The Big One Zero Zero

Today marks a special occasion: the hundredth post here on Muses and Musings.

For some reason, this surprises me.

It’s like I wasn’t aware I was driving you all up the wall blogging twice a week since January 12, 2015’s “An Anglophile I’m Apparently Not.” And since there are 50 weeks in the year that traditionally come after January 12, it makes perfect sense that I’d hit the big one-zero-zero right around now.

So I have no excuse for being taken unaware. Then again, I never claimed to be good at math.

What I am a bit better at (sometimes, anyway) is recognizing my blessings, so here’s a recount of the writing-related accomplishments I’m thankful for this year:

• Seven books published (Maiden America, Not So Human, To Err Is Faerie, Up in the Air, The Politician’s Pawn, Moves and Countermoves, and Amateurs Need Not Apply)
• Two manuscripts written (Wing and Dagger, and Designing America), though they still need to be edited a few times over
• Two book readings for awesome local groups
• Innovative Editing Insider, my creative-writing focused quarterly newsletter
• Tables at two fairs where I peddled my books, The CHAP Convention in Harrisburg, PA, and Faeriecon in Hunt Valley, MD
• The opportunity to teach a creative writing continuing education class at Community College of Baltimore County
• Interactions with a whole slew of fun and fascinating people, some of them Innovative Editing clients and some of them potential Innovative Editing clients.

That all begs the question… How am I going to top that in 2016?

I have no idea, but I’m excited to find out. In the meantime, however, I’m going to celebrate my hundredth blog post by taking off for the rest of the year.

If you need to reach me for any editing projects, I’ll still be checking my email at jdilouie@innovativeediting.com. And if you find that you desperately need to read one of my books (and you totally do, right?), all of the links are listed above.

Other than that, I’m going to focus on having a fabulous Christmas with my family… and then working like crazy to finish the second draft of Designing America before the end of 2015.

So Happy Holidays and an amazing New Year to you all!

Thanks for sticking with me these last hundred blog posts, and here’s looking forward to the next hundred…

Ooh La La!

Don’t think that romance novels are a new thing.

The first (known) examples were written during the English Renaissance by men to keep us chicky-poos in line, since we were beginning to learn how to read in noteworthy numbers.

So much for the age of enlightenment.

By the time 1740 came around, there had been some notable exceptions to that rule, but men were still having their wicked way with the genre, as evidenced by Samuel Richardson’s Pamela.

According to Wikipedia, Pamela “tells the story of a beautiful 15-year-old maidservant named Pamela Andrews, whose country landowner master, Mr. B. makes unwanted advances towards her after the death of her mother. After attempting unsuccessfully to seduce and rape her, her virtue is eventually rewarded when he sincerely proposes an equitable marriage to her.”

By the way, she says yes.

Ugh!!! On so many levels, ugh!!!

I’d blame it on the times and the gender of the author except for two things:

1.      The “chicky-poos” just a few decades later were the kind of feisty I prefer in my friends today, which is demonstrated repeatedly in Joseph Plumb Martin’s autobiographical A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier. So much so, in fact, that it prompted modern-day editor Thomas Fleming to write that American women back then “were not the shy, fainting maidens that contemporary feminists like to imagine… The women of 1776 had imbibed quite a lot of the notions of equality that were widespread among their menfolk” (Martin, xiii), which sometimes showed in hysterically laudable ways.

a.       Seriously, these women rocked!

b.      Who knows though. Pamela was written in England by an Englishman. So maybe it was just American women who were so feisty.

2.      I once read a novel, presumably written in the 1990s, on the same basic subject as Pamela, though the heroine didn’t escape the bad guy’s “unwanted advances” and yet STILL ended up marrying the jerk of her own free will. It was supposed to be romantic. I, the reader, was supposed to be swooning over the supposedly happy union. Moreover, it was written by a woman.

Again, ugh!!! What the heck is wrong with people?

Fortunately, there’s no such nonsense in Designing America. Main-character Abigail Carpenter is way too smart for any such stupidity.

