so far when I finish a scene, the next scene is waiting to be written.

My family has caught my excitement, and occasionally I catch my kids standing behind me and reading over my shoulder. Then I banish them. When I read it to them for the first time, I want the story to be fresh. Right now I hope to have the first draft finished by mid to late October. I’ll do a first edit right away, and hopefully will send it to beta readers (people—usually writers—who read early drafts and give feedback about what needs to be fixed) by Thanksgiving. If all goes well, maybe the sequel will be out by spring. If not, it should be out by early summer. I’ll keep you posted. 


Here's a photo of me, hard at work.