Speaking of massive, mind and finger-numbing revisions

I'm not actually DONE with the current WIP called MURDERING THE DEAD or as it's also been known, MURDER IN THE HOUSE OF EMBALMING or KING TUT or THE MUMMY TENT for lack of any truly provocative title.

This first big round of revisions means I got through some MAJOR character and plot changes and the cutting and editing of practically EVERY SINGLE LINE.

I still have a boat-load of NOTE TO SELF XXX's sprinkled throughout the manuscript that still need attention.

And then it needs another critique by someone to discuss a few more points and catch all the new errors which I know is going to mean a couple more minor scenes added somewhere, just don't know quite where or how yet.

AND THEN a final polish.

Ain't revisions fun? Not!

For those who are keeping track . . . I started drafting this novel August 12, 2006 wherein I wrote the first three pages. I began research and plot development about 4-5 years ago.

Writing a 400 page historical novel is a COLOSSAL undertaking of nerve, guts and bravado, and, I'm pretty sure, sheer craziness.

Like I just needed a reminder . . . hee, hee.

But DANG, it's gonna be good.

But, But, But, I have a new book to write meanwhile under contract with Scholastic. From scratch. When I get home from Louisiana. And those lovely editorial revisions on The Healing Spell . . .

Whew!

Wow, I just spent the last three days finishing up the major over-haul on MURDERING THE DEAD. I wrote from about 3:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon to nearly 11:00 p.m. Can anyone say EXHAUSTION?

Yesterday I spent about 4 hours making some BIG CHANGES to the last chapter that I think will be more surprising, more of a twist, and more emotional. I feel drained, but pleased that I got to the end of this 400 page tome before I leave Friday for my trip to Louisiana. YAY!!!

I'm going to celebrate with some delicious beignets and crawfish etoufee and tour the swamp and see alligators and have a healing done by a traiteuse. CAN NOT WAIT!!!






I'm traveling with a friend who grew up in Louisiana and Alabama and so this is also a girlfriend road-trip. We're going to spend two weeks TALKING non-stop! No cooking, no cleaning, no babysitting. Lots of gabbing and beautiful countryside and meeting lots of cool people.

AND what's more - I contacted Cote Blanche Production Company that put out a documentary 10 years ago GOOD FOR WHAT AILS YOU, that was very helpful in locating some folk treaters for me - and yesterday I heard from the head writer and wife of the producer/director suggesting we have a meet-up for coffee while I'm there!!! Yahoo! I get to meet more movie people!!! They are super nice and their movies and documentary's all focus on Louisiana.

I'm feeling very blessed. And excited! Bet you can't tell . . .

One last snippet?

I'm hoping to finish this current major, mind-numbing, difficult, sweat-fill, agonizing revision by Saturday night. (I'm in an overflowing adjective frame of mind for some reason.)

Here's the end to the last chapter I revised yesterday.

Today might be my last Teaser Tuesday for MURDERING THE DEAD before I blog about my awesome research trip coming up in only two weeks! But you're *so* lucky (har, har!) because I'll give you slices of THE HEALING SPELL, first book up next year in June, 2010!! ;-D

Queen Ankhesenamun gently placed the king’s hand back onto the table against his side. “I’m finished. I just had to see him one last time. And to know that he’s in good hands. You will take care of him?”

“With my life, your majesty," Imarus told her. "And all my heart.”

She gave him a small smile, a single tear making a path down her cheek. “I feel that I can trust you. Tutankhaten did, too.”

Imarus realized that tears were filling his eyes as well. “I’m honored, my queen.” He stopped as his voice began to crack.

Pesashet came across the small space between them and Imarus felt the touch of her hand on his arm. “Thank you for giving us these few moments with him. You have a gift, Imarus, and I don’t think you even know it.”
Through the blur of his vision, Imarus realized that he felt closer to Pesashet, this girl that he loved, and the feeling spread through him with a sudden warmth. They were communicating in a way they never had before, but it wasn’t due to any private conversations or intimate caresses. Their souls had somehow collided in this awful moment in time.