Cross that American woman, and she’ll just cross you back until you’re left marching down Hampton Road in Yorktown, Virginia, drunk, humiliated and thoroughly beaten.

I Can’t Take It Anymore: Here’s My Political Rant

I’m going to go on a political rant against everyone, so forgive me.

Or don’t. I genuinely could care less right now.

After having to read an embarrassingly illogical conservative piece yesterday that my unethically capitalistic employer published, and then being subjected to my embarrassingly immature liberal coworkers rip it apart like they have some handle on decency… well, let’s just say I’m in less of a diplomatic mood.

Why in the world don’t people ever stop to question their own motives, tactics and logic instead of focusing solely on everything the other side is doing wrong? We could all save ourselves a lot of pain and misery if we would look in the mirror once in a while.

I mean, what are we afraid of seeing?

History has proved time and time again what such closeminded devotion to a cause – even a good cause – can do. And, newsflash, it ain’t pretty.

For example, researching the American Revolutionary War while writing Maiden America and now Designing America, I uncovered a whole list of grossly inappropriate behavior… on both sides… all because individuals or groups thought themselves completely right and anyone who disagreed with them completely irrelevant.

Tired of hearing me talk about that time period? Fine. How about World War II? A large reason Hitler had the opportunity to rise to power was because Germany was treated so miserably after World War I.

In other words, if the allied powers had stopped for a second to consider the possibility that they might be being self-righteous instead of righteous, we might never have gotten the Holocaust, with its genocide, persecution and downright revolting science experiments on human beings.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t have your opinions. I’m not saying you shouldn’t keep your opinions. I’m not even saying you shouldn’t passionately stand by them.

But for crying out loud people of all political stripes, recognize that you’re just as fallible as the other side… and that you have the same exact ability to be an embarrassingly hypocritical jerk.

Otherwise, before you know it, you may put a future into motion that history will not smile on.

A Lot Can Happen in Five Years and 10 Pages

I can’t remember the last time I had such a hard time editing an intro. But oh my word, Designing America is killing me!

In a strictly intellectual/creative sense, of course. I don’t mean to follow up last Wednesday’s thankfulness post by complaining about how difficult my life is. Let’s face it: If the worst thing I have to deal with is a challenging piece of fiction, then I’m doing pretty darn good.

I fully acknowledge that. I also fully acknowledge that there’s no good way to transition from how peachy I have it back to complaining, so I’m not going to bother.

Let’s just acknowledge that I’m being a whiny baby and move on…

The reason behind why I’m struggling so much with prettying up Designing America? It’s those dratted historical details I care so much about. Apparently the feeling isn’t reciprocal, since they seem bound and determined to make my editorial life a living nightmare.

I’ve already cut out entire paragraphs in the first 10 pages, even about details I really, really like. Yet there’s still so much backstory that needs to be addressed in order to set up the current tale.

After all, Maiden America took place at the very end of 1776, whereas its sequel happens five years later during the summer of 1781. A lot can happen in a five-year span and a lot did, both for the non-fiction America and the fictional Abigail Carpenter.

It’s not like I need to breakdown every single battle between the combatants and every conversation made about them. Otherwise, that would be a textbook, not a novel. Obviously.

Nonetheless, 1781 was an eventful year with a whole string of crazy coincidences and strange happenings that factored into the successful campaign at Yorktown, Virginia. So much so that my multiple sources repeatedly mentioned “providence” being at work.

These weren’t religious resources either. They were the kind of academic accounts that graduate students might refer to while compiling their doctoral theses. Yet these professionals were downright amazed at how many completely unpredictable pieces came together in just the right way and at just the right time to set up a game-changing victory.

All of which seems well worth mentioning.

So how do I tell it in a non-boring manner? That’s the $500 question I’m struggling with.

I’m sure I’ll come up with an answer.

Eventually.

Maybe right after I get a better attitude.

What This #FirstWorldProblems Writer Is So Very Thankful For This Year

I was joking yesterday with my coworkers about #FirstWorldProblems, as I was going to have to complete today’s to-do list on a small screen at home instead of my large monitor at work.

