Writer Ramblings + Caylee Snippet!

I've been feeling a little  a lot write-ish lately and upped the word count on Caylee from somewhere around 95k to 98k...ish. This may sound like I'm a bit full of myself, but I've sort of forged this new-found love for my characters. Wait. Before you get your knickers in a wad, please try and understand where I'm coming from.

I built these people. From the ground up and with everything I have in me, I let them go and do what they needed to do. They're still doing it, as I've not finished book two, but it takes a lot to open up and share this secret part of me. Ask any writer. Your characters are part of you. And I can only hope that one day soon I get to share them with you and you grow to love them as much as I do.

Well....maybe not as much as I do. But somewhere around the vicinity of that much. That'd be cool. In the meantime....get into a bit of Caylee and Nolan in the beginnings of a fight scene below! Leave me comments!

“If you say so CJ,” he laughed and shook his head. It started snowing then, so hard that we couldn’t see through the front window. Odd, I thought to myself. It wasn’t supposed to snow until next week. At least that was what the weatherman said. Beside me, Nolan took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring and his body taking on a stiff posture. “Damn it,” he muttered as he reached over to the glove compartment with one hand and fumbled around in it blindly.
    “What?” I asked, becoming alarmed. He pulled out a weird amethyst colored stone and held it in his hand for ten seconds before handing it to me.
    “Tell me when it gets too hot to hold.” He offered cryptically and stopped the car, pulling over to the side of the road.
    “What? Why?” I questioned, trying to hand him the stone back.
    “Do you trust me?” his blue eyes were intense as he looked at me, making me afraid about why he felt he needed to ask me that.
    “I trust you.” I answered without hesitation. He nodded and reached out to touch my face once.
    “Good, come with me.” He held his hand out and I took it, allowing him to lead me out the car from his side. My feet hit the ground and I slid in the several feet of snow that had impossibly started piling up in the few minutes it had been snowing. “Careful,” Nolan whispered as he righted me. “Only step where I step and stay close.”
    I gave him a nod and let him walk away without asking him anything even though I felt like I’d explode with questions. I said nothing in the hopes it would enforce what I’d said about trusting him. Which was true; I trusted him completely.
    Hopefully not to a fault.
    Stepping only in his boot prints like I was told, I followed him. Though not as fast, as his legs were a hell of a lot longer than mine.
    “Nolan, wait it’s – ahh!” I dropped the stone into the snow, the heat from it melting the snow around it immediately. Nolan turned as I dropped my head and tore the gloves off of my hands to examine them. “It burned my hands! Through my gloves!” The palms of my hands were turning red.
    “Caylee!” I heard Nolan shout and I looked up in time to see him lunge toward me. I opened my mouth to speak and out of nowhere, I was hit in the chest and knocked back into the car. The cracking sound of my skull against the door rang in my ears as I slid to the ground, landing on my side in the snow that just kept building. Nolan was a streak of dark movement as he leapt at – A high pitched cry of fear pierced the air and it took me a few moments to realize it was mine.

Leave me comments and happy things :D

And I'll toss in some rainbow gifs next post ;)

Why I've Been So Quiet

My sincerest apologies for being silent for more than a month but the month of December is always monstrous for me and things tend to slip through the cracks. This past December was a bit more time consuming for me because my best friend in the entire world got married! *Claps* And I was actually her Maid of Honor. It was a beautiful day, she looked breathtaking and by the end of the month, I was pooped.

Anywho, I haven't really been writing much but lately, that has changed somewhat. I've added another couple thousand words to a bit of Caleb and even some to Caylee. A few of my other WIP's are coming along as well. Slowly, but coming along nonetheless. Usually, for me, writing is an escape from my daily monotonous life. Breaking up the tedium with pockets of creativity and new secret worlds no one knows about, can criticize, poke holes in or destroy because it is all in my head and generally, what I say goes. . And I love that I am able to step back from my life and live this other full and complete life without even having to leave the safety of my own home. But some time ago, writing became something of a chore. Not a bad chore per say, but I wasn't sitting down to write for pleasure so much as 'needing' to get it out. Other writers understand me when I say that. Alas, for the past couple of weeks, I've been feeling excited about getting home and sitting down at my laptop and spending time with these wonderful people inside my head. It would be sacrilege not to tell their stories.