Somehow, Pesashet knew how agonizing it was for him to mummify Pharaoh. It was as though she read his mind, and his heart both.

Queen Ankhesenamun drew the linen cloth back over her husband’s body, and raised her head. Lips white, she said, “May I see my baby now, please? And then I’ll be gone.”

Biting off More than I can Chew?

Last September and October I read through my first draft of MURDERING THE DEAD, the ancient Egyptian novel about the murder of King Tut for the first time. I'd written it 18 months earlier and it sat metaphorically twiddling it's thumbs while I revised two of the books that sold to Scholastic, came up with ideas for the third which sold on a synopsis, and also revised a contemporary romance set in Paris which is still waiting for submission.

After the first round of clean-up I sent “Egypt” to two crit friends and one of them gave me a TON of ideas for adding more suspense and action and plot twists and using my secondary characters more deeply. Needless to say I was OVERWHELMED, but I knew the ideas would make a more exciting and dramatic book so I started to work on it again in January thinking I could be finished sometime in February. Yeah, right.

Well - here I am on March 12 - and I barely hit the HALFWAY MARK today! It's going so slowly and I'm rewriting and adding new scenes and cutting so much that I've been lucky to revise 5 pages a day.

Then last week I got my editorial letter for The Healing Spell and I'm leaving on a research trip to Louisiana in two weeks.

I sat down last night and figured out all the projects and travel that are coming up this year and sort of did a general map of my year. YIKES! It's going to be a hum-dinger of a year work-wise.

MARCH - JULY 2009

1. Do the editorial revisions of The Healing Spell

2. Finish the major revision of Murdering the Dead and get final readers for comment/critique

3. Write the first draft of The Traiteur's Daughter - the book sold on synopsis

4. Final polish of The Healing Spell and off to copyeditor

5. Final tweaks/revisions of Murdering the Dead after critique comments and send to agent for review

6. Two-Week Research Trip to Louisiana

7. Summer Family Trip to the Midwest

8. Plan and go on trip to Bulgaria and Italy with son Jared (we've been putting this off for two years and 2010 will be more difficult with two books coming out).

Out of the next 4.5 months I will be gone 6 weeks. Not including the planning/packing and all that extra stuff that goes with traveling. I'm going to revise three different books - and write a new one??? I think I'm officially crazy.

AUGUST - DECEMBER 2009

1. We'll have a new baby in the house along with the almost one-year old currently living here that I babysit several hours a day. :-D

2. First Revisions with my editor for Secret Rites of the Goddess

3. Copy edits of The Healing Spell

4. Copy edits of Secret Rites of the Goddess

5. Proofread galleys of The Healing Spell

6. Revisions of The Traiteur's Daughter with crit group to get it ready to send to agent/editor.

Come December I'm going to have to be put out to pasture.

Teaser Tuesday

I bring you a slice of MURDERING THE DEAD (working title) of my ancient Egypt suspense thriller. At least that's what I've recently started calling it because "Suspense Thriller" just sounds SO cool. It might also have something to do with the fact that I'm trying to add more conflict and suspense - and, um *thrill*.

Note: I've been doing a major revision on this book, practically a new second draft, and it's taken me a month to rework 120 pages. 240 pages to go . . . gulp. I can do a first draft faster than this!

This new corpse's chest was a mess. It was going to take some skill to fix the crushed ribs and remove the organs where blood had pooled in a dark stain under the skin. The hyenas had probably come down in search of food, which was common at harvest time. The hyenas were probably rabid, too. One of the other bodies waiting in line for Imarus’ embalming knife had died of rabies, another from lung disease, a fourth knifed in a bar-room brawl. Heart attacks, chariot accidents, swamp fevers—Imarus saw it all.