I didn’t think much of it at the time. But lying in bed this morning, ignoring my alarm clock and thinking about Designing America, it hit me how significant my supposed silliness actually was.

You see, my next step since finishing my rough draft hasn’t been to edit. It’s been to go through my historical highlights and notes to make sure I’ve gotten key details and dates correct. And those highlights and notes, details and dates spell out a nearly overwhelming amount of pain.

The Revolutionary War was a miserable time period for those who had to live through it.

I mean absolutely horrific. The Brits were really quite rotten to the Americans.

That’s no offense to the British at large any more than it’s an approval of Americans at large. Any true student of history recognizes that there isn’t a perfect people out there. We’re all capable of committing atrocities, and we too often run with that potential.

Moreover, during the course of the Revolutionary War – as I flat-out state in Maiden America – the Americans behaved pretty darn badly a time or two as well.

Yet with that all said, in my very detailed research, I never once came across a story of American soldiers ripping open pregnant women, or crowding thousands of prisoners of war onto ships to let them rot away for weeks or months under the most inhumane conditions, knowing full well they’d die. (Many went insane first.) Those brutalities fall squarely on the British back then.

For kicks and giggles, I watched The Patriot on Sunday; which, yes, is filled with historical inaccuracies. Considering how that movie and Designing America share the same bad guy, I found myself shaking my head and rolling my eyes over and over again.

But that wasn’t what stood out most to me. What stood out most were the battle scenes, where men’s heads were blown off. Their legs shattered. Their stomachs skewered by bayonets.

Because all of that? That really happened.

Even when that wasn’t going on, those soldiers starved more often than not. They got little to no pay. And after the war, they barely got a thanks from a citizenry that was too often thrilled to celebrate victories but apathetic or downright hostile about providing anything else.

Black and white, free and slave, young and old, rich and poor male and female: Those “rebels” gave their time, their fortunes, their well-being, comfort and very lives…

The result is that I can laugh about #FirstWorldProblems.

For all of those sacrifices back then and my security today, I am truly grateful.

Designing America Is Done! Kinda… Sorta… Okay, Not Really.

I finished Designing America yesterday afternoon!

Admittedly, that makes it sound like a much bigger accomplishment than it actually is, so let me restate. I finished the first draft of Designing America. And I’m about 40,000 words short on my word count.

I was planning on writing a decent bit more before the “the end” part, but it just didn’t turn out that way. “The end” happened without asking for permission.

My stories are rude like that.

The thing is, normally they’re also a heck of a lot wordier. So I’m not quite sure what happened this time around.

One logical possibility is that I was focusing too much on the historical detail and not enough on the actual story. Because, guess what? I was.

I knew it all along, and I knew I’d have to fix it. There are so many important characters I introduced and then didn’t engage or utilize nearly well enough, all because I was so determined to get as many facts down as possible. At the expense of everything other than the plot.

The other reason why I might not have written as much as expected for this first draft is that – SPOILER ALERT! – the love interest isn’t even there most of the time. He’s in the very beginning and the very end. That’s it.

Without any swoons and sighs and such, it does make for a quicker read (and write).

Yet, regardless, I can’t be all that upset about the additional work I’m going to have to do for the second draft now that the first draft ended so soon. Not when it ended on such a perfect note!

I’m normally horrible about last lines. Like absolutely horrible. I hate them. They always sound so contrived to me. Might as well write “and they lived happily ever after,” as that’s as good as it’s going to get.

This one though? It’s beautiful! It’s perfect! It doesn’t require me to tear my hair out in anguish!

Which is a major relief. So I’m not going to look this mixed-gift horse in the mouth.

Designing America Draft 2? Here I come…

And yes, I promise the final copy will read like a story and not a history text book.

The Perks of Working for People Who Trash Talk You Behind Your Back

I’m writing today’s post on Monday afternoon, mainly because I’m in a meeting that’s about as boring as… ummm… something that’s really boring, okay? Since it’s sucking all creativity out of me, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Far less mind-numbing is what I found out this morning about my direct supervisor and another supposed superior. While I was out of the office last week, they were trash talking me in front of a large room full of my direct coworkers.

