I win again!

I finished editing LoL yesterday. After finishing it, I now have a greater respect for professional editors. I would never want that job.

To finish it by today, I had to have another editing marathon yesterday. Raisins were a big life-saver. The final wordcount is just over 70,000 words, slightly shorter than Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I'm pleased with myself.

My parents asked me a whole ton of questions, including the classic "To what do you attribute your success?" I answered, "Raisins!" I think they might think something's wrong with me.

Anyway, soon I'm going to start showing it to people and work on self-publishing it, which shouldn't take too long. By the way, my last post was #50! :D I can't wait to start plotting out Ice Quest - it's going to be epic.

~ Sophia-Rose

Editing, Complete with Raisins

Raisins are the best snack ever besides chocolate. I could eat them all day. Once, I was so hungry at lunch that I ate almost half the container before realizing how much I'd eaten. In fact, they are superior to chocolate in just about every way besides general tastiness:

• Raisins keep for a long time
• Raisins won't make you sick if you have a few too many
• Raisins don't make you thirsty
• Raisins are better baked into various things, like banana bread. You wouldn't want chocolate in banana bread, would you? I didn't think so.
• Raisins are much healthier than chocolate, as the box advertises

You probably want me to get to the point. This post, as you may be guessing, serves more purpose than an advertisement for raisins.

Well, at first glance, editing and raisins are worlds apart. Editing is drudgery; raisins are a snack of solid happiness. Therefore, editing + raisins = productive happiness! So, I'm four days away from my birthday and six chapters away from the end of Legends of Light. I really need to get a move on. What better way than to have a day (today!) of solid editing, with raisins after every chapter? Lots of raisins. Enough to power my story.

I will begin my editing marathon at 10:30. Every time I finish a chapter, I will have raisins. Lots of raisins. Oh, and I'll post updates, too.

Wish me luck, and keep checking this post! (Oh, and did I mention that raisins are the best healthy snack EVER?)

Update 1, 12:01 PM: Chapter 10 is finally done. It was a hard one, since I decided to replace the skeletal dragons with something entirely different and much more interesting. The next few chapters are mostly action, so those should go by fairly quickly. Wordcount so far is 65,754. Hooray! Raisin time! :D

Update 2, 2:05 PM: I finished Chapter 11. Even though it was somewhat long, it needed surprisingly few edits since it was mostly action. I had to stop in the middle of this period for lunch, so in total, this chapter took me about 1.5 hours. Wordcount so far is 66,568. More raisins now.

Update 3, 3:07 PM: Chapter 12 is all done! It was on the shorter side and didn't need too many edits, so this was a really quick one. I'm happy about this. Maybe I can finish the book today. Wordcount is now 67,335. I'm now going to enjoy more raisins. (That was the best idea ever.)

~ Sophia-Rose

Tidbits from My Editing Journey

Hi. Long time, no see. Yeah, I've been busy this month, with going away and a few other important events that took up a lot of my time. But I thought you might enjoy some little excerpts from my book, including a few funny goofs, and just nice descriptions that I thought to add.

Nice description #1:

When they left the tower, Gabby was surprised at the quiet of the streets. The farmers’ stalls had all been packed up and moved away, and the crowd had dwindled to a few lonesome watchmen, staring off into the darkness and looking for intruders that would never come.As the small group passed by one of them, Gabby snuck a peek at him. He wasn’t much older than Rayand, if at all, and he seemed practically dead on his feet. His eyelids fluttered drowsily as he leaned against the wall of a ramshackle shop, but he managed to clumsily wave them on before slumping down into a deep slumber. I wonder if the Lightstone guard felt the same way as him, she thought. Maybe he got assigned to a night shift and could barely keep his eyes open.The walk back to the tavern seemed to glide by senselessly as the stars began, one by one, to pierce through the smothering tapestry of the night sky. Houses, shops, and important city buildings all seemed to pass them by, one after another in a monotonous circle. Gabby’s eyelids began to droop. It was so pleasantly cool and breezy…so dark and peaceful… A slow, quiet murmur seemed to float in on the nighttime air from far ahead, slowly growing into a loud rumble of song, laughter, and loud banter. Oh, no. Not the Sword and Flagon already. Here I was, just beginning to relax.Under Alcasor’s lead, the party of three rounded a corner and burst into a patch of dappled light. The blazing lantern from the table sent out warm rays of light through the grimy window, piercing and stinging Gabby’s darkness-adjusted eyes.

