Rewriting (Yes, You Have To Do It)

Rewriting is the key to good writing. When I first write something I tend to spew out an endless stream of words onto the page. Everything I'm thinking for the scene or characters just tumbles out. Sometimes it works and it's pretty dang awesome. But usually there are sentences that don't make sense and a fountain of misspelled or misplaced words. That's the beauty of a first draft. It's pure creativity with no filters, which means you get the good and the bad. Rewriting is merely editing out the bad and finding a way to improve the good. It brings everything up a notch. But sometimes it's hard. It's hard to kill the things you create, not because they're bad, but because they just don't fit.

Rewriting a novel is a little dash of fun and whole lot of pain. It's cutting, tweaking, and grammar. I for one hate grammar sometimes. When you're staring at a screen all day, the words just sort of blend together and it get's hard to see beard from bread. Making sure you have the right amount of commas is even harder. And that's not even taking rewriting the plot into account. Rewriting the plot was necessary for me in my latest (first) novel experience. I spent a year writing my first book. I wasn't going at it hard core because I had school, so it took me a while to write it. When I was finished, I was so proud. I had my friends read it and I started querying. I thought for sure it was going to be a winner. Then my friends took forever to read it and they weren't exactly excited. Then I got an avalanche of rejections. It sucked. I thought something was wrong with me, my writing, my plot, my everything. It took me a while to realize what I had spent all that time writing was a FIRST DRAFT.

So I went back in and spent about another year completely rewriting this book. I realized a lot of it was crap and gave it a complete makeover. I'm finally done with the plot rewrites and now I'm just going back through for grammar. I polished it and now it's really shinning. Best of all, my friends read the entire book the same day I gave it to them. They said they couldn't put it down. If that's not a compliment, I don't know what is. So now I'm confident in my work and I'm insanely glad I rewrote it. Now I've started querying again and if I don't get any bites, I have no problem self-publishing. I think my book will do just fine either way. So remember to rewrite, and rewrite, and keep rewriting.

The Problem with Clara Oswald

Anyone else watch the finale of Doctor Who? Anyone else spend a few minutes screaming at the TV? I did. But that's not what I want to talk about. I love this show, have for a while, but since the Ponds left it's lacked something. Took me a bit to figure out what it was:  a connection between the doctor and Clara. To be honest, I didn't really like Clara at first but she's beginning to grow on me. The problem I have is with her relationship with the doctor. I felt the show tried so hard for a 'romantic friendship where they like each other but they will never say they do' and it just sort of didn't work. I know what they were going for and I saw glimmers of it but it never meshed. The doctor and Clara just never connected the way they should. Why?

To me it all boils down to trust. You can't have a real relationship, be it friendship or other, without some degree of trust. But the doctor never trusts Clara. Oh, he trusts her with things that don't really matter but he never trusts her with the important stuff.  Like who he is. I'm not talking about a name. I'm talking about how he's the last time lord, how he ended the time war, how he's had other companions that have all left him in pretty much tragic ways. Rose knew all about the time war and his guilt. He let her in and she helped heal him. Martha and Donna knew about the time war and how he lost Rose. They couldn't fix it but they eased his burden and made things lighter for him. Amy was a special case because he knew her as a child and they had an instant connection even then. He trusted her from day one and from the first few episodes she knew pretty much everything about him. But not with Clara.

Through out the season you can see she's clueless about him. She knows nothing about the time war or who he really is. He doesn't trust her enough to tell her. Sure she's an interesting puzzle but at this point she's not someone he can sit down with, bear his soul and have her lift some of the weight on his heart. All of the other companions did that and more. But Clara can't because the doctor hasn't shared anything with her. There's no true trust between them and without it there's no true connection. Hopefully, now that the mystery is solved the doctor can finally learn to trust her and be open with her. Then we might see the connection.

Writers Voice Contest-CROOKED THINGS

So I was lucky enough to be one of the raffle winners for the Writers Voice Contest. I tried not to get my hopes up when I entered the raffle (cause it was based on luck), so I was pretty excited when I got the email. Thanks for the opportunity Brenda, Monica, Krista, and Cupid. Here's the query for my book, Crooked Things.

Query

Dear Coaches,

Change is good—unless you’re becoming a monster.

At sixteen, Hannah Ellender discovers she isn’t completely human. Something inside her is changing, but the end result is unclear. She begins to see things no one else can: crooked things better left in the dark. One of those things is Bain, a soul imprisoned in a box. Once a powerful warlock, he was betrayed and separated from his body by a spell. With a wicked sense of humor and an alluring voice, he promises to guide her through the world of magic. 

But when she unknowingly frees him, Bain’s spirit jumps into Landon, a boy Hannah has been enamored with since middle school. Now she only has one month to find Bain’s immortal body, otherwise Landon becomes a disembodied soul. As the search brings them closer together, Hannah’s feelings towards the warlock become muddled. Is it Bain she’s beginning to care for, or is it just the skin he’s wearing? Nothing is clear as she falls further into a dark, deadly world of vampires, stone creatures, and mad warlocks. Here the lines are blurred, friends are divided, and even love becomes a crooked thing.

CROOKED THINGS is a 81,000 word YA paranormal fantasy. It will appeal to fans of The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare and Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.

First 250 Words

“Watch it!” Hannah hissed as someone danced onto her foot. She stopped herself from kicking the offender in the shin, and stood still like a rock in a whirlpool of sweaty teenagers. Students crowded the living room, dancing haphazardly around her in groups. The closest tag-team of juniors was jumping up and down while pumping their fists to the music. One of them hopped onto the couch pushed up against the wall to accommodate the endless stream of people still pouring into the house. The flood of bodies shifted again, pushing Hannah Ellender into her friend Dannie.

 “You okay?” Dannie asked.

“I’m fine.” Hannah directed a glare at the guy that pushed her. She turned back around to see Landon standing a few feet away. Her mouth grew dry as she thought of asking him to dance, but the blonde hanging off his arm might have a problem with it. His girlfriend scowled at her and Hannah looked away.

“You sure about that?” Dannie flipped her black hair out of her tan face. “Cause you’re looking kind of psychotic right now. You’re not planning to murder anyone, are you? If you do, I’ll be a character witness at your trial. I’ll tell the jury about how sweet you are until someone pokes you with a stick.”

“A stick? You make me sound like a bear,” Hannah muttered as she pushed her light, brown curls away from her green eyes. “My hair isn’t that fuzzy.”