Adventures in Revision

HELP! I'm locked in the library bathroom!

I've been going here to get some quiet away from my rowdy house to get my book ready to send for the first time to my Gorgeous Editor next week. It's just a small, unassuming library in a little town along the Rio Grande . . .


With the regular Restroom OUT OF ORDER.

Gotta get the key and go down the hall. Except I waited until I was desperate to go and the front desk told me the key was taken by someone else. I hurry out the main doors down a hallway where the other bathrooms are located and a teenage boy is coming out of the Men's room. I ask him for the key, open the Ladies Room, give him back the key with a "Thank You", and proceed to do my business.

After washing my hands, I try to get out, but the door is locked. LOCKED! Down a hallway with no traffic so I can't bang on the door and attract any attention. I SHOULD HAVE KEPT THE KEY SO I CAN GET OUT. Why didn't the boy tell me that, I wonder?

Thankfully I'd brought my cell phone with me.

I call home: "This is going to sound really silly, but I'm locked in the bathroom. Can you look up the phone number for the library? I'll call and ask someone at the front desk to come rescue me." (I mean REALLY! How embarrassing! And what kind of bathroom locks from the inside anyway!)

Home: Laughs at my predicament. Off to get the phone book.

Meanwhile I absentmindedly keep jiggling the door handle and worrying about my lap top left alone in the far corner. I'm worried someone will make off with it and my BOOK manuscript! I don't care about my laptop so much as my manuscript that took me a YEAR to write!

Suddenly! The bathroom door opens! It's not locked after all. It's just silly me unable to open a simple door.

In my defense, the latch is a very odd/funny one and opens *backwards*. Sheesh!

I escape, hurry back to my corner and my computer, red faced.
My family just laughs. 
Of course. 

Thursday Goodies!

So I won the book, NUMBERS by Rachel Ward (Scholastic, Chicken House) through Goodreads and finished reading it yesterday. NUMBERS is a gritty, well written novel about two kids from the other side of the tracks who are on the run after a terrorist bombing of the London Eye and are wanted by the police. The twist is that Jem, the girl - and told from her point of view - can see the date of people's deaths when she looks them in the eye. Creepy and unnerving at best, so she avoids eye contact and has been through several foster homes after watching her mother die from a drug overdose when she was seven years old. Consequently, Jem is mad at the world, prickly, doesn't get close to people - until she meets Spider, a boy who also doesn't fit in and is being raised by his grandmother.

I love the premise and the author puts Jem's *talent* into jeopardy when she and Spider are cutting school and hanging around the London Eye. Jem suddenly discovers that several people are about to die - and then the bomb goes off!

The rest of the story is quite exciting as Jem and Spider are on the run from the police and find themselves trying to survive on foot with little food and no place to sleep.

The first 50 pages was a bit slow for me and sometimes the writing is uneven (FYI - there is swearing and a sex scene), but the author has set up a ticking clock and that's what keeps you reading - to find out what is going to happen to these kids and how are they going to survive. One of the most interesting characters was Spider's grandmother who has some kind of *powers* herself and I wanted to know more about HER. Hopefully in the sequel. Even though the ending was sad and bittersweet, there is also HOPE and Jem has come away from this terrible experience and loss a better person. Thank you Chicken House for a great read!



I watched the new Masterpiece Theater production of EMMA by Jane Austen and after the first hour of trying to get into the new actors for Emma and Mr. Knightly (after loving the Kate Beckinsale production for years) I really enjoyed it. The acting was great, the rest of the cast superbly chosen, and I really liked the in-depth screenplay and the extra time devoted to the story development and dialogue and relationships by giving it 3.5 hours. The costuming, homes, countryside, and sets was superb!

My biggest complaint? Mr. Knightly, while a wonderful actor, was just much TOO SHORT! In some scenes, Emma looked taller than he was! They should have put him in risers - at least given him a couple inches more than Emma. Sorry, but I think their scenes together would have been more powerful and have more romantic tension if he'd been taller than she was. I suppose I'm old-fashioned when it comes to that. While his acting was fine, Knightly was just more forgettable. And he's NOT supposed to be!

Off to the library to revise! Manuscript due to Gorgeous Editor in 18 days . . .

Panting toward the Home Stretch

I'm almost done with my editorial revisions for THE HEALING SPELL (Scholastic June 2010) and it's been a much bigger haul than I first anticipated. I've been a month making *small* changes, but there have been about 100 of them! Eleven pages of editorial suggestions!

Gorgeous Editor made phenomenal and thought-provoking and insightful suggestions, but they've taken much more thought than I ever expected. And I had to write a new chapter. And add to the characters relationships. And add depth to my MC's internal life and arc. And foreshadow. And my brain is turning to mush.

I have a full day of some more fixes then I hope to read through all the changes again to make sure they *make sense*, *no accidental errors*, *could be tightened*, and * I didn't forget anything*.

Goal: To mail to my Gorgeous Editor tomorrow!!!

I find myself wanting to poop out . . . and my eyes are burning . . .

MONDAY MADNESS!!!

I've been scarce because I've been REVISING for my new and wonderful editor.

Her line edits were very light, and her revision suggestions nothing major, mostly adding some depth and a few scenes throughout to add to the relationships in Livie's life, but figuring out WHERE everything should go and exactly WHAT to add and then make it all work together is STILL SO HARD!

My brain balks, like I'm a bratty kid again. "You mean I have to do more WORK? I don't wanna. I wanna go outside and play."

It takes me a long time to figure it all out and I was so fried from my amazing research trip that it took me 2-3 weeks just to decompress and process and go through more research and re-read some stuff.

Last week I asked my editor some questions I had about my first chapter, the first page in particular and we talked about it via email, and then I wrote her this:

Me: I'm not set on any particular way to open the book, but honestly, I'm so worried about making this book *perfect* I may be losing my perspective. I'm starting to question EVERY LINE as I revise! But I might be way over-thinking this . . . aaah!

Gorgeous Editor: I know that revising can start to drive an author mad and make it impossible to distinguish between what’s working and what’s not. I can’t wait to read the manuscript again. And I’m always here for you to bounce ideas off of! That is the best part of my job.

Me: The best part of your job is bouncing around ideas with your authors? That's fun to know! Not that I'm going to start pestering you every day . . . ;-D

So we decided to rearrange a few paragraphs, but I'm still not convinced it's THE BEST opening.

So I'll just do this:

And eat this:





And then I'll feel better!