Writing Alchemy - Resurrection of a Manuscript

Now I know what Victor Frankenstein felt like when he created his monster. Well... sort of.

My manuscript created in 1999-2002 "Vampire Legacy", was in a large box within an even larger bin, filled with my writings. I recall that it went well beyond manageable length.

Well over 800 pages.

WHAT!!!!??????

Yeah. I had way too many threads, too many characters, and the plot went all over the place. And I had the gall to try and interest an agent with it. When she responded to me, asking me to cut it down (in half), I was excited and went to work on it, and in a month I sent it back. She said I still didn't do it right. In the end, she rejected it, saying "Didn't you learn anything from the books I recommended?" (In other words, REJECTED)

Oh, well. Back to the drawing board...

It was shelved. For a long time, obviously.

In the meantime, I guess I learned how to plot and a few other things with my writing. You see, you have to learn how to write before you can get this shit straight. Plotting is something you need to understand before you can proceed.

"No one can teach you how to write." 

Someone somewhere said that. I think a couple of teachers. Maybe Gandhi, too.

Somewhere along the line I have figured it out, apparently, or I wouldn't have gotten a publisher (as small as he was), and my many nice reviews for Vampire Ascending, and Vampire's Trill.

So, last weekend I took out all of this manuscript, which was in more drafts than I can count. I spread it all out over a couch, a couple of tables and a few boxes, the floor, and sorted through it all trying to discover the workable parts and the not-so workable parts. Those I put off to the side. They are like mini stories, basically. I never throw out anything, if I can help it.

When I was finished, my lower back ached for days, but I had found the latest draft (because of the type-font/printing). But I kept the draft(s) before that on hand for anything I might have missed.

So, I began the typing up of the mss. in my computer. I began Chapter One using the scenes in Chapter Three. Because the original beginning was too boring. Really. It was terrible. Nothing happened, too much back-story, too much information dump--all of the no-no's I'd learned since then not to do. (God, I hope so!)

I was going along, replacing one scene for another, and then I got to my character Izora Crunch. She's a librarian. I kept vacillating as to whether or not I needed her. In my original she comes in handy, but fills two rolls, and when I came to this one spot where my second main character (Phil Green), goes to her about something, I said, "Hold on. She doesn't need to be the person in this scene." But she needed to come in to help my detectives earlier than I had her (which was way-way at the end), and I needed them to learn something very important, yet so mind-blowing that neither detective really wants to believe it--because it spells V-A-M-P-I-R-E. But Jan Vladislav, who is part Gypsy and Romanian, knows about such things, and there are things about his birth even he doesn't know about (yet).

So, when I say this is like being the creator, but taking something that already exists and making it into something new, and breathing life into it--I'm not pulling your leg. This is work. But a work of love. I absolutely love this story. If I didn't, I would have tossed it a long time ago. I merely need to cut out things that I don't need, and stitch in sections elsewhere (like that monster Frankenstein made--only this will be better, and prettier).

At this juncture, I can see what is wrong with this mss.--big and little things--and can fix. I am moving things around. I'm taking out certain character's POV because it gives away too much. I want the reader to discover the vampires along with my hero, Detective Vladislav--who, by the way has amber eyes, which he disguises with brown or blue contact lenses (I haven't decided which color, but since he's dark, maybe I should have him use brown--but his daughter's eyes are like her mothers, which are blue. And I love the contrast. But I digress). He also has a cool tattoo. And I've seen this tattoo on someone who is Romanian, and I am going to get a picture of his arm if it's the last thing I do! It's a crucifix, and there's a story behind it, and it relates to Dracula--I do not lie!

And as I went through this, and put Izora into this chapter with the detectives, I wondered where her description was. Oh... there it is, with Phil, my other vampire slayer.

This book's title was "Vampire Legacy", but since I've got a series with the word 'vampire' in the titles, I knew I needed to change this. This is where I asked myself: "What is the book was about?" Well, it's about a couple of vampire hunters--one by nature (he was born one), one by necessity.

Romanian belief is the background for the whole book. A dhampire  is someone who is born from a vampire-human mating. They have certain physical atributes that makes him stronger, more agile and more able to detect and fight a vampire. So, with this in mind, the new title is now Dhampire Legacy. It might be confusing to some people who have never seen this word, but believe me, once they get into the story, it will be explained.

