WAHOO!!!

:-D

I finished the first draft of my Beauty and the Beast retelling this morning!

:-D

I started writing this book at the end of October.  Sometime around February, I started to worry that I was being a big slacker, because the previous three books all took me about three months to finish the first draft, and this one had been going for longer than that and wasn't anywhere close to done!  

Was I getting lazy?  Was I getting slower?  I didn't think I was getting slower -- I'd been tossing out 1,500 to 2,000 words in most writing sessions.  And I was writing several evenings a week, and at least once a weekend, just like usual.  Surely I wasn't getting lazy.

I gradually realized that laziness and writing speed weren't a problem.  This book is just bigger.  At least, this first draft is.  My first drafts for Cloaked, Dancing and Doughnuts, and One Bad Apple averaged under 30,000 words.  This first draft?  Is over 100,000 words.  No wonder it took me three times as long to write -- it's three times as long!!!

Now, does this mean the finished book will be three times as long as the others?  Probably not.  My word count changes a LOT during revision.  Usually, it goes up.  But I think it might go way down this time because I suspect there's a lot of trimming and tightening to be done.  I don't know yet.  I won't know until I get revision suggestions and notes back from my editor.  And I'm not ready to even send it to her yet.  First, I'll let the whole thing simmer for a week or two while I recover from the last couple of weeks, where I pushed hard to get it finished.

Once I can read it with fresh and rested eyes, I'll change and fix a lot of things I've made notes on as I go.  Then I'll send it to my editor when it's ready, and when she's ready for it.  She'll spend a week or two on it.  She'll send back her notes.  I'll spend a week or so sulking because I hate getting revision notes and always sulk about them.  Which I've just learned to expect.

Then, I can start revising.  I'm guessing I'll send it to my editor in early September, and start actually revising it in early October.  Sometimes my rewrites go quickly.  Sometimes, I spend more time rewriting than I did writing.  Because I suspect this book will get a lot cut instead of a lot added, I'm hoping this will be on the shorter end of revision times, but... I won't have a good idea of what needs to be done until I get my editor's notes.

All of which means... yay, the first big chunk of work is done!!!  But I don't have any idea of when my release date will be.  I've been hoping for winter, and that could still happen.  Or it might not.  We'll see!

Meanwhile, I still need a title.  Sigh.  That'll happen too, I know.  It will, not matter how patient or impatient I am.  But I hate not having a title.  Sigh.

Anyway!  In this post, as you may have noticed, I'm sharing a few images that are related to my book.  I shared these all on Instagram last month, as part of a challenge to talk about your work-in-progress, or WIP.  You can read those specific posts (and see more pictures) here, here, here, and here.  You can also check out my Pinterest board for this book to see lots of things that I've either found inspiring or saved to refer back to.  Many of the pictures are the same, to be honest.

I'll just leave you with this Bible verse that has been in my mind a lot while writing this book.  Waiting and hoping and being of good courage are pretty big themes in it.  At least in this first draft!

Building a Hobbity Book Nook

Have you heard of book nooks, or bookshelf inserts or bookshelf nooks?  They get called a lot of things, but whatever you call them, I love them.  I have a whole Pinterest board full of them, if you're curious.

Anyway, I decided to build one myself, so over the course of a few weeks, I did!  And now I'm going to tell you all about it because I can :-)

I started out with some odds and ends of wood and chipboard we had leftover from a few years ago when I built a couple of table-top Lego play stations for my kids.

My brother owns a tabletop saw, all motorized and everything.  But I didn't want to bug him just to cut some little boards up for me.  Plus, we don't see them as much right now because of the whole sheltering-in-place thing.  So I attacked my wood with a hand saw.

Toward the end, I really wished I'd taken it all to my brother's place.  But I persevered.  And didn't even get any blisters!

I cut enough wood to make TWO book nooks, but one of them is going to have to wait for later.  One at a time!

So here are my pieces for my first book nook, the bigger one I planned to make.  I have two large pieces of chipboard for sides and then various pieces of wooden edging for the top, bottom, and back (spine).

I just used the random acrylic paints we already have on hand because going to the store for fun stuff like this isn't exactly an option right now.  I also ordered a few miniature things from Hobby Lobby's website, plus some moss ribbon.

Here's the first layer of painting done!  You'll see in the next pictures that I changed my mind about a few things, but this got the general idea down.

For some reason, I didn't save my photos of the second round of painting on my phone, so I had to grab these out of the Instagram story I've saved in my highlights of how this all went together.  That's why these two pictures have words on them.