I liked that one. I was metaphorical without seeming cheesy. Score! Two points for me!

Aaaaaand a funny goof for you, since I know you probably want a laugh. So, I was editing a scene in which my main character can't sleep, so she goes out to a garden for a walk. I was making some edits and cutting a few passages, and a few of the paragraphs came out like this:

Ugh. Now my entire room smells. She slammed the window shut. I think I need a nice walk to clear my head. Maybe after that I can get a few more hours of sleep.Directly outside, there was a little walled garden. The ground was covered in a soft blanket of lush green grass, and webbed with gravel pathways. Vibrantly colored flowerbeds were interspersed along with stone benches, and there was a fountain in the very middle. Someone must have left it on, and streams of water spurted from the shell designs on it, splashing into a pool in the bottom and distorting the once-clear reflection of the crescent moon above.Gabby took a seat on one of the benches.

Basically...Gabby wants a walk to clear her head. She's in a stuffy room on the upper floor of a tavern. Then I suddenly start describing a random garden outside, and apparently she teleported there while I wasn't looking. Yep. I accidentally cut the part where she walks down the stairs and out the door. >.<

I added it back in, and now here's the same part of the story again.

Ugh. Now my entire room smells. She slammed the window shut. I think I need a nice walk to clear my head. Maybe after that I can get a few more hours of sleep.Gabby clambered over her bed and slipped on her sandals. She quietly pulled the door to the hallway open and looked around. The tavern noise had subdued into a quiet murmur of activity, the most rambunctious revelers having staggered home to bed. She didn’t want to wake Rayand or Alcasor, so she stepped quietly past their rooms to the end of the hallway she hadn’t explored.It plunged steeply downward in a narrow staircase which led to a small back door. She hesitated only a moment before climbing down to it. Her footsteps creaked on the old wooden steps, but she didn’t hear the sounds of stirring from the upstairs rooms. She pushed the door open and stepped outside into a little walled garden.The ground was covered in a soft blanket of lush green grass, decorated with a spider web of small gravel pathways. Vibrantly colored flowerbeds and stone benches were interspersed along the web like dewdrops in the morning, and there was a fountain in the very middle, like the web’s beautiful crowning glory. Although it appeared to be broken, tiny droplets of water trickled out of the shell designs on the fountain’s center column. They fell into the partially full basin and created ripples stretching slowly outward in perfect circles, making the image of the brilliant stars above contort and realign with an unearthly sparkle. 

Isn't that so much nicer? The one downside to it? Gabby no longer has epic teleportation powers. :(

I think I should probably stop this post here because who knows how long it would be otherwise? Anyway, editing is going well.

~ Sophia-Rose

A Last-Minute Decision

I've been falling behind on my editing lately...I'm losing motivation...I'm not so sure I'm going to finish editing this summer...so I've decided to do Camp NaNo as a rebel!

My word goal is 13,000 - 250 words (my minimum) for each scene I have left to do. After I finish a scene, I will add 250 words to my counter thing, regardless of how many I actually added. Should be fun! I think I'll do it faster if I have a cabin to cheer me on (and that I'll try not to fail in front of.) Even though I'm going away to real summer camp for a week, I'm pretty sure I can do it.

This should be fun!

~ Sophia-Rose

I Briefly Return from Editing-Land

Hi. I haven't posted in a while. I'd love to say that I've been busy editing, but...I'm not even done with the third chapter yet. -.- It's slow business. However, I'm happy to say that instead of adding 250 words a scene, I'm now usually adding at least 500 and sometimes even doubling the 750 word length of a scene! :D If I keep up at this rate, my novel will come out at...
Wait for it...
Wait for it...