So, I'm up to chapter seven or eight. I've found Mrs. Crunch's description and I'll be plopping that into the areas I need to, and re-writing this section of Phil Green's to include a priest, instead because he returns a large gold crucifix and tells his story of why he has it in the first place, and it belonged to a deacon whose neck was twisted horribly 20 years ago--and Phil actually saw the murder, but was too young and frightened to tell anyone about it.

Hmmm, since I'm not Catholic, anyone out there able to help me with a scene? Specifically with the confession scene? Let me know in the comments.

Who among you are doing this, or have gone back into an old manuscript and began to work on it?

Quality vs. Quantity Which Are You?

How many words a day do you crank out? A thousand? Two? More?

Is this important to you? If so, why?

I just wanted to throw those questions out to you. Get you thinking a little bit.

But here's another one. Is the reason you do crank out thousands of words a day, or say 10,000 in a week, is because you're working to put out a short story, a novel or what have you, in order to keep the number of published works up so as to compete with other titles out there so that you are "discoverable" at Amazon?

Hmm. Really?

There are a number of writers--like Ray Bradbury--who wrote a story a week and could not only put out the quantity, bu also the quality without a problem. Other famous authors do too, but at the moment I can't recall some of them. Their names are household because most writers can't hold a candle to them. But you can emulate them as much as humanly possible. Good luck with that. In my younger writing years, I wanted to be like Stephan King. Not so much now. I've found that I like what I write much better. It's because I've found my "voice".

When I began writing it was either pen/pencil and paper, or the typewriter. In either case if you made mistakes you had no spell check. A bummer for me since I'm a lousy speller (better now, but I've been writing for 40+ years, and when you can see spellcheck you usually begin remembering how to spell some word you eff up all the time). I've told the story of my having to clean out my father's house after his death and I found all my writing from when I lived at home--which included journals--and thousands upon thousands of pages of my writing. Three grocery bags full. Most of it was awful, unfinished and rife with bad grammar and spelling. From my calculations--since I left my father's house to live with my husband in 1988, this would be approximately 16 years of work compiled. Was it any good? No. The ideas, might have been alright, but I was a novice. Yeah. I spent about 25 years being the novice writer. It took me a while to understand plot, and to have a natural in-born system that gave me ideas (in our circles they call it a "muse"), where as I write, or go along (I'm basically a panster), I allow problems of what comes next and why come to me naturally. I don't force-write. I've found that it frustrates my natural abilities, and this is why I shun NaNoWiMo. I'm not capable of churning out words without going back over things. I'm what I call (and maybe it's a word), a layering writer. I layer in details. I may not have the description of a room, a person, at the moment I write the scene. But I might have it tomorrow or the next day or the next--or I'll come back when I'm ready to work on the second draft (remember that term, I'll come back to this). This is how I write, it's like I've dug myself into a nice little writing hole and that's what I'm comfortable with.

Plotting is what it is. If you choose to write something that is easy to plot and you find these are easy to churn out, wonderful. Go for it.

I'm not a fan of easy plots. Not to read and not to write. For some reason I need to make it hard to do. It's the reason I don't like romances. Who winds up together at the end and do the nasty about half a dozen times? I can tell you probably in the first few pages. Boring me to death is not good. I've tried to read what is called "paranormal romance". It's romance between (usually) a human female or male and a supernatural (vampire or werewolf, or dear God, no a zombie). Off the top of my head authors of this would be Lindsay Sands, Michele Hauf, Cynthia Garner, Jeaniene Frost. I've read these authors, and out of all of these Lindsay Sands bores me the most. So, I've learned to steer clear of any of these.

Why does it bore me? I don't know. I've never made a point of watching soaps, I'm not a huge fan of any romance anything. Romance happens in my books, but it's more on a reality loop. Most people (men and women differ as to why) don't believe in romance, but if they did it would happen like in a book, or a movie. That's not reality. Real life and emotions have to be hit for a reader to react, or be reached on an emotional level. Your character can't always win every battle, even when it comes to romance. Something bad usually happens, and that's what I write, when it suits the story line.