So I've drawn the conclusion that I will just keep writing There is no 'until'. I write, therefore I am. And there is nothing more beautiful than that. -- A.

P.S. A little teaser/snippet of Caleb will be coming soon! Next blog post is alllll about Caylee!

Six Reasons To Seek Outside Help When Editing YOUR MS

Okay guys, let's say you've - like me - been a HUGE fan of writing for a long time. You've even started several books over the course of five or six years, but - also like me - you've only actually finished one or two full manuscripts. When I say 'finished', I mean your MS is 80k or more words.

Now, let's say you've - like me - called yourself editing it on your own, revised, changed, went over it with a fine-tooth comb and FINALLY, you think you've gotten it SO perfect, you think it couldn't get any better if some form of deity has written it themselves -

 I'll get into the several reasons why you'd be wrong in a second. -

and you think, 'Yes, I'm going to send off a few query letters'.

No. Just no. No matter who you are, what you write, published, unpublished, Indie or self-pubbed - SOMEONE ELSE - meaning not YOU - NEEDS TO TAKE  A LOOK AT YOUR MANUSCRIPT AND QUERY LETTER BEFORE YOU SEND ANYTHING OFF TO ANYONE. 

Reasons why: 

1. As authors, we already think what we write is amazing. We think we're so genius, G-d has touched us with the ability to write magnificent MS's and any agent/publishing house would be lucky to sign us. *Shakes head* Sadly, no. 
2. Not everything you write is a hit, not everything you write is sell-able, there isn't a market for everything you write - NOT EVERYTHING YOU WRITE IS GOOD. And yes, it chafes your a*s like a fluffer-nutter and no, people may not always be kind when telling you these sorts of things but you HAVE to hear it sometime.
3. Other people - once again, not YOU - know what they like to read, how they like to read and what they want to feel when they read. You cannot, cannot, cannot trust your own eyes, emotions and judgement when it comes to editing your MS. Obviously, you're biased. You wrote it, therefore you love it. 
4. When you edit your own MS's, there are going to be several mistakes that you missed, overlooked - or sometimes you may leave them on purpose (builds character for your MC or it is how a certain character in your MS speaks) sometimes those work and sometimes they don't. More often than not, they don't. 
5. You may not notice it, but you can easily over-write a MS. Case in point: my very own first MS is north of 140k words. No publisher ANYWHERE is going to pick up a debut more than 100k words. As evidence of my MS STILL lying untouched on my hard drive. Also, too many adjectives, similies, metaphors - all those add up in word count. And too many words is a problem. Ideal MS length is between 80k and 110k and 110k is pushing it. Books that are too long probably won't get read. No one wants to be intimidated by the size of a book on a shelf before picking it up.
6. Your MS can ALWAYS get better. You may be among one of the most creative minds on the planet but no one is perfect and everything can get better. A little tweak here, a revision there can make any great MS amazing. Don't be too proud. Every book gets edited before publishing and rather than seeing a bunch of red ink all over your precious baby, take the time and have a few friends peruse it. Have some margaritas with your girlfriends, a couple beers with the guys, lunch with your author friend or a night out with your bookclub and get it done. 

Prime example: I haven't touched my first MS in months because of Caylee and Caleb. I, too, thought it was perfect, sent off dozens of badly written queries for it and got sad like clockwork over the next 6-12 weeks when I got all my NO's and refusals - or didn't get any, in some cases. The moment I went back and started reading the first chapter, I found twelve mistakes in the first 750 words. It. Was. Crap. Crap, Shit, Garbage, a Hot Toddy - whatever you prefer to call it. Why, you ask? Because I didn't get anyone to look over my query BEFORE I sent it and I didn't let my impromptu editor look at the full body of work BEFORE I stamped it as done. Now, I'm in the middle of shaving about 80 thousand words off it - words, I now know I did NOT need - and making it presentable. Which is just a BUNCH of fun.

To avoid hacking away at your precious MS - like I am - be cautious when you write and pay closer attention when editing if you choose to self-edit. As you know, I am still unpublished and in no way should my reasons be followed to the T but  it is because I remain unpublished that I'm almost 80% sure that you should at least have someone take a second - or twelfth - look at your MS and/or Query letter.