In their defense, I had a rather busy four-week period where I wasn’t as reliable as I usually am. 

There was the Friday wedding late last month in New Jersey that I had to take a full day off for… the apartment pest issue on the 4th that had me out all day scrubbing down my apartment… Faeriecon two days later, which meant I took off another Friday… my younger sister going into labor, prompting me to leave work two and a half hours early last Tuesday… my flat tire on Wednesday… and then working from my parents’ house Thursday and Friday in order to give moral support to my exhausted mom.

Like I said, it’s been busy.

In my defense, however, other than those two Fridays, I handled every single task required of me despite some ridiculous deadlines. If my supervisor really has a problem with me, she should say it to my face in a private meeting. I gave her fair warning about everything that was going on, yet she told me it was okay.

Sounds like a horrid work environment, right? Well, it ain’t impressive. That’s for sure. But I’m truly grateful for it nonetheless. It offers something most other occupations don’t… an insane amount of downtime overall.

Because of that, I’ve had ample time to write eight of my now-published books, get through 40,000 words of Faerietales Book 5 and write another 40,000 words of Designing America. And that downtime is especially wonderful now that I’ve reached a tedious point in the latter.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still having a blast! But there’s too much cross-checking and unknowns for me to be able to write 1,000 words per hour like I was averaging before. So some extra story time is definitely appreciated.

Maybe I’ll even put my two “superiors” somewhere into Designing America. Considering how four of the British officers in Maiden America were also based on coworkers, I’m sure I can manage to fit two mean girls in somehow, right?

I’m thinking Americans loyal to King George III named Amanda Mahneck and Rachel Treaghart…

Oh, this is going to be fun!

Editor/Writer/Publisher's Note: Since writing this Monday, I have not only gone ahead and added Amanda Ross (name changed to fit historical facts) and Rachel Mahneck to the official story line; it also looks like they're going to serve as major catalysts!

In other news, I officially reached my NaNoWriMo-dictated goal of 50,000 words! And that was with Faeriecon and my new baby niece vying for my attention. Go me!

In other, other news, so what? I'm not even halfway through the story by my calculations. So it's right back to work... My new goal is to finish the entire first draft by the end of the year. Here goes something!

Since I’m Not Empress of the Universe…

Once again, I’ve been very remiss in writing my weekly Muses and Musings posts. And this time around, I can’t even blame it on my younger sister or my darling little niece.

Don’t get me wrong, I definitely did spend time fussing over L.J. and holding Maggie. But I also got another several thousand words down for Designing America, bringing my official word count up to 40,000.

Considering how I only have one book-related event this coming Sunday and no more nieces making their official debut into the world any time soon, my current plan is to reach that lauded 50,000 word-count by the 20th.

That’s the goal, but we’ll see. I do realize that life has a way of “happening.” And I’ve had ample opportunity over the past 32 years to see that I’m not in charge of those happenings, only how I handle them.

If I was in charge, believe me, there’d be a few little changes made. For one thing, I’d be empress of the universe. My first order of the day would be to force all Maryland drivers to retake their drivers’ test. FYI: Since most of them can’t tell the difference between a stop sign and a yield, most of them would fail. Miserably.

Since I still had to deal with Maryland motorists this morning, clearly I’m not empress of the universe. In fact, I’m not empress of anything, even my stories. As I’ve said before, I don’t rule my storylines in any way, shape or form. That came to light once again while incorporating historical details into my storyline last week.

(As a side note, I think I’m putting way too much historical detail into Designing America. I’m going to have to focus on adding dialogue and plot points into the second draft, since not everyone is obsessed with random period-specific factoids as I am.

No idea why.)

But back to not being empress… I was absolutely certain I knew how the next page or two were going to go. It was going to be perfect!

Until I wrote the very next line, where a nine-year-old character ended up stealing the scene and almost making me cry.

It’s that kind of surprise that makes writing such an adventure, taking my literary journeys on amazing twists and turns that end up being so much more worthwhile than if my word was law.