Here you can see the moss ribbon unrolled.  I glued that and some sandpaper down to make the grassy lawn and little path leading out from my main hobbit hole.  And I glued that round door onto the blank spot I'd left for it.  I found that door on clearance a couple years ago, got it for maybe $2, just thinking I'd use it someday.  And now I have!

Then I didn't do anything at all with this project for a couple of weeks because I got busy.  But yesterday, I had time for it again, so I painted the backs of the boards to look like a book.  They ended up looking kind of like wood, but oh well, they're still a nice brown.

I found an alphabet online that's based on Tolkien's writing he used for a hobbit script, and I painted this one for a title with gold paint.  I'm absurdly pleased with how it turned out because I didn't write it on in pencil first or anything, or even practice the lettering, I just eyeballed the font on my phone and painted this freehand.  Which was reckless, but fun.  (And I could always have painted over it if it'd turned out terribly.)

Today, it was time to assemble all the pieces with my trusty hot glue gun.  Which is actually a warm glue gun, and so much safer for my fingers.

Got both sides glued to the bottom.

Oh, I glued the fence in first so I wouldn't have to fiddle with that once the sides were on.

Then I glued in my props, which probably would have been better to do when there was only one side glued on, oops.  I made it work anyway.

No one will ever see this view again because it's from the back.  But isn't that little broom adorable?  Love it.

I put the top on next.  That made it a lot more stable, as it was rather wobbly.

Then I glued the back on.  I'm afraid I hadn't cut my biggest boards very straightly, so they don't meet perfectly at the back.  But I'm still very pleased with it.

I painted daffodils everywhere because they're my favorite flower.  I don't recall them getting mentioned in any of Tolkien's writings about Middle-earth, but they're native to Wales, so I figure they could possibly be in the Shire too.

Here you can see how my back and top don't quite meet.  Oh well.  It's my first attempt.

I put a few birds in the sky, but they're hard to see now that it's assembled.

And now that it's done, I put it on my Tolkien shelves!  My Gandalf is not quite the right scale to go with it, but that's okay.

I still like how this looks like he's going to step inside this book.

And here's a farther-away shot, showing off more of my Tolkien collection and how it sort of fits in quite naturally here.

I've got the wood cut for another, smaller book nook too.  I'm thinking I'll do an LM Montgomery theme with that, something Anne of Green Gables-related, but I haven't decided what yet.  We'll see!

"One Bad Apple" Update

So, as you may have gathered from things I've said here, in my author newsletters, and on Instagram... writing One Bad Apple has been a long road to travel.  I just completed my third round of pretty substantial revisions.  THIRD.  Cloaked and Dancing and Doughnuts took one.  Not because this book had more problems or because I rushed the first draft -- not at all.  It's just that this is a much more complex story.

I mean, I'm not just retelling Snow White as a western here, I'm retelling it with a mostly minority cast.  And twisting it up with Hamlet while I'm at it.  All of which has been tricky in ways I hadn't anticipated, but ultimately is creating a really satisfying story.  I think.  I hope.

I've sent it off to my editor yet again, and I'll also be sending it to my sensitivity readers this week.  That's a new step for me, but because I really want to do my African-American characters justice and write the most accurate, respectful story I can, I need input from people who actually share some of the heritage as these characters.  Which is exciting!

The Old West was an incredibly diverse place, as I keep highlighting with my "West of Yesteryear" column for the Prairie Times.  I want my Once Upon a Western series to reflect the actual diversity of that time and place in our nation's history, but I need help in doing that.  I've done more research for this book than for my previous three book-length retellings combined.  And I have more to do yet while my editor and sensitivity readers go over this draft.

But in other news, my cover artist is working on a cover for me, and I should get to see her ideas soon!  That's one of my favorite parts of this whole writing process, and I can't wait.

Meanwhile, if you'd like to get a peek at some of the visual ideas I've been working with on One Bad Apple, you're welcome to check out my Pinterest board that contains inspiration for it.  Enjoy!

Pinterest Storyboards for "Cloaked" and "Hopeful"

Here it is!  My Pinterest storyboard for "Cloaked," my western reimagining of Little Red Riding Hood.  It's about an imaginative teen who travels to Wyoming to meet her grandmother, and there encounters a scheming bookkeeper intent on stealing her grandmother's ranch.  My story board is filled with casting ideas, locales, historical details, props, and even some costume thoughts.



I mentioned recently that I've finished writing the first draft of "Cloaked."  I'm working with an editor to really bring it into focus, and my plan right now is to release it as an ebook this summer.