Because of this I need sub-plots and a complicated story. Nothing that I can figure out how it will end. That's why with my Sabrina Strong series, if there is romance, its usually sexually oriented. The guy or gal who should win love, doesn't. Why should they? It happens so infrequently in reality, and I try to make the things that happen feel more like reality, because I write about fantasy. I need you to believe this could happen. The people in the story have to seem real, even if they might be a werewolf, a vampire, or a smart-ass leprechaun, or maybe a witch. I need you to feel that they might exist at least on the page. To do this I have to not just write one draft, it's many.

Oh, there's that word again. DRAFT. Does anyone really write drafts any more? You know. You write the work and go back through it again. Make adjustments, find mistakes and then put it aside, work on something else and come back to it for a third time... That's what a draft is, and it's not something you can do in a month or even two months. This is my work and I need to do the work (unfortunately I don't have a magic wand). Besides, I sometimes have ideas come to me two books down the line (in other words, I'm writing on the 8th book, and something occurs to me that maybe I should have put in the 6th one and I go back and put it in). If the work is already out there, it's sort of too late for me to change some detail. You send something to an editor, they don't touch anything but mistakes you've made in spelling and grammar. At least that's what they're supposed to do. If you've put a book out there that has some minor or large mistake in it, well... For example, I got a freebee from an author who I won't name, and read along and at this one scene the characters were watching the moon go down through a window and then they watched the sun come up--in the same window. Uh, HELLOO! The sun or moon rises in the east and goes down in the west. Needless to say, I could not read another word because of this. And the story seemed to drag on, anyway, so I didn't loose sleep over it. That's an easy example, and how the author or anyone else who read it didn't catch it, I don't know. But really, that's a big error that should not have happened. Possibly a rush to publish was part of the problem.

I know I've been guilty of this too. I'm trying to clean up my act. I'm not going to put out a work unless I'm sure I've gotten as many boo-boos as I can find corrected, and the only way to do this is going over and over it, and getting a couple of betas to read it through too helps.

I also do research for most of my novels. I might need to dig into historical facts or such things as styles of dress, as I did for Vampire Nocturne. I may research a number of things about each book before I can even write about it. Like my fourth novel. Even though I did write Vampire Caprice in a matter of three months, because it simply came out of me, it wasn't finished in three months. Not really. I had to research cars, missile solos, GPS devices, Nephilum, and other things. These things take time. I've had certain people contribute their knowledge toward something I was absolutely unfamiliar with, like the scene where someone looses a wrench under a car and it lands somewhere unreachable in the undercarriage. Someone who knew components of a car gave me a wonderful description, I wrote it, sent it to him and he told me I did a super job on it. I couldn't have done that scene without such a person. It's what makes the story feel like reality. If I tried to dummy it up and a mechanic read the scene they'd probably want to throw the book across the room. I'd never have that reader touch another one of my books again. I don't want anyone throwing a book (well, they're now eBooks), across the room for any reason because I neglected my job as a good writer.

This subject keeps coming up the fact that some writers are trying to churn out more and more work, and publish it quickly so as to beat the odds that someone will find your work out there. Here is one such link.

If you write and publish frequently, and do a great job of it, that's great. You're one of a kind. But there are those who put out work that is far below excellence that muddies up the waters, so to speak. My thought is that hopefully they no longer sell because their work is so inferior or they continue to get bad reviews, and they just decide that maybe they can't really write and quit, freeing up some space for those of us who can.

Happy Halloween & Plans for November

Well, hard to believe that October is gone. I'm sad about it, as Fall and Halloween are my favorite times out of the whole year. Now we look forward to the grim, colder months of November and December--I don't even want to think about January, as it is too far away (and too cold).

Since in November people are generally doing NaNoBooBoo, I'm not going to do many posts here or at Muse during the month of November. No sense in doing so if hardly anyone is out there looking in. So, I thought, since everyone and their Aunt Sally is usually neck deep in trying to get their word count for NaNoHooHaa every dang day, I could use the time to work on a couple of my projects. I thought this would be a great time to concentrate on Six Shades of Hell, my #8 book in the Sabrina Strong series, since I have not had much time for it at all this summer when I began it. I think there might be three chapters or four written and I see there's 53 pages done in the document. I've made notes, and some are in my head, not even written down. So, I'm going to spend all of November working on the book and not worry about posting every week. I'll be around, of course, but not as much.

