Maybe a New Novel ...

You may have noticed I have a new progress meter button on the lower side of my blog.


It's for what will, hopefully, be my third novel, tentatively titled Daughter of the Wind and Waves. I had originally intended for my first historical novel to be a sequel to The Selkie Wife
set during the French Revolution, but ultimately, I decided I wanted to work in the Tudor time period, with which I'm more comfortable, but I still wanted to write another selkie story.

This one will be set during the reign of Henry VIII. I'm really excited about these characters. They say that an author always falls in love with their own characters, but aside from Edward in Writen in the Stars, it hasn't been my experience. In this case, however, I am becoming extremely fond of my selkie heroine. She's sweet, spunky, and enthusiastic about her new life in the human word.

I'm working without a net on this one. This will be my first full-length project that I haven't already "written" in my head. It's a little scary and a little exhilarating, all at the same time. I'm just hoping that my muse remains kind and doesn't arbitrarily decide, "Nahh, you're going to go work on something else." (She did it to me during Savior and I spent three terrifying days waiting for her to turn her fickle attention back to that story, unsure if I'd be able to finish it.)

So, wish me luck on my new adventure.

The Editing Process, Or: I Used "That" 1180 Times?

I got my edited manuscript back today and discussed it with my editing team. They wanted to make sure I was comfortable with how the program worked and that I would understand the comments that were made.

My major grammar flaws? I used "that" 1180 times in an 87K word manuscript. I kid you not. I just had Word count them for me. "That" is one of the most over-used words in the English language, and a good bit of the time, it's completely unnecessary. If the sentence can be understood without it, take it out!

I also have an addiction to ellipses, which my readers may have noticed, and I tend to have long, compound sentences where several smaller sentences might be better.

My edited manuscript looks something like this:

I have a lott of work to do over the next two weeks!