He stared at the sun-browned skin, the long hair a sweaty tangle of black strands. Strangely, a fistful of grass and seeds were still clenched in his fist. Imarus' gut clenched as he loosened the man’s grip. Tiny white flax and crumbles of drying mud fell into Imarus’ palm. The dead man’s fingers involuntarily curled again, and Imarus sucked in his breath, his heart stuttering in his chest. A tiny symbol of the Aten god was tattooed on the lower palm of the man's hand.

He jerked the ragged cloth off the face. Imarus hadn’t recognized the weeping elderly man who had brought the body, but he knew this face. This dead man was Kuni. Kuni.

A flood of memories from the late-night meetings in his father’s shadow-lit study washed over him. Kuni had attended every secret meeting, one of the younger men sitting in the rear, listening but not saying much. He couldn't be more than a few years older than Imarus. Even though a poor farmer, Kuni had been a valuable link between the Aten underground organization and the farmers they were recruiting for the future.

This could be me, Imarus thought, feeling a shiver crawl down his spine.

Egypt Novel: Murdering the Dead

This past Fall was so crazy that it took me 4 months (!) to do a first-pass clean-up of my ancient Egyptian novel, MURDERING THE DEAD. I drafted the book in the winter and spring of 2007! 18 months ago! It sat, waiting patiently for me while I revised THE HEALING SPELL, SECRET RITES OF THE GODDESS, IN A PARIS MINUTE, and wrote two screenplay treatments while conducting my nearly two year, nation-wide search for an agent. So it's not like I wasn't a teency bit busy, but still. I was so anxious to actually read the thing and see what I had.

After I painstakingly got through the massive 380 page thing, I sent it off in batches to my first critiquer, the fabulous Carolee Dean.

A few days later, when she got to the halfway point of the manuscript, Carolee emailed and said:

"I'm thoroughly enjoying your book! I think it is your best one yet. It's so intriguing and beautifully written."

What?!? Really?!?

I'd been dreading anyone reading it because I just knew that they would say it totally sucked - That it was BORING, SLOW, AND CONTRIVED.

But my BEST ONE YET? I'm psyched.

Here's a snippet of my main character, 17 year old Imarus, who is an apprentice mummifier:

Imarus tied a piece of leather through the hole punched into the wooden tag, then knotted the leather around the dead man's big toe. Kuni. 21 years old. Farmer.

Imarus performed a quick inspection of the corpse. For a simple farming man, the embalming contract would be quick and inexpensive. No carved alabaster canopic jars and only three linen layers of wrapping instead of the usual eight or ten, but that was preferable to leaving the man to dry out in the desert in a hand-dug hole.

Kuni’s chest had been badly trampled by his oxen. The hyenas that had launched the attack had probably come down in search of food. They often did at harvest time. The wild animals were probably rabid, too. One of the other corpses waiting in line for Imarus’ embalming knife had died of rabies. Another from lung disease, a fourth from a bar-room brawl; knifed in the seedy part of town where wine flowed more freely than the Nile’s banks during Isis' tears of Inundation. Heart attacks, chariot accidents, swamp fevers. Imarus saw it all.

He stared at the sun-browned face of Kuni, the young man’s dark hair a damp tangle of sweat. A fistful of grass and seeds was still clenched in his fist. Imarus felt a tug in his gut as he loosened the man’s grip. Tiny white flax seeds and crumbles of drying mud fell into Imarus’ palm. The dead man’s fingers involuntarily curled again.

The farmer’s chest was a mess. It was going to take some skill to fix the crushed ribs and remove the organs in the chest cavity where blood had pooled in a dark stain under the skin. Kuni had been a handsome man, sinewy muscles etched from hard work, only a few years older than Imarus himself. A life gone too soon. This could be me, Imarus thought, feeling a sudden shiver. The moment between life and death was so fleeting it was frightening. Imarus’ thoughts suddenly turned morbid. When would he die—and how?