In which case, I suppose it’s better that I’m not empress. As much as I’d like to kick most Maryland drivers off the road, there’s so much to be said for letting someone else run the show.

Keep Writing!!!! Unless This Kind of Thing Happens. Then Who Cares About Your Novel.

I’m writing this blogpost really late today. Why? Because my beloved younger sister went into labor on Monday night.

I’ve never had kids. So when it comes down to it, I’m no expert on what it’s like to carry a baby inside me for nine months and then go through hours giving birth. But from everything I hear, that latter part is not a fun experience. So knowing that my kid sister (not really a kid at 28 years old, but still) was going through such trials and travails was more than a bit distracting.

I did get 2,000 more words written to Designing America on Monday night. But Tuesday was an absolute wash. I was practically crying at my desk that morning, drove up to Pennsylvania (where she lives) that afternoon, and then waited and waited and waited some more that evening.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my novel-in-the-making. I love the time period (Revolutionary War), I love the historical details, I love the characters and – sure – I love my own creative process.

It’s just that I love my sister so exceptionally, overwhelmingly much more. So while my fretting away over her experience didn’t do her a single bit of good, I can’t say that I regret focusing on her instead of my story.

There are just some things in life that are more important than NaNoWriMo. And family is one of them.

An Amusing Villain to Read About in Designing America (Just Not in the History Books)

Normally I write both week’s Muses and Musings blogposts on Sunday, but it’s now 8:11 in the morning on Wednesday, and I’m just starting today’s.

It’s been one of those weeks.

Not all in bad ways, admittedly. I mean, Sunday’s NaNoWriMo kick-off had me writing 10,000 words in a day. And between Monday and Tuesday, I wrote another 10,000 despite alleged bedbugs and a hectic work day, the combination of which had me sobbing like a 14-year-old on my mother for the first twenty minutes of my drive down to last night’s NaNoWriMo write-in.

Not fun, right?

But what is fun is my one villain. I hate to say that, because this isn’t a villain of my own making. Lieutenant-Colonel Banastre Tarleton was a real person and a real jerk according to American history books. You know The Patriot starring Mel Gibson? The antagonist in it... Colonel William Tavington, who locks civilians in a barn and then burns it down?

 

That wretched fictional character was based on the wretched real-life character of Tarleton. And while I didn’t come across any actual accounts of him burning anyone to death, what I did read was disturbing enough. Always a brash young man (who, it turns out, got a brief mention in Maiden America, though not by name), he was a skilled cavalryman and commander who didn’t think much of the people he was sent to subdue.

Hence the reason why, after his victory at the Battle of Waxhaws, South Carolina, he ordered his men to go through the list of surrendered American soldiers and bayonet them to death.

As for those men, it can easily be argued they were even worse. Here’s a history-filled excerpt from Designing America’s (and Maiden America’s) heroine Abigail Carpenter’s perspective:

The clear leader of the sizable Calvary reins in his brown horse, leaving the mount champing at the bit to get back to his canter. It’s a magnificent beast with its own mind, I can tell, so it says a lot about its seated master that it only tosses its head and lets out a whinny before quieting down altogether.

I know who that master is before he introduces himself. His immaculate attire speaks volumes by itself, as does the appearance of his men. They are all well-clothed and well-fed. In a group that size, that means they won’t be Americans.

I think the man himself in his mid-twenties, and he is very attractive to look at with his red hair and broad shoulders covered by a green coat with gold trimmings and buttons, and white breeches beneath. His hat is black and billed with a very large black plume atop it, and his boots are black up until his mid-calf and then brown the rest of the way to his knees. Moreover, along with the two buckled belts slung over each shoulder, he is fitted with a saber and a long musket.

His name is Lieutenant-Colonel Banastre Tarleton, and he’s a monster, no matter how pretty and proud he sits there before me. It is his men who have been accused of mutilating and murdering pregnant women. It was also two of his men who were hung back in May on Cornwallis’ orders, not their direct commander’s, on charges of robbery and rape.

