Stories That Have Found Homes

I have some awesomenews. Sumeria's Sons found a home with Less Than Three Press! The contracts were signed earlier this week. I'm absolutely thrilled, you have no idea.

For the next several days, I will be reading through the four books to ensure there aren't any changes I want to make. My first response was, "Naw, I think everything is okay but I'll check anyway." *snort*

I hadn't went back over these in some time and it was evident that my writing had improved since Twin Flames was first released. I actually spent the weekend agonizing over the prologue. Before the book was published, there was some debate on whether to keep it. For those who didn't know, Twin Flames and Songs of the Earth was submitted as one story. The publisher split it in two and the prologue was created after the fact because the majority of the paranormal came in Songs of the Earth. I put clues in the prologue that would be revealed over the course of the series, plus for those who weren't familiar with the Epic of Gilgamesh, it served as a sort of crash course.

So what stuck with me the most, other than laying my head on my desk and crying the first time I received edits, (really, the manuscript was a hot mess when first subbed because I had no clue what I was doing), anyway, what stuck with me all this time was the debate over the prologue. Keep it or delete it? Maybe have it tucked at the end of Twin Flames? It was stilted and clunky and it probably scared off more than one reader. That and the was-ing but that's a different story.

As I read over Twin Flames, all that earlier angst surfaced and I took a good, hard look at the prologue. Was it essential? Did it add substance to the story? Would it better serve broken up over the course of the story? I talked through all the scenarios and the 'what if's' with my husband. Spoke to a few others who were familiar with the story to get their take on the prologue. 

In the end, I re-edited it with a heavy hand. I didn't add content, it simply said the same thing in a different way and the flow smoothed out... and then I edited the rest of Twin Flames. It was a compulsion every time I came across something that needed to be fixed.

Now I have three other books to read through and I hope--pray that the writing improves with each volume. ^_^

The best thing is they found a home. I can finish the series up and start plotting Sumeria's Magi and maybe Sumeria's Children. Yay!

Oh, and a quick side note about Ruby Red Booty Shorts and A Louisville Slugger... well, the second book in that series is complete and currently with a critique group. But for Ruby Red I'm considering expanding the story. 

I wrote it for a Christmas/Holiday submission call. It was rejected for that call but accepted under a normal submission. The call had a word count limit so there was some heavy cutting from the final draft to make the submission. 

Unfortunately, I cannot find the draft before I cut up the story. Some of it I can't even remember, which means to me it wasn't that great anyway. So I'm going to take a long look at it, see what I would like to fix about it. I know I should probably put some relationship building on the front, give Denise more page time so you get a better feel for her before book two. Smooth out the ending so that it's not so abrupt... You get the picture. It may be out of print for a little while so that I can fix it. 

Wish me luck!

Thank you for stopping by and reading!