80,000 words! :D Hooray!
Also, adding more thoughts just makes my characters come to life. Gabby, one of my main characters, used to be quite flat. I'd thought of a personality for her...sort of...but it never quite made it to the page. Now, it's evident that she has two sides: one that wants to say anything that comes into her head, and another that tries to restrain her words with creative imaginings. It's more interesting.

I'm also working on renaming the rest of the books in the series. None of them really feel right except Legends of Light. Last night, it hit me for book #2: Ice Quest. :) I have a feeling that the name is now perfect, not to mention not taken. If these books ever get published, I don't want them getting confused with other fantasy novels. There's nothing similar to Ice Quest, and for Legends of Light the closest title is Legends of Light: A Michigan Lighthouse Portfolio. Somehow, I don't think the two will get confused at all. I'll see you around soon! (Hopefully before I go on vacation.)

~ Sophia-Rose

My First Edited Scene: Transformation and a Teaser

I just finished editing the hook and first scene of Legends of Light. The verdict? I loved it! I have a way better hook now, and it came out great! The first few sentences went from this:

Crack! A twig snapped under the black-robed man's feet as he stepped through the dense thicket of pine trees. As distasteful as it was, especially for royalty, it had to be traversed for the common good of the population.

To this:

All was quiet as the black-robed man silently flitted through the woods. To most, he was a mysterious enigma. Nobody knew who he was, but he was a man on a mission, and an urgent one, at that.

Doesn't that make you more interested? Now that the scene is done, it looks completely transformed. My prediction that it would come out looking like a complete rewrite seems to be fairly accurate. Since it's done, I've decided to give you the whole scene as a teaser. It ends in a cliffhanger. You have been warned.

All was quiet as the black-robed man silently flitted through the woods. To most, he was a mysterious enigma. Nobody knew who he was, but he was a man on a mission, and an urgent one, at that.

Upon reaching a small clearing, he halted and drew a beautifully engraved sword, holding his breath and peering through the dark thicket. To his satisfaction, there was nothing there but softly rustling pine branches and ghostly moving shadows. He let out a long, slow sigh of relief, sheathed it once more, and strode toward the clearing’s center. As dawn began creeping over the wispy clouds on the horizon, he checked his watch. Although definitely a strange contraption, it often came in handy.  Apparently those naïve earth-dwellers were good for some things. Six o’clock in the morning, he thought with a smile. Perfect.

“Audite in alio seculo magistrum,” he whispered. The foreign words seemed to hang in the air like a magical incantation. After nervously glancing at his watch once more, he gritted his teeth and began to pace. How much longer will this take? He glanced around, relieved that it was still mostly dark. I can’t wait forever. Soon, people will arrive, and I can’t risk discovery. Finally, he saw a flash of red light against a pine tree and turned around, sighing with relief. At the exact center of the clearing, a flickering window of blood-red light hung suspended in the air. He stared at it, once again enraptured by his recently acquired ability. The glowing crimson tendrils spiraled within the rectangular vortex, hypnotizing, beckoning. Although the portal window was the perfect size to jump through, he knew that to do so meant instant death.

The man was jolted out of his trance by a thundering voice, emanating out from the portal and echoing off the trees. “Back so soon, my accomplice?” He winced. Still under his black cloak and veiled in secrecy, talking so loudly would mean this little project would come to a screeching halt.

“Ssssh!” he whispered, furtively casting another glance around the surrounding pine trees. Is anyone coming? “Talk a little more quietly, please. We don’t want anyone else to overhear our discussion.”

“I was wondering why you had returned so soon. You just told me yesterday that nothing of much importance was happening.”

“That was before we launched another sprite.” He fumbled in his leather pouch, his fingers searching for something small and elusive. Those blasted little blighters never seem to cooperate. “The girl is getting suspicious. Our next launch will likely tip her over to our side. She may be unsuspecting for now, but she’s not an idiot.”