I imagine not nearly enough of them swung from the gallows that day.

So again, I’m not proud of myself for smirking over this character. In my defense, he’s been nothing but nice to Abigail, since he’s trying to prove himself a respectable gentleman instead of the monster she very obviously regards him as during their entire first day of acquaintanceship.

That alone wouldn’t make me enjoy him (notice I’m staying far away from the word “like”). It’s the fact that, in trying to stay true to the history books, where even some of his fellow British officers described him as an arrogant little brat, I’ve turned Tarleton into just that… an arrogant little brat, who will roll his eyes in polite company when polite company turns tedious, and make the kind of comments you really want to say to irritating individuals but can’t because you’re too well-mannered.

It’s a bit hard not to snort in amusement over that kind of villain. I dare you not to do the same when I’m done writing Designing America.

Did I Achieve My Crazy Goal for Day One of NaNoWriMo?

Today was my very first day of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. And here’s how it went…

I arrived at the kick-off event in Laurel, MD, at around 9:00 am. Armed with my laptop, my research books, three bottles of Vitamin Water, and 36 yogurts to share, I was ready to start my 1-month journey of writing the first 50,000 words of Designing America… or die trying.

Okay, not die, but definitely heave a sigh of regret. Same dif when you’re a melodramatic writer.

Anywho, I knew I had two challenges to overcome in this first week of NaNo, starting with the fear that I had already exceeded my creative quota for the quarter. In a pre-NaNo prep period, I had challenged myself to write 2,000 words per day of Flights of Fancy, the conclusion to the Faerietales series. And boy, did I do good with the test-run, completing 40,000 words in 17 days.

That’s awesome! Right? But also a little intimidating.

I mean, I couldn’t believe how easy it was to get my ideas down on paper. I barely struggled at all with writer’s block, leading me to wonder whether I would pay for that effortlessness when the deadline actually “mattered.”

I put quotation marks around the word “mattered” because NaNo doesn’t dictate anything. There are no prizes other than bragging rights that I know of. Yet I suppose I’m too competitive for my own good, because I’ve told myself that this shindig “matters” and so therefore it must.

My other concern going into Day 1 was the fact that I have a crazy week ahead of me with little time to write. Faeriecon is this Friday to Sunday, and Thursday night is going to be spent checking out what I have to work with there. So basically, today had to count for five days.

If I’m sticking to my 2,000-word goal, that’s 10,000 words down on paper by midnight, my official bedtime, which translates to a whole lot of pressure.

So how did I do?

I’m proud – no, thrilled. Ecstatic, even! – to say that at 9:24 pm, just shy of 12 hours after I wrote my first word, I hit that target. (Just for the record, there were a lot of breaks in there, sometimes hours long.) I can’t promise I won’t revise every single sentence I put down when I go back to edit the first draft, but hey…

As the cutesy little NaNo sticker I got puts it, this month is all about three things:

·         Moments of pure genius

·         Gaping plot holes

·         Unintelligible typos.

In which case, I’m right on track!

My Personal Challenge for November

November is almost upon us. And for writers, that means one thing: National Novel Writing Month, or NaNo!

As I explained in Monday’s blog, that’s the challenge to jot down the first 50,000 words to your next novel. What I didn’t mention is that I’ve never done it.

That’s not to say I’ve never completed the challenge so much. It’s more like I’ve never started it in the first place. In past years, I was always in the middle of a manuscript when November rolled around and unwilling to set it aside to start something new.

However, lo and behold, October dawned to the perfect situation… I had published all the books I’d planned on publishing for the year… I knew I’d soon complete the third draft of the first book I’ll be publishing in 2016 – Faerietales 4: Wing and Dagger… and I had finished up my research for Designing America, the story of the Battle of Yorktown, Virginia, and the sequel to Maiden America.

It was perfect!

Admittedly, since that was October 1st and there was no way I could go a whole month without writing anything, I started Faerietales 5: Flights of Fancy as a test run to see if NaNo was possible. I’ve always been skeptical of anyone apart from professional authors – who get paid to write all day – being able to write 50,000 words in one month.