In the meantime, I plan on getting my non-fiction book, "Cat Whisperer", out next month. Trying to work on the cover. So far, this is what I've got...

picture of the 5 original kittens
from "Cat Whisperer"

I thought that the picture would be good in the middle of the cover, surround it (above and below) with maybe black banner, and that's where I'd want the title and my name. But I don't have a clue how to go about this. I can't find places that I thought I'd saved to go and use for making a cover. If any one can help me figure this out, leave comment. Over on Writer's Mayhem, we had someone who had shared a free site for making covers, but I've lost the links. It's hard to look through hundreds of my links thinking I could ever find it--got carpal tunnel just trying to find them the other day! When this person shared the link I couldn't download the cover-making thing-y because my browser was out-dated. I'm hoping with Chrome I can do this. But I need the links.

Anyway, these are the things that I'm working on, or will be working on.

Happy Halloween, and I'll see you around... with the usual updates and announcements for the cat book.

Meet Kaleb and Sebastian from "Six Shades of Hell"

The other day over on Muse I made reference to a picture that I saw on another blog and it gave me an idea for two new characters for the eighth book. Of course these are cartoon characters. Forgive me if I don't know who they are, but the artwork is familiar.

At any rate, the picture of these two and what they say inside the bubble gave me the idea: Yes! These two would be perfect to add a little comic relief when I need it. Some different dynamics, and texture to the read. I always want to add someone new to the book. Of course later on, the book has Sabrina off on one of her adventures, and she goes back to Beyond Black Veil (Vampire Nocturne), and she visits a few old friends, makes new ones, and goes on to get into new situations which involve lots of interesting, dangerous, perilous situations.

As I mentioned on that post, I had put in two other characters at first. It was falling flat. Well, instead of trying to write these two in--Kaleb and Sebastian--I did a "find and replace" window. Replacing Sebastian for James and Kaleb for Dolores. I had to make sure where I had Dolores I've changed the "she" to "he", but for the most part the rewrite of this has been minimal, and enjoyable.

Here is a little excerpt from what I've got so far...
~from Six Shades of Hell by Lorelei Bell

As it turned out I didn't have to go all the way into the kitchen. Fifteen minutes later, when I opened the bathroom door, which opened out into the dining room, there they both where. Two young men, who were in their twenties, standing near the dining room table wearing a black jackets over a dark vests and white shirt, white gloves and a conservative ties. In looks they were similar build, and their long-ish hair was styled in a disarray of locks. One was blond, the other had black hair, bleached blond only on the top, and slightly mussier, and the dark lengths in the front were much longer, hanging way down over his eyes, but in trained tendrils. He wore black-rimmed glasses.

They beamed at me. “Good morning, mistress,” they said in stereo.

I looked at the dining table, surprised to see a sterling silver coffee urn—which I know I didn't own—and the other aromas, which came from under a domed platter, and I could definitely detect eggs and possibly bacon. Okay. So, maybe they could stay. They were cute, in their own way.

I twisted my mouth and looked back up at them. “Did Tremayne send for you to come all the way out here?”

They nodded, grinning. “He texted us,” the blond said.

“Oh, introductions! This is Kaleb, with a 'K',” said the one wearing glasses.

“And he's Sebastian,” Kaleb said, holding out his hands toward the other man.

“You two are brothers?”

“Yes,” they both said.

“You used to work at the Tremayne Towers,” I said, squinting. “I'm getting Letitia from you.”

“Oh, she's good,” Kaleb said, sounding impressed.

“Tremayne was right about her.” Sebastian agreed. His brother nodded.

“We were Letitia's servants. Until her death, that is,” Kaleb said, and looked down and away.

“There, brother, it's okay,” Sebastian consoled his brother, patting him on the shoulder. To me he said, “Kaleb was the one who found her in her bedroom.”