Today, I'm also going to share the board for a story I'm still doing research and planning for.  I call it "Hopeful" right now, and it's a Snow White reimagining set during the 1870 "Exoduster" migrations when thousands of African Americans left the south for the wide frontier.  The history of that time is really fascinating, and I'm having a great time researching it.  I won't start writing "Hopeful" for a while yet, not until I've got "Cloaked" published and finish up another project, probably.  But it's coming!



I have to admit I've gotten kind of addicted to making these inspiration boards.  Sometimes, my best friend and I even use them to make up stories together, adding photos and seeing where the story takes us, though that was a lot more fun before Pinterest started hiding the comments, alas.

This post is my contribution to the Pinterest Storyboard Party 2017 hosted by Elisabeth Grace Foley.  If you'd like to see the boards I did for her party a couple of years ago, including the one for "The Man on the Buckskin Horse," my story that's included in the Five Magic Spindles anthology, you can read that post here.

Joining the Pinterest Storyboard Party 2017

Elisabeth Grace Foley is hosting another Pinterest Storyboard Party February 20-22.  I'll be sharing my storyboard for "Cloaked," the western reimagining of Little Red Riding Hood that I'm working on and hoping to self-publish this summer.  I may post more than that, but we shall see.  Check out Elisabeth's post right here for more info and to join up yourself.

Three Pinterest Story Boards

BLAST IT!  I had this post all written up yesterday, and then I never actually hit "publish" for some unfathomable reason.  So here, one day late, is my post for Elisabeth Grace Foley's Pinterest Storyboard Party!  Today I'll be sharing three boards I've made, one for each novel or story I've got going right now.  Be sure to check out the party for Elisabeth's story boards, and links to other people's too.  (EDIT:  She's leaving the link-up open for a whole week now, so if you want to participate too, you still can!)

At first, when I saw people making inspiration boards for their WIPs on Pinterest, I was kind of amused in an eyebrow-cocked way.  Was this really helpful?  Was it a good way to procrastinate?  Did it really provide inspiration?  I admit I was skeptical. 

Then I decided to create this board for my short story "The Rose-Covered Cabin" when I shared the news that I'll be submitting it to the Five Magic Spindles contest.  I'd actually pinned a bunch of stuff to a secret board that was helpful for my story -- things about the so-called "walking wheel" or "great wheel" spinning wheels and so on.  So I tossed that all onto a new board, and added shots of the various actors I'd "cast" in the story.  And guess what?  It was fun!

Follow Rachel's board The Rose-Covered Cabin on Pinterest.

But I still didn't start making any new boards for new writing projects, not until Elisabeth announced this party.  Then I was like, "Well, I shared the board for RCC already... I should make one for my new story!"  So I did.  I hereby unveil my board for Patchwork Autumn, a novel that grew in my head over the course of little more than a week and which I've only just started writing.  But I'm already loving how it mixes the Appalachian mountains with the Wild West -- it's sweet and tangy and salty and smooth all at once.

Follow Rachel's board "Patchwork Autumn" on Pinterest.

And then the other day, I was having so much fun adding to the PA album that I just went ahead and created a board for my last novel, Fickle Creek, because I could.  That's my first-ever YA novel, and my first western in a long while -- I started writing it way back in 2012, and am in the slow process of revising it now.

Follow Rachel's board "Fickle Creek" on Pinterest. 

So now you've seen all three of my "inspiration boards."  I do add to/tweak them from time to time.  But I don't use them for inspiration so much as for gathering and storing links and information, and for looking back at fondly after I've finished a story and saying, "Oh, yes, wasn't that fun?"

I'm pretty bummed I forgot to post this yesterday.  I blame it on baking an apple pie.  Does things to one's brain, pie-baking does.

I'll Be Joining the Pinterest Storyboard Party -- Will You?

Elisabeth Grace Foley has announced on her blog, The Second Sentence, that she is going to hold a Pinterest Storyboard Party next Thursday, November 19.  One week from today!  I'll for sure be sharing my board for "The Rose-Covered Cottage," the story I'm submitting to the Five Magic Spindles contest.  It's changed a little since I previously shared it, which I'll talk about next week.

I might also share the board I'm making for a story/novella/novel that has landed in my brain and gelled over the last couple of weeks.  I know I've made a poor showing in NaNoWriMo this year -- I had great intentions of writing at least 25,000 words and doing a half-Nano with a novel I've had in my head for two years, Son of a Gunfighter.  But then I frittered away my evenings at my parents' house by watching episodes of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. with my mom, got ambushed by this new story idea, and have had to spend my writing time doing edits on "The Rose-Covered Cabin" since it has an actual deadline.  Sorry, Nano!  Next year.

Anyway, again, details on the Pinterest Story Party are here.  If you're a writer and make storyboards on Pinterest, I hope you join the fun!