Turns out though, it is possible! I started officially working on Flights of Fancy on October 15, and as of October 25, I was 26,000 words in. That’s an average 2,363 words per day! Moreover, I even had a social life during that time and worked some projects for my freelance business, Innovative Editing.

Admittedly, I’m also single and my day job involves sometimes significant downtime. So that certainly didn’t hurt. Neither did the fact that writer’s block hasn’t kicked in yet. I’m on a roll!

I don’t expect Designing America to be anywhere so easy, in large part because it’s a historical novel and I’m going to have to be flipping through my research books every other second to make sure I remember my facts correctly. Moreover, there’s no pressure right now; it’s not NaNo. Come next week, I might be making myself sick trying to make something happen that’s just not meant to be.

The 50,000-word deadline, I mean, not the novel itself. That’s happening one way or the other.

But hey… Bring it on! If nothing else, I’m more than ready to try.

The First Step Is Admitting You Have a Problem. Okay, I Can Do That Much...

Hello, my name is Jeannette DiLouie, and I have a writing addiction.

It all started when I was six years old and wrote my very first book with a word count of maybe 60. It seemed so innocent at the time. Not at all the kind of thing that would have me locking myself away in my apartment, shunning friends and ignoring family to focus on my addiction.

But that’s what it is. It’s an addiction. And it just seems to be getting stronger.

On Tuesday, October 13, I finished working on the third draft of my 12th novel-length manuscript, Wing and Dagger, the fourth installment of the Faerietales series. By Thursday afternoon, I had it uploaded to Amazon’s CreateSpace to order a proof for review. By Thursday evening, I had started writing two new books.

Two!

The first is the conclusion to Sabrina’s story, Faerietales 5: Flights of Fancy. The second is something much less certain. Who knows whether I’ll ever complete it…

It’s the story of Haley, a 10th grader who somehow develops the ability to read minds. It’s a power she’s always wanted to have, yet she quickly comes to realize it’s much more trouble than it’s worth. First off, knowledge isn’t always worth the cost. And secondly, if she had just stayed nice and normal, she never would have attracted the attention of Mr. Conner, who’s intent on using her gift for his own purposes.

Worse yet, I’m planning on starting still another story next month: Designing America, the novel I never had any intention of writing until my enablers (a.k.a. readers) pressured me into penning a sequel to Maiden America. Which was supposed to be a stand-alone book. I swear!

Then there’s the work I really, really, really hope to begin sometime next year: When Dignity Was a Crime. That’s all about Ariana, a spoiled little rich girl who lives in modern-day Boston and gets to go on a cruise ship through the Bermuda Triangle, an area frequently linked to paranormal activity. Her life dissolves into a science-fiction conundrum when she’s yanked back in time to Baltimore circa 1836 to experience history through her ancestors’ perspective. And since her father is descendent from slaves, that means she’s in one complicated mess.

So there. I admitted I have a problem. I’m a writing addict. You happy?

Now go away so I can get back to my plotlines.

My Very First Book Signing: The Afterword

So… My book signing…

First off, let me state that I had a ton of fun! Considering that Ukazoo is a used book store (which I totally recommend, fyi) where people go for bargains, not full-priced books, it wasn’t as profitable as it could have been elsewhere.

Yet I still enjoyed myself thoroughly, and not just because I got Oreo Dream Cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory afterward.

For one thing, it was a fascinating adventure in human observation. Apparently, I’m not the only person who can’t stand salespeople. Most customers walked by my nice little table and purposely looked every which way but at me, as if they were terrified that I might rope them into a pointless and pushy conversation if they dared to meet my gaze.

Which, just for the record, I had no plans on doing. The people who did smile back got a cheerful. “Hi, how are you?” and then an appropriate response depending on what they said. If they kept walking, then I went right back to writing in my little notebook.

Incidentally, that little notebook is the second reason why I found yesterday so worthwhile. I wrote almost the entire Author’s Note/Historical Prologue section to Designing America while I sat there. And while I know I’ll be adding bits and pieces here and deleting sentences there, I’m quite content with that first draft. It wrote well and shouldn’t take too much effort to make it read well too.

