I haven’t been updating this blog much, but it’s been for good reason. I’ve been writing a lot the past couple months and I couldn’t be more pleased—I feel like I’m officially ‘back in business’. I did put my Dirty Eden agent search on hold for a while and went back to work on The Mayfair Moon.  Well, I’m happy to say I’m about a chapter away from the end and I’m excited. Of course, I’ve mentioned before that the title will probably change, but I couldn’t be more happy about how the story has unfolded.  I’ll be putting the first chapter of The Mayfair Moon up for download soon. Book two of the trilogy has already been swimming around in my head.

{Insert Neat Photo Here to Distract from all the text}

But then there’s also a YA/children’s story I began around the same time last year I started The Mayfair Moon, which I’m anxious to get back to work on.  I guess I’ll have to go with the flow and work on whichever calls to me the most.

Back to Dirty Eden – Okay, I just need to say that I really loved writing that story. It was a strange thing because in its conception, I was in the beginning of a two-year long emotional roller-coaster ride. It’s amazing what life-altering circumstances can do for a writer’s craft. Dirty Eden wasn’t just a story, it was an experience. Now, I just need to go in an edit it again so I can get back on the agent bandwagon.

Anyway, I have recently rewritten the Dirty Eden blurb on ‘The Work’ page. After several months of not reading it over and over again, I noticed something major wrong with it that I was shocked not to have noticed before. I’m mortified that I sent that synopsis to so many agents without realizing that error. The sentences were so damn long they were like a book in themselves. My writing, the actual story, isn’t like that at all. But the synopsis was because writing a synopsis is like walking a tightrope over a volcano. If you don’t do it right the first time….

So anyway, that’s my update.

You can’t imagine how grateful  I am to have a 14-year-old daughter who’s an avid reader of YA novels. She’s one of those who can read a 6-book series in a week or less.

Jerricah has been extremely curious about my newest YA novel, The Mayfair Moon (title subject to change) and finally after seventeen chapters, I decided to let her read it.

She did more than read it. For two days, she read it aloud to me and we edited it. I knew she was intelligent, but I never thought to put her intelligence and love for reading to work like that. It was a wise decision, I must say. She found a lot of errors, bad sentences, places were I was ‘telling’ rather  than ‘showing’ – she found a lot! And what was also great was her inability to be biased because I’m her mom. She wasn’t afraid to tell me what she didn’t like, what made no sense, what SUCKED.

Of course, what I say next will likely be interpreted as writer blindness to family opinions, but that’s OK. I’m not ‘one of those’ writer’s, I can assure you. So, with that said, I  can tell you Jerricah loves The Mayfair Moon, despite the errors (because ALL first drafts have errors!) and she kept trying to read ahead to find out what happened to this and that character. She truly loves the story and has easily connected with the characters.

I never thought to get a young adult to read and help edit a young adult novel, but I think it’s a vital advantage to have.

She’s anxious to read the rest and this has helped inspire me to finish it.

On a side note, I have dumped my cable! I have officially dragged out the crappy converter box and hooked it up so I can get used to limited TV entertainment in a few days when Comcast shuts me off. I did do it because I’m sick of trying to pay $65 a month for basic cable, but also because too much TV=less writing! I know that without the TV on to distract me for hours and hours every week, I’ll have much more time to write.

And that’s what matters.

It’s been longer than usual since my last blog, but I haven’t had much to say, really. I spend most of my time working and my free time writing, which isn’t a bad thing. It just gives me little to talk about.

I’m over halfway through my 4th full-length novel, The Mayfair Moon.  So far about 48,000 words in, and writing steadily! It’s a YA werewolf novel about two sisters, Chloe and Alex Dawson, and…well, werewolves. I refuse to go all synopsis-mode in a casual blog post. I’m not in the habit of torturing myself except for when torture is necessary. Though I will put up a blurb about it on ‘The Work‘ page soon.

I’m really loving it, I have to say. Of course, just because I like it doesn’t mean everyone else will. Hopefully when I put up the first chapter, you will all let me know what you think.

