Another novel down!

I have been in a vacuum this month that, alas, did not involve blogging, but did involve finishing my novel Rising Book 2: Rebellion. I finally, finally finished writing it today. It clocks in at just over 185,000 words, making it not only the most emotionally draining book I've ever written, but the longest one as well. Editing it is going to be so much fun. O_o

But it's WRITTEN. *throws confetti*

Editing Slots, Award, and Camp NaNoWriMo

First, I still have two slots for editing the first ten pages of a manuscript, if anyone else is interested. (It's first come, first served.)


Second, thank you to Sherry Ellis at Mama Diaries, who graced me with the One Lovely Blog Award. ^_^

Third, is anyone participating in Camp NaNoWriMo?

 

It's basically a NaNo in June, but I'm not using it as NaNo. I mean, I'm not like "WORD COUNT! MUST GET WORD COUNT!" I did sign up because a) I'm still writing Rising Book 2, so I might as well and b) so I can offer encouragement to anyone else doing it by writing with them. But I'm just going to take this book the same way I've been taking it: one chapter at a time.


I have about 91,000 words on Rising Book 2. I have about twelve chapters and nine flashbacks left to write. I'm also up to my eyeballs in editing, which is why I haven't gotten as much writing done. And my husband and kids and I just went on a weekend vacation to visit some of his family in Ohio. The trip was awesome and so much fun, and it was great to see family. I'm in Vacation Recovery Mode right now--I love traveling; it's just very tiring!

Rising Book 2 - flashback/excerpt

I posted this picture months ago on my blog, but with the release of Rising Book 1: Resistance, it's a lot more relevant now. This is artwork that was done by Holly Robbins, my cover artist, of Lachlan and Brenna—two of the secondary characters in Resistance.

These were two characters that hadn't been planned for when I started the book; they both swept in for different purposes. As I came to the end of writing Rising Book 1, I realized that Lachlan and Brenna's story needed to be told too, and they became my narrators for Rising Book 2.

For any of you who have read Rising Book 1, you might understand when I tell you that the idea of telling their story terrified me. For those of you who haven't read it, I'll just say that these two characters have been through a lot, and their story is the most intense I've ever written. I'm actually telling their back story in scenes that take place between each chapter. I'd debated for a while about whether or not I should do that, but in the end, their history was way too complex and relevant to the story to tell it any other way.

The reason I mention all of this is because I'm going to share one of these flashback scenes from Rising Book 2 on my blog today. It was really hard to find one that wouldn't spoil certain things in the first book for anyone who hasn't read it, but I think I managed it.

So under the "read more" cut below, here's a flashback scene from Rising Book 2. It takes place around nine years before the start of Rising Book 1. (And it's still a work in progress--I'm not done writing the first draft of Book 2 yet.)

Lucky 7 Meme

Tara Tyler has tagged me in the Lucky 7 Meme.

1. Go to page 77 of your current MS.
2. Go to line 7.
3. Copy down the next 7 lines - sentences or paragraphs - and post them as they're written. No cheating.
4. Tag 7 authors.

In my case, I'm not going to tag other authors because there are soooo many people doing this right now--instead, I'm going to say if you haven't done this meme and you want to, have at it! It's super fun. ^_^


My current manuscript is Rising Book 2: Rebellion, and fortunately, I'm well past 77 pages. ("Fortunately" because I'm on a deadline to finish the first draft by the end of April.) The fun thing about this is that these snippets are so short, it could make sense or not make sense. ;) Here are my current seven lines starting at line 7 on page 77.

"She hasn't exactly been very forthcoming."

"She never is." Freya stood up and looked at Lachlan expectantly, and he took that as his cue to leave.

Lachlan rose and waited for a mild wave of dizziness to pass. "Thank you again." He exited the tent and made his way back over to the one he'd left earlier, waving at Kilta and Tobias, who were still beside the fire, as he passed them.

And while I'm at it, here's a song from my Rising Book 2 playlist (which has about 25 songs on it). This is "One Day" by Trading Yesterday, one of my all-time favorite bands.

Yet More Artwork

I was going to update my world-building series on Friday, but as I'm sure everyone knows, Blogger was down.  Truthfully, I don't think I'd have managed a blog post then anyway.  I have some life stuff (good life stuff!) going on and at the end of last week it made it super hard to concentrate on anything. I've also been working on starting Rising Book 2, the sequel to the novel I just finished.  I know, excuses, excuses. ;)  I will get back to my world-building series this week. Right now I feel so terribly behind on everything blogging/twitter/networking related.

In the meantime, I'm here to post more of my friend Holly's art.  In April, I shared a picture she drew of two of my characters from Rising Book 1. This is Lachlan and Brenna, who are two other characters from the same book. They were secondary characters, but they're being bumped up to main characters in the sequel. And this picture is beautiful and inspiring and I'm so, so grateful to have such stunning art of my characters that I can stare at when I'm writing them.





Art © Holly Robbins
Lachlan & Brenna © Laura Josephsen