I nodded with his somber explanation, and at the same time I got the image straight from Kaleb. He had walked in that next day, and found Letitia on the floor, dead. She had been impaled in the heart by a wooden bolt from murderer, Toby Hunt. The two contacted Tremayne right away—who lived in a penthouse right across from her—and he was the one who examined her. She had been Tremayne's life-time mate for many centuries.

“I'm sorry,” I said. Too many memories surfaced from this read. It was how I came to be in Tremayne's employ from then on, as his “seer”, and solved the murder, telling him nearly too late who it was. It felt like years ago and it was only a few months ago. So much had happened since then it made my head spin.

“Oh, you needn't apologize,” Sebastian said, shaking his head to move the separate long dark strands around. He reminded me a little of a Shetland pony. A thin one. He had narrow shoulders, like his brother (who was slightly taller), both were under six feet tall. Possibly five eight and five seven.

“No. I mean, I'm sorry for your loss. I can see you were very fond of her. I imagine she was someone everyone loved,” I said.

“Hard to believe it of a vampire, but yes. She was an easy mistress. Not too terribly demanding,” Sebastian said.

“Plus she gave us wonderful bonuses, and eight weeks vacation, whenever we wanted it, and other things.”

“Don't forget the wheels, Kaleb,” Sebastian reminded.

Kaleb's eyes widened. “Really super wheels. It's a good thing we could borrow the SUV, today, though, in order to get out here,” Kaleb said.

Sebastian nodded and turned to me. “Anyway, we hope we can serve you in your time of need, mistress.”

I smiled. “I've never had a broken anything.” Glancing down at my leg, I still stood with the crutches under each arm. “And this is really nice what you've set up here,” I said, nodding toward the prepared table.

“I hope you don't mind, but we took the bedroom with the twin beds,” Sebastian said. “It reminds us of our boyhood.”

“No. That's fine. If you need anything at all, or need something, just ask. Sorry that my house isn't quite the luxury of a penthouse.”

“Oh, it's charming,” Kaleb said, eyes glinting from under his blond locks as he took in the room.“I especially like the envelope door and French doors. Don't you, brother?”

“That room I'll be busy rearranging the furniture in,” Sebastian said.

A Mind at Rest Is a Good Thing

Hustling a (book) sale is boggling. I'm not a hustler and I have to say trying to get people interested in my eBooks is time consuming. I'd rather be writing. Wouldn't you?

However, even the writing sometimes becomes a bit of a brain drainer too.

This summer, if any of you were paying attention to what was happening to my books, or what happened with me and my publisher (we parted ways, but in a good way), all my projects were suddenly put on hold, and I had to do edits on all of them, and get the books formatted for publication as eBooks on Amazon. This took a great deal of time. All summer long. It was well worth it, but I have to say it drained me. I still took time out to go for walks, and other things—I did not spend my entire day working on the books, but it still left me brain-dead.

By September, I had all 3 books done and out, and I was thrilled with the results—my hard work was paying off, and I can now see the sales and keep track of them (unlike with my publisher who had the books in other venues, besides Amazon), and know what I'm making with my royalties. I can now understand what other authors were talking about “control” over what they wrote. It's not just picking your own cover, and doing the edits yourself. It was everything.

So, once I was finished with these first three books, I wanted to turn my attentions toward the 4^th book in the Sabrina Strong series, and, mind you, I had begun work on the 8th book. But, I'm burned out. I gone on to fill my time doing other things I enjoy, like walking (which has helped me both lose weight and clear the mind), or decorating for the season.

Since Halloween is my favorite holiday, it was fun. But while going through boxes of decorations (trying to find which box I put my Halloween stuff in), I came across my box of yarn. I always run across it and close it back up and put it back into the closet (I've no time for this). Well, this time I took it out. I hadn't crocheted in years. I couldn't even remember when last I had yarn in my hands. But this time, I got it out and looked at what I was working on last time. I was unable to find the pattern to whatever afghan I was making—a beautiful cabin and heart-in-squares—but that was alright. I needed something different to focus on, and after trying to do a motif—which was hard and I wasn't familiar with—I went to work on something simple; working in a straight line, instead of doing rounds. Something that I didn't have to think about too much, and... it worked. My mind relaxed. I didn't want to read, because that's really not as relaxing. It's enjoyable, but not really giving my brain a rest.