In addition to The Mayfair Moon, I’ve also got a 5th  novel in the works, which is a little over 16,000 words in currently. It’s more a children’s and YA novel. I still haven’t decided on the title yet, but I’ve narrowed it down. It’s more of a magic-filled story inspired by Harry Potter, Sleepy Hollow and The Brother’s Grimm.

As far as Dirty Eden, I’m still looking for an agent, but have put off the search for a while.

That’s all I’ll say about that.

Back to writing.

Just a quick blog – some of you might remember Larry from one of my previous blog posts (if not, go here). Well, that was some time ago and I’ve been in that flea market several times since then, but Larry was nowhere to be found. I’ve often wondered what happened to Larry, hoping that if someone bought him that they were taking good care of him and not condemning him for his perverted antics, which he cannot help.

Anyway, I bought a new desk last weekend and had to drive around to the back of the flea market to have them load it up for me (into my mom’s truck, which I nearly knocked off the side mirror on my way to pick up the desk). As I was walking through the dark and dusty back-of-the-warehouse where all the layaway and other random stuff is kept, I SAW LARRY! He was thrown onto a rickety chair and there was a pile of granny clothes tossed on top of him.

POOR LARRY!

I didn’t have my camera with me, but next time I’ll have it and I’ll get a shot.

A side note: The weather is getting nicer! Come on spring!

Ok, off to work I go….

I got an email today from Toadstool Bookshops offering for me to come to their store in Keene, NH to do a book signing when I get published. How awesome!

Of course, a big thanks to my friend Jon for passing my site along! :-)

Anyway, just a cool quick blog.

Happy weekend.

I haven’t been much in a blogging mood lately, though I think a lot of that has to do with getting through the holidays and stuff. I mean seriously, I’m just now taking down my Christmas tree today. :-S

Brian came to visit me for 5 great days and we spent New Year’s together. On New Year’s Eve we went to  a nice place downtown called Bosco’s. I know, I look like a wannabe Vegas showgirl or something with the feathers on my head.

The whole time he was here it was cold as hell…wait, okay so that didn’t make much sense, but you get the idea. Really though, it was frigid! Though thankfully not until after our walk/climb up Pinnacle Mountain…

…which was awesome! (Looks like a giant squeezing the little girl’s head, hehe)

And our visit to The Old Mill, which Brian also really loved.

And so did I. :-)

We also went to the Old State House Museum, which was free admission and really should have charged something. Seriously, the place was enormous and had a maze of rooms with great exhibits that was set up nicer than some high dollar museums I’ve seen.

Here’s Brian standing next to…well, his body-double? :-| I still wonder if this is coincidentally cool, or if someone needs to catch up with this century maybe? :-P

We took tons more photos, but I’ve never been interested in seeing other people’s museum photos for some reason, so I won’t bore you with ours. I guess it’s one of those things that you’d rather just see in person. Same with zoo photos – they are boring to look at usually, unless you’re the one taking them. Interested in the museum, follow the link above. :-)

And what would any trip to visit me be without going to FLEA MARKETS! At least he actually wanted to go to a few, otherwise I would’ve felt wrong dragging him along, hehe.

And as I have demonstrated in the past, you can find some weird stuff in flea markets, like this ginormous bag clearly made for ginormous giants. Here you can see shopping carts made for hobbit people and here, perverted mannequins.

We also saw Sherlock Holmes, which I thought was good, but not as humorous as I expected it to be. Though, you can’t go wrong with Robert Downey Jr., so it was worth it!

Looks like my next trip to Chicago will hopefully be in April and then again in July (he wants to DRAG me to the Bristol Ren Faire! I’m terrified!) and he definitely wants to come back to Arkansas so we can go hiking up Mount Magazine or some other cool place like Devil’s Den.

Can’t wait!

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Is your manuscript more than 100K words? If it is, you might be in some way like I was when one of mine was 116K (ouch! I know!). I thought I had edited it down as much as I could. I combed through the story night after night, editing here and there and saying to myself, “I can’t take that out! It’s important! There’s absolutely nothing else I can, or will part with.” And that was that. I refused to budge.

