TLIF - The Greatest Trick the Devil Ever Played

It's Friday morning. TLIF*! WOOT! And as far as I can tell, my lord and master is laughing at all of us from his throne in Valhalla. Yes, he sits on the throne because Thor killed Odin and didn't really have any interest in taking his place. A guy like Thor is a little too hands-on for the paperwork that goes with ruling an entire pantheon. Loki, though...

He's laughing at everyone. He thinks the whole new horoscope and the uproar around it is one of the funniest things he's seen this year. You'd have to ask him why. This isn't his soapbox today. He might be by next week to explain it, but...only if I still think its relevent.

Which has nothing to do with me, so I'm brushing him aside and moving on. Don't worry, he'll make me pay for it later. I'm moving into the final chapters of my book. I made the decision last night to try and finish it in time for ABNA. Which is scary and exciting at the same time.

It might be foolish for me to do if this was a first draft. Total waste of time, in fact. But since this is like draft five (no, really, I can see at the top of the document. It says 'UrielsFallDraft5), I'm feeling like I'm getting there. Don't know if I'm there yet, but I have to take the leap sometime.

So I have ten days. I figure if I finish this weekend, I can give it to my one in-life reader to look at this week. I can write the pitch in the mean-time and start doing edits on stuff like grammar, adding description (but only because Kate told me I should), and making sure it reads right overall.

And honestly as much fun as its been editing this book (I have never enjoyed editing before, and I did this time), I'm ready to be done. Because...I have screaming re-write ideas for other pieces and I swore I wouldn't focus on them until I finished Uriel's Fall.

First one has to come very next because the deadline for the anthology I want to send it to is February 1. Okay, how am I going to finish my novella before then? I'm insane. But I'm hoping I can.

And then I desparately want to get back to the adult contemporary I wrote a year ago. I have all these scenes in my head of how it goes and...

****spoiler*****The girl saves the guy in this one. And she does it in a way I don't think I've ever seen in a story. We're not talking movie Arwen snatching Frodo from the wraiths and the grips of eternal damnation. No. This is something much more subtle and sublime.*******End spoiler********

Okay. I'm done with the randomness for now. I have to go write the ending to this book. And maybe change my main character's name, therefore changing the entire title of the book. What do y'all think of 'Ramael's Fall'? or 'Cassael's Fall'? No? Okay, I'll play with it some more.


*thank Loki it's Friday

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Aww...screw it

So I thought I was being brilliant like...three weeks ago. I was all like "Oh hey, you know what would be fun, self?" and then I was like "Taking a week off work and spending every day sleeping and shopping?". And then I went "Uh yeah, but I meant fun and plausible." And I was like "Umm...nothing?"

Because I'm a cynic like that.

But no, me was still all "No, really. We should make a blog schedule and do something wacky every day of the week." And I told me "Uh...schedules blow and you're incapable of following them." And me said "No, really. This'll be easy. We'll make it free-form and fun. We'll love it."

Turns out I lied to myself. I haven't even posted one post within the schedule because I'm not a structured person. I suppose this proves it, if I didn't know it already. Not only did I not post within the schedule, but the terror of the schedule kept me from posting anything at all for like *checks calendar* almost two weeks.

So...pretty schedule out the window. I may still do some of the things from the list, but not on set days. Because I'm free-form and slightly insane.

But if I don't want to blame the lack of posts on my inability to follow even my own rules, I could blame it instead on something much better. Two weeks ago I opened one of my novels and started scanning it. This was following a very unsuccessful attempt to edit a different novel. Really, really fail. I got like a chapter in and hated it.

But anyway, I opened 'Uriel's Fall' (title subject to change based on needing a recognizable angel name that doesn't sound so masculine), and started reading it and...loved it. I've been through the whole thing now, cut out bits that no longer worked, cleaned up my brief obsession with metaphor, and I think it's tight now.

The problem is...the ending didn't work any more. I deleted like the last 11k of words and still have to replace them with the new ending. I've always known I would have to do this. The old ending was Frankenstein's monstered together, and I knew it didn't work. The new ending...hopefully it will work, but I'm not there yet.

But still...I've edited 55k of words, I love how it all goes, and once I finish it, I'll send copies to the sweet people who have offered to read it for me. Two of them have already started, and they rule. The third, a guy from work...

So this is how it went. Guy from work asks me about my writing occasionally. He's awesome like that. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was doing this editing and that two of my critique partners had already offered to read for me. He said "Um...I read."

And from there it led to him agreeing to read my book. It's been...15 years since anyone outside a critique group read any of my novels. I'm a little nervous, but excited too. We'll see how it turns out.

If you were going to name an angel something recognizable, and she had a female form in the story, and you were fed up with the fact that everyone and their dogs names their angelic characters Luc and Gabe (not to mention the fact that Lucifer and Gabriel are different characters already in the series), what would you name her?

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