I was always able to do something creative. I'm multi-talented. I've an art degree, as a matter of fact. So, doing this would be creative, letting another part of my brain to work, and the other part rest.

This is what I've begun doing to relax in the afternoons and evenings. I have to watch how many hours I do this, as it tends to use a certain muscle in the fingers, hands, arms and shoulders, that I don't normally use. I used to sell my projects. I made pretty good money at it, too. I once sold other crafts—things I painted or sewed—but the money usually went back into the materials, so, as a result, I didn't make that much money. But it was a hobby and I really enjoyed it.

So, right now I'm trying to give myself a break in this way. Since I've got four books written, one is being edited right now, between me and my betas, I don't feel the rush of getting number 8 done this year. I can let it simmer a while. Think about the things I want to happen, make notes, write scenes when they come, but not pressure myself into working on this one, since I've got others lined up to work on and get out there.

Everyone has their own way of relaxing. Possibly you have discovered your own way to relax. Photography, is one, I know that would be rewarding and relaxing and yet using another part of your brain. The walk is always nice, but right now in my neck of the woods, the weather is going to get cold, and it won't be an enjoyable walk after this month is gone. And by mid-December, probably impossible.

Do you have some creative ways in which to relax your mind from writing? It's a good idea to find something away from the writing so that you don't get burned out. Share them in comments, if you wish.VAMPIRE ASCENDING/SABRINA STRONG SERIES

My Publisher Quit on Me

Yes, I no longer have a publisher.

But this is how my year has gone thus far...

First of all, my third book in my vampire series (Vampire Nocturne), did not come out until some time in February of 2013—I had planned on if not by December of 2012, at least in January of 2013. (I was getting all sorts of dates from afore mentioned publisher... December or January)

Also, back when I thought I was getting edits for this book, I got what was considered a “final” product to approve of. (Eh, huh?) And in order to make sure my own edits were taken seriously, I had to redo the whole thing on a separate document, with all the needed changes, showing exactly what page and paragraph, and send to my publisher. I gather that these changes were done later on, because my book came out before I even finished these edits. (Harumph!)

Then, when it was out, sales were not coming through for this book. Why? Because I had scheduled host-posts during the months when I thought my book would be out (a few months prior). I could not plan anything with this publisher! So, I couldn't back track, if anyone was looking for this book back 2 or 3 months ago, and didn't find it, they must have moved on, or given up on it.

I did do a giveaway, which went really well. But you know, after a book comes out, and the excitement dies down, you find it gets harder and harder to find someone interested in your book. And this is third in a series. People who have not even found your first book won't be buying this one. The whole idea is that they discover your series and begin reading it. Or so it theoretically goes.

Well, yes I'm happy my publisher finally quit the biz. That news reached me some time in June. It was both a blessing and a curse.

A blessing because I was going to go Indie with the fourth book, and didn't know how I would approach him in order to do the other first books Indie too—in other words splitting up with him—and not having to raise the ire of a pure-bread German. Plus I wanted to keep my covers. The day he told me he was giving up the publishing business, I was relieved I wouldn't have to get into a sticky situation. I carefully and tactfully said nice things to him, and I was sincere—I was very happy to have had a publisher, at first. It boosted my morale (even if he was small fry), and other people seemed to respond to the fact I had a publisher in a very positive way. So, I asked if I could have my book covers. Yes. He said I could. I breathed a big sigh of relief.

A curse because I had lots of work to do, and I wanted to get the book I was working on at this time (Spell of the Black Unicorn), out this summer. I now had to work on reverting these three first books so as to get them up on Amazon.

But my work on going Indie had only just begun. He did send me his documents for each book (plus the covers), which he said he had used to put up on the various publishing sites, like Amazon and Smashwords. I looked at these documents and thought, “really?” I knew they would need to be reformatted. And even though he had said, “I'm here if you need me” I know how long that would take: forever!

Since I knew there were mistakes and countless things I needed to change, I went to work on them. For some reason I began with the second book. I simply found a whole bunch of things that needed changing and started there.