And then a miraculous thing happened. A bolt of lightning came out of the sky and snapped me right in the ass and suddenly I realized there was quite a lot of content I could take out of my story that was, after all, expendable. (That sentence there was way too long, for example!)

Unnecessary Words – Eliminate Them!

The first thing I did was hunt a list of unnecessary words and I found this link, which is a blog posted by @writing_tips. I’m sure many of you already know this (I did too), but go through each word (also ‘very’ and ‘even’, which aren’t listed) and get rid of them wherever possible. Having the list in front of me allowed me to use the Word Find to go through my manuscript and eliminate each one. Even if you’re a seasoned writer, you might realize you’ve used some of those words, regardless. It happens as we do get carried away sometimes. You might not cut many words by doing this, but every one helps and in this case, it helps with more than just your word count.

Kill Her, Even if You Love Her!

The next thing I did was examine my characters more closely. Chances are there is at least one character you can do away with and no one will ever miss it (if more than one, then great!). I used to think this was blasphemy. I loved each of my characters. How could I bring myself to part with one for the sake of cutting words in my manuscript? Easily. I realized that one of my favorite characters (not one I cared the least for and would have tried to cut first) was entirely expendable. Sure, the scene with her was great and she was an awesome character with a lot of character, but when I looked past her and how much I loved her presence, it was only then I knew that she didn’t have an important enough part to keep her. By cutting her out I eliminated close to 3,000 words and it only hurt for a few seconds. Besides, I knew I could use her in another story.

Need and Want – We Must Differentiate!

After that, I decided to start from the beginning again and examine each paragraph differently than all the other times I edited before. Instead of looking for flaws, or sentences that could be reconstructed, etc. I decided only to look for anything (word, sentence, paragraph) that truly had no purpose other than to make me proud I had written something so ‘awesome’. Of course, I emphasize that word with a lot of sarcasm. What I’m getting at is something we all do. We construct neat little sentences we’re so impressed with and we forget that sometimes we don’t need them; we simply ‘want’ them. This alone allowed me to cut more than…wait for it…I cut close to than 6,000 words!

My 116K-word novel was reduced to around 107K and you know what? I felt great! As I re-read my novel for the hundredth time, it flowed better than ever before, and overall I felt good about what I did. Ultimately, I was kicking myself for not doing it sooner! I still need to get the word count down some, but for now I’m good with what I have cut and I have a completely new respect for eliminating content.

So that’s my little bit of advice from my own word-cutting experience.

Most of the time if you’re still over 100K and you think you’ve cut all you can; you’re still in your sentimental zone.

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There was a lot I left out in my first Chicago blog and here I need to add some of it. Well, I am officially a sushi lover! Brian took me to Tokyo Lunchboxes & Catering (I just read that on the package of chopsticks I brought back, but I thought the place was called something different, shorter?). Mmmmm, I was hooked on the first try. Of course, now I’m back in this depressing place that very likely doesn’t have good sushi that I don’t have to hunt down and drive long distances to find.

Here’s a shot of me in the heavenly sushi place.

(Photo by Brian Salata)

The chairs were up because they were cleaning the floor. Damn. I wish I had some sushi right now. :-(

Here’s a shot Brian took at night as I stood in this odd cubby hole that smelled like pee a little bit. There was a small drain there, as you can see and I could only assume that perhaps bums peed there? I don’t know, but I got out of there quickly once the photo was taken. Nice shot though – good perspective.

(Photo by Brian Salata)

And this photo I’m only putting up because Brian thinks it’s ‘cute’, hehehe. Though for some reason it reminds me of Mary Tyler Moore….

(Photo by Brian Salata)

And I like this one at the Adler Planetarium. We were sitting in the cafe’ having a bite with the best view of The Lake and the city. It was raining, but that made it more special somehow.

Well, I’m ready to go back to Chicago. Like, right now. Yep.

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I got back from my 5-day trip in Chicago a little after 5:00a.m. this morning. I want to start from the beginning, but about all of the horrible Greyhound experiences, I will be brief as I don’t want to sour such a wonderful experience with negativity.

