Edits and Revisions, Oh my!

 

Music Monday: Monster by Skillet

 

Friday I completed my second round of revisions. I use the word second very loosely considering I went through and edited when I hit a wall. Still I have a lot of work to do—technical edits, line edits, and all that jazz before I find some critique partners to flush through it. But it’s coming along father nicely.

With my last book I learned a lot. My flaws were exposed, showing me everything I did wrong as a writer and I ultimately didn’t get the agent I wanted because of it. That won’t happen this time. Determination is a huge motivator and the mistakes I made in the past novel will not carry into this one. And more than anything I can’t wait to send her a query on this one and get another chance with her.

I’m taking huge leaps with this mss. Normally, I write contemporary, first-person young adult. This one is third-person, urban fantasy YA. And it was NOT easy, but through the struggles…especially in the beginning…I feel like I’ve really grown. Sometimes the best medicine is to go outside your comfort zone. As an actress I loved it, especially since I was usually type-casted as the comedic relief/dumb blonde. I relished the chance to do something different, darker. That’s why I love writing dark because I’m completely the opposite. Still it hits a part of my soul that is only exposed with ink and paper.

Anyways, I’m really anxious to finish editing, because I have a great feeling about my mss, THE SCARLETT LULLABY. But with the end of this round comes countless others, plus query letter writing and synopsis (gag!).

Any advice on writing a query for a story that has multiple POVs????

Quote from my WIP, THE SCARLETT LULLABY

Love’s transient, like a cherry blossom—beautiful, delicate but quick in death. Just like life.

Arrivederci
Angela

Books I’ve Read Recently

After reading Dawn Kurtagich’s blog post about books she’s read I decided to do my own considering i’ve been a reading machine these last two months!

Shut Out by Kody Keplinger

Most high school sports teams have rivalries with other schools. At Hamilton High, it’s a civil war: the football team versus the soccer team. And for her part,Lissa is sick of it. Her quarterback boyfriend, Randy, is always ditching her to go pick a fight with the soccer team or to prank their locker room. And on three separate occasions Randy’s car has been egged while he and Lissa were inside, making out. She is done competing with a bunch of sweaty boys for her own boyfriend’s attention.

Lissa decides to end the rivalry once and for all: She and the other players’ girlfriends go on a hookup strike. The boys won’t get any action from them until the football and soccer teams make peace. What they don’t count on is a new sort of rivalry: an impossible girls-against-boys showdown that hinges on who will cave to their libidos first. And Lissa never sees her own sexual tension with the leader of the boys, Cash Sterling, coming.

 

Juliet Immortal by Stacey Jay

The greatest love story ever told is a lie.

Juliet Capulet didn’t take her own life. She was murdered by the person she trusted most, her new husband, Romeo Montague, a sacrifice made to ensure his own immortality. But what Romeo didn’t anticipate was that Juliet would be granted eternity, as well, and would become an agent for the Ambassadors of Light.

For 700 years, she’s fought Romeo for the souls of true lovers, struggling to preserve romantic love and the lives of the innocent. Until the day she meets someone she’s forbidden to love, and Romeo, oh Romeo, will do everything in his power to destroy that love.

 

 

Pants on Fire by Meg Cabot

Katie Ellison is not a liar. It’s just that telling the truth is so . . . tricky. She knows she shouldn’t be making out with a drama club hottie behind her football-player boyfriend’s back. She should probably admit that she can’t stand eating quahogs (clams), especially since she’s running for Quahog Princess in her hometown’s annual Quahog Festival. And it would be a relief to finally tell someone what really happened the night Tommy Sullivan is a freak was spray-painted on the new wall outside the junior high school gymnasium—in neon orange, which still hasn’t been sandblasted off. After all, everyone knows that’s what drove Tommy out of town four years ago.

But now Tommy Sullivan has come back. Katie is sure he’s out for revenge, and she’ll do anything to hang on to her perfect (if slightly dishonest) existence. Even if it means telling more lies than ever. Even if, now that Tommy’s around, she’s actually—no lie—having the time of her life.

 

Ripple by Mandy Hubbard

Lexi is cursed with a dark secret. Each day she goes to school like a normal teenager, and each night she must swim, or the pain will be unbearable. She is a siren – a deadly mermaid destined to lure men to their watery deaths. After a terrible tragedy, Lexi shut herself off from the world, vowing to protect the ones she loves.

But she soon finds herself caught between a new boy at school who may have the power to melt her icy exterior, and a handsome water spirit who says he can break Lexi’s curse if she gives up everything else. Lexi is faced with the hardest decision she’s ever had to make: the life she’s always longed for – or the love she can’t live without?

***

I JUST finished Shut Out and it was flipping awesome. I’m about to dive into Getting Caught by Cyn Balog and Mandy Hubbard.

What have you been reading??? I urge you to post about it as well and tag me!

Ciao~

Angela