This week I find lots of writing stuffs happening! Some of it is awesome and some of it is mind-numbing.

I tend to like to talk about awesome things first.

The Keeper is almost published! I’m self-publishing through CreateSpace, as I feel I have a lot to learn still about writing, character development, plotting and so-on before I pursue an agent and publishing house. While I am still in the process of writing The Varkens (more on that later) and have plans for a third book, I am really seeing things I want to improve upon. By the time I get to the next thing, the “Not in Eviryia” thing, I think I will have learned and grown so much. That is when I will write The Book. Hopefully by the 2015 NaNoWriMo!

Back to publishing though…I have submitted the interior and cover for review and have just a few kinks to work out but then I’ll be able to get my proof copy sent and have the final read-through before making it available on Amazon! I’m thinking about reading it with a red pen, just to have a marked up copy for myself for fun, but if all goes as planned, there won’t be any marking up to do.

The second thing is that I have decided to scrub about 10k worth of words out of the Varken that I have written recently. The trajectory of the story just wasn’t heading in the right direction and I was getting lost in trying to problem solve and my characters were suffering because of it. So I’m changing the premise of why Hart is sent to Hoden to something completely different. I will still be able to maintain some of the writing I have done, but, for the most part, I will be starting fresh from when Hart returns from Lighttown. This will also give me a chance to add a bit more development on the romance before they leave.

Which leads me to a bit of introspection. When I think of movie romances that I love, they tend to be romances that are not in the foreground, such as in Edge of Tomorrow, Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, BioShock: Infinite (before the big twist). I like the tension of knowing there are feelings between two characters but that there is something else bigger happening at the moment. And it has certainly infected my writing. Some of the feedback from my Millie was that I didn’t give enough romantic development (through inner dialogue) with Kayleigh in the Keeper. I certainly have a natural tendancy to hint at romance and not have any truly romantic moments until the end, when the characters become swept up in their love for each other…or something like that. So in Varkens, where the romance is not so forbidden and dangerous, I am going to be trying to make it not so subtle.

We’ll see how that goes!

Anyways, that’s an update on me! I’m excited to be receiving “Ready, Set, Novel!” and “Writer to Writer” in the mail today and start sharing my adventures with these two new books!

If only these were 500 words I had written for The Varkens.