The Brief Bitch: Everything about Greyhound is torturous and I would never, under any circumstances, recommend anyone ride one, ever.

Now that that’s been said, let me start with the city itself. I’ve never been in a big city like Chicago. I’ve never been on a subway, or ‘train’ what have you, and have only seen them on TV and in movies. Brian (who I went to Chicago to see and I will get to that soon) showed me so many things and took me to so many places that I can’t remember everything right off (this might be a long post, but I’m due for a good one anyway!). Well, I absolutely loved riding on the train! Call me silly, but I would give up the use of my car everyday in exchange for hopping on trains that stop and go at stops so fast you have to stay on your toes lest you miss them. I loved watching all different kinds of people go to and from, this way and that, going about their daily lives, iPod buds dangling from their ears, backpacks tossed over their shoulders. Few people ever say much to anyone next to them, yet somehow that quiet mystery in passing between them fascinates me.

I stood beneath so many towering skyscrapers and I welcomed the vertigo with open arms. The Sears Tower (I refuse to call it the Willis Tower – sounds funny even for someone not from Chicago) was like standing under a Titan. Amazing.

(Photo by Brian Salata)

I’m having a difficult time choosing which photos to put up! I only took about 200, give or take, and then there are the ones Brian took, which turned out better than mine did. My camera sucks!

We also went to “The Lake”, which I like to call The Ocean because I’ve never seen a lake so enormous that you can’t see land on the other side. but it was frigid and we could only stay long enough to get a few shots.

(Photo by Brian Salata)

Brian took me to one of his inspirational places and I really loved it there. We both agree that it could do without the graffiti, but the area in general is peaceful.

(Photo by Brian Salata)

Brian took me to the Adler Planetarium where we saw a show called Night Sky Live. It was really nice, as we both are heavily obsessed with The Universe.

I  love this photo of Brian. :-)  It’s so fitting!

But this one, even more fitting! :-D

I look like shit in my newspaper ad, but oh well.

We had a great time.

I also got to meet a longtime friend of mine, Kris aka Sex, Death & Money, who I’ve known online since the role-playing days of MSN. We’ve known each other for about six years.  Me, Brian, Kris and her comical boyfriend (I forgot his name! What is it, Kris?) met up at Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria so I could eat my first pizza. OK, my first Chicago pizza, so technically my first pizza. We hung out for about 2 hours and laughed a lot about how Southern I really am (y’all hush! It ain’t that bad!) and made fun of Twilight and talked about just about everything. It was fun.

Love ya, Kris!

But Chicago was more than a vacation. I went for one reason and that was to meet Brian. And Brian was the best part of my trip. It was a long-awaited meeting, or rather, long overdue and I couldn’t be happier about how it all turned out.  :-)

I’m ready to go back to Chicago!  :-) … :-(

I know I’m leaving a lot out because I’m still zombified from the trip, so I’ll be adding stuff to this blog….

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So, I edited Dirty Eden again and changed the first chapter up quite a bit. There were parts that were a little flat and some that simply needed to be altered to make them more clear (thanks Mr. Ron Wolfe for all your input!). I’ve already received several agent rejections, but I’m not going to let that get me down. As I said before, I knew in advance that rejections, even a lot of them, were inevitable. I know too that I’ll get many more before I get that magical acceptance letter. In the meantime, I’m doing what I need to do to make the manuscript better.

The one thing I can say is that so far I have not received any negative feedback on Dirty Eden in general.  I even had a request to see more of it and although that did not prove beneficial, it to me is encouraging.

So, the first chapter has been revised extensively. Well, technically the whole novel has been re-edited and revised, but you can download the pdf of the first chapter on this page.

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Update 10/24/26 – I received a response from an agent yesterday that truly lifted my spirits and brought my confidence back up. He said:  “…am pleased to say it looks sharp and interesting. Really, far better than several queries that I’ve had from published writers recently.” He asked to see the full manuscript.  I know better than to get my hopes up too high. He may like the query/synopsis and hate the story! But we’ll see. I just hope this one works out, not because of the obvious, but because before I even received his response I had good vibes. He seems cool and easy to work with.

Wish me luck!

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