Projects

I've spent most of the last month working on edits for Heroine in Paradise and making little Halloween books with the boys.

Heroine in Paradise is now revised and ready for a first reading. I feel as if I am about to give my much flawed child to a modeling agency and ask, "Please, I want you to point out every single flaw in my new and darling creation to me."

Gut-wrenching but necessary. I truly want to fix my baby's flaws. I want my story to grow, to complete its potential. But first must come the wrenching - the pulling apart of every decision I made in my little one's formation and construction.

So what is this story? Well, for one it is obscenely long. It consists of three volumes and over 100,000 words. It's way too long for the target genre. And we all know that you can only break the unbreakable rules of writing if you can make it work. I'm not sure I can.

Heroine in Paradise is a heavenly adventure that takes place in...well...Heaven. I took the words of Benjamin Franklin literally when he said, "A man is not completely born until he is dead."

So I kill a lot of people. What? How else are they allowed to participate in the adventures if they are still living and breathing? I have to admit, I had a tremendous amount of fun with all the ways my beloved characters get to die. Death is always a major theme in my stories.

I should probably do a more traditional synopsis (something I am terrible at) instead of bouncing around. Here goes:

Emberlin Avery, bright, athletic and filled with all the potential of youth, looks upon her own empty body, a separation created by her recent, unfortunate, and untimely death and wonders, "Does anyone choose to die?" Understanding that she is dead, but not understanding what death is, Emberlin leaves her body and ascends to Paradise Holding, a place where, even in death, adventures may be had, sorrows may come, and surprises may delight. Learning to live, even if one is dead, may be the hardest thing she will have to do in her life.

So there it is. I hate writing synopsis'. I should really get a ghost writer for them.

Now that Emberlin is ready for a reading I was looking at my other writing projects and wondering, "What next?"

First, I have to address the changes I am making in Kindley's Sorrows. Some edits are done but several scenes have to be changed and while I feel good about the changes, I am a little weary of editing. I want to create!

I was looking at a couple of short story writing contests and while two look interesting I will probably only enter one right now. There is something to be said for knowing, that whether some people want to or not, they are forced to read something I've written. For whatever reason, it gives me a strange sense of satisfaction that I get to torture people other than my friends - who I guilt into helping me with my stories. So I am editing one of my short stories for this purpose.

Then, I will take my little story about Princess Azalea, which is currently only two pages of outline, and I will try to flesh out her story. She has been waiting patiently for about a year for me to work on her. Note to self: research troll-hunting.

My musical will have to wait a little longer. Outlined for almost four years now, I am still missing a few pieces, not of my own doing, I might add. I am waiting for some of the pieces to become available. And I really wish that the person I was waiting on would hurry up and oblige me. This work will probably be for my own pleasure only but the story has been bouncing around in my head so long, I feel bad that I am putting it off one more time.

So that is where my writing lies. Always somewhere in between.