“Excellent. So you came here asking for permission to send one more and finish what we’ve begun.”

“Well…yes.” The black-cloaked stranger shivered. The fact that his accomplice always seemed to know what he was thinking was unsettling, to say the least. He wondered if his friend in the other realm had powers he had yet to reveal. Then, he shook off the idea with a silent laugh. Of course, they weren’t hiding anything from each other.

“According to your updates, you sent a sprite out only yesterday.” The being beyond the portal spoke again.

“That is correct.”

“Hmm…” The voice on the window’s other side seemed lost in thought. “Normally, that would be exceedingly hasty, but since she’s so close…Yes, I suppose it could be a good idea, just this once. The stakes will become so high that she’ll have to be insane to refuse our offer.”

“Exactly. There won’t be much room for error, though.” He finally found what he was looking for in his bag, and triumphantly pulled out the little wicker cage. Inside, a tiny golden winged figure – a sprite – was trapped. Drawing it close to his face, he whispered, “Just do exactly what we planned. Try not to have too much fun out there.” Springing the latch, he opened the tiny door, and the little sprite zoomed away with a cackle.

“What did you say?” said the voice behind the window.

“I was only repeating the plan to the sprite. I think we caught a good one this time. It didn’t make any fuss in my bag, although it did put up a good fight before I could catch it.”

“Excellent. Soon, our opportunity will be at hand.”

The man stooped and plucked a small white flower, twirling it between his fingertips. “But there may be a problem.”

The voice was silent for a minute. Then, it spoke again, this time quietly. “Go on.”

“There may be one of Rynveros’s spies posing at the school as well. If he manages to convince the girl to his side, all would be lost and we would have to start our search all over again.” He stroked the delicate, colorless petals, thinking about his plan and what the girl could mean for it. She was a lucky find, he thought. She has no idea that she could change a world.

“Perhaps not. If the girls in our home world are any indication, it is possible that we could still force her to join us. I find that most of them love their family and friends very much. If gentle persuasion does not work, a well-placed threat can work wonders.”

The man’s shadowed face betrayed no emotion, although he mentally winced. He didn’t want to do anything that might give the girl any doubt of his benevolence. “I’d rather we don’t threaten her. I want her to trust us.”

“All right, then. You know what to do instead.”

“Yes. She would be quite dangerous used against us.” He closed his fist, crushing the blossom’s delicate petals. “It would be better off if she was out of our way forever, in that case. If she won’t join us, I will ensure that she is killed.”

Dun dun dun!! Like it? If you read all that, here's a little treat: a graphic I made. Click for craziness!

~ Sophia-Rose

The Editing Slog Begins!

It's June and over 90 degrees. I'm getting cooked nicely. -.- Hot temperatures aside, I'm off of WD (Wardiloth's Dragons) break now and it's time to begin Legends of Light editing month #1. Whoopdedoo. *sigh* Somehow, I don't think I'm going to like editing.

By the way - about that blurb? You know, the one I said I was going to do more than a month ago? That's not going to happen until after I finish editing. I'm going to be making a ton of changes, and it'll probably come out looking like a complete rewrite. More thoughts, more description, less blather. Who knows? Another subplot might even weave its way into the story! I've heard tell of that happening in additional drafts. I'm also hoping to add way more words in the process. I have a sneaking suspicion that this book will look quite different once I'm through with it, so I should probably wait on the blurb.

But I'm not going to just sit down and begin making changes without a clue. Oh, no! I have a strategic plan! :) (I think I'll need it.) I hope to make two to three editing passes.

1. Add a whole ton of thoughts and description plus any other surprises, and cut dialogue rambles.
2. Optional: make a second pass for cuts or more additions.
3. Fix grammar issues and typos.

Should be fun! (Not.) Well, wish me luck! (By the way, is treehouse one word or two?)

~ Sophia-Rose