I did sell one copy of The Politician’s Pawn to an actual customer (and four more to ridiculously adorable family members), and jotted down my information and professional website for another person who wanted the Kindle copy of Not So Human. I also chatted with some very nice and helpful people about such things as how to properly pronounce “Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.”

Incidentally, that mother-daughter duo was very impressed that I said it correctly, though that’s what happens when you live there for seventeen years. You pick up on little things like that.

There was one gentleman who stands out the most, however. When he stopped to eye my table, I asked him if he liked political thrillers or fantasy fiction. He shook his head and said no, so I politely pursued the conversation by inquiring what genres he did like.

He answered, “Oh, you know, books about characters.”

Maybe I should have told him about my historical or Christian fiction stories instead. I’m pretty sure those involve such creative constructions. Not sure… Maybe I should go back and check.

My Trip Back to Abigail’s Time

I heard the Declaration of Independence read in the streets yesterday.

It was proclaimed in a loud voice that:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

The town’s crier went on to read that “all men are created equal;” that governments are meant to serve the people and to get their power from the people they serve, not vice versa; and that whenever a government grossly forgets its place, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it” and to create a new one.

The Declaration was greeted with a lot of “Huzzahs!” though there was some definite skepticism and even disgust expressed among the crowd of listeners.

Some people didn’t think the effort necessary. Others believed the king was in the right; to say otherwise, they snipped, was absurd and offensive. And while I didn’t take any polls, chances are that a majority of those assembled were sunshine patriots who would slink away or shut up as soon as it became too difficult.

Yes, they recognized they were being treated unjustly, but they didn’t want to suffer any further than they absolutely had to, and so they would submit to whoever they needed to. They just required a reminder or two that they actually belonged with the first group of people in the crowd: the ones who thought freedom was too much of a bother.

I sat on a modern bench in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, taking all of that in. It begs the question of what my historical fiction heroine Abigail Carpenter first felt on hearing those words up in Princeton, New Jersey.

That’s not detailed in Maiden America. I actually never considered whether she cheered the news with every ounce of her being, or whether she felt an immediate fear at the thought of breaking free from everything familiar and of what she would have to sacrifice to do so.

Perhaps I’ll touch on that in Designing America, which I hope to officially start writing next month. Yes, that story takes place years after the war began and The United States was declared its own country, but Abigail must have thought about it all the same.

Perhaps she even doubted the cause of liberty a time or two.

I mean, as history shows, The Declaration of Independence was well worth the effort. True freedom always is. It’s just that, sometimes, it doesn’t feel like it in the moment.

This Month’s Big Publishing Reveal Is…

Today’s the 24th, and I have nothing to publish.

For the last seven months, I’ve announced the publishing of a book every time the 24th rolled around. I picked that number specifically because, once upon a time in a magical land called Moonachie, New Jersey, I was born one freezing February 24th.

So I thought it’d be kinda fun to run with it.

In January, I published Maiden America. In February, I debuted my Faerietales series with Not So Human, followed by To Err Is Faerie in March and Up in the Air in April.

Next was my Dirty Politics series. The Politician’s Pawn came out in May, Moves and Countermoves in June, and Amateurs Play Elsewhere was what I debuted for July.

Now it’s August. August 24th. And I’ve got nothing.

I’m not upset. All good runs have to end, and I’m having a blast editing the recently completed manuscript for Faerietales #4, even if I still have no clue what to call it. I’m also researching the siege of Yorktown for Maiden America #2, which does have a name: Designing America.

Both are fascinating and fulfilling, and I can’t wait to get them to the point where they’re publishable. Though that won’t be until next year, I’m sure.

That gives me another however many months’ worth of 24ths where I have no big announcements to make and nothing amazing to share. And considering that I don’t have another seven books lying around, I suppose I’ll never experience that particular kind of run again.

Oh well. Moving on.

I’m sure there are plenty more paths out there to explore!