So, last we heard from our intrepid heroine, she was working on two projects. One, she was hating (we'll call those 'the edits') and one she was loving (we'll call that one the 'forbidden crackhead project').  Torn between the one she really wanted to work on (FCP) and the one her agent thinks she's working on (edits), our heroine was naturally torn.

(Boy, it's really weird to talk about yourself in third person)

Anyhow. For a while there, I was working on both books. And you know when you split your time equally between two projects? That's right, both end up moving really, really slowly. And I mean REALLY slowly.  So on Friday, I decided to work on the edits alone. If I got a large chunk of those, I'd switch to FCP. But instead, I started to get back into the story at the core of my manuscript, and spent all weekend working on the dreaded edits.

For those of you playing along at home, this is a different book. A spec project that I'm working on. My agent read the polished novel that I turned in (and had been edited a bajillion times before) and said "Whoa there" and gave me a ton of good things to fix.

I'm still fixing. I'm still fixing a lot, in fact. I got to the point where working off of page edits wasn't doing it for me any longer, because I was making so many changes that the pages themselves were useless. So I've been going through the entire draft, word by word, changing characters' descriptions, names, personalities, and giving others new roles.

In case you've never done this before, it's really, really slow.

But! I can see the light at the end of the (very long) tunnel.  I'm at page 204/249 and still working. I think when I started this weekend, I was on page 50 or so. After a month. That's how slow. Still a ton of heavy lifting to do, but I'm really enjoying what I'm getting. I'm hoping to be done in another week or so (which might be wishful thinking).

It's been a while since I blogged - sorry! And I have a half-written post about editing-and-pantsers (since I am one), but I haven't finished it yet. I will some time this week. And blog about my photography session, because it was a lot of fun. And um, some other stuff.

And since I'm a slacker, here's a snippet from the edits I'm working on. The book is now called VANISHING ACT (thanks, Karen Duvall!).

This should tide everyone over for a few days, right?

##

I awoke to find another girl staring at me.

She was a cute, if you didn’t mind cute mixed with scary. Her face was round, her cheekbones arched and eyes tilted in the manner of someone with asian descent. But her hair was dyed a mix of punk pink and black streaks, and she had more hardware pierced to her face than I had on my entire body. She also wore a lot (a whole lot) of dark red lipstick, so much that her mouth seemed huge in her delicate face. She was dressed in a hooded black sweatshirt and a red plaid skirt, and gigantic buckled boots ran clear up to her knees.

She grinned at the sight of my straitjacket and leaned back in her chair across from me. “I take it you were a runner?”

I tried to sit up – near impossible with my legs bound together and my arms tied down. I ignored her question. “You’ve got to help me,” I said, lifting my arms in a lame gesture at my jacket. “I need to get away.”

“BZZZT. Wrong answer,” she said with a delighted grin, and parked one enormous boot on my leg. “This is your new home.”

I exhaled in frustration. “Whatever. Can you just help me get out of the damn jacket already? My arms are cramping up.”

Her head cocked to the side as she regarded me.

“What?” I frowned at her, shifting in the straight-jacket. “Do I have something on my nose?”

She smiled. “Just checking your aura to see if you were gonna run if I let you go.”

Great, she was crazy too. Just what I needed. I shifted in the jacket, trying to get comfortable. It was pinching the hell out of my side. “And am I?” I asked. “Going to run?”

The girl moved to my side and began undoing the laces of my jacket. “Yeah,” she said, that bright red mouth grinning. “But you won’t get far. And this thing looks dorky as shit.” Her fingers worked at the buckles, freeing me. “I’m Winter.”

I immediately darted for the door, shoving past her.

Only to stop once I opened the door, looking at the two heavily-muscled guards armed with guns just on the other side. Scratch that. I shut the door again and forced a smile to my lips, regarding Winter. “I’m Jolie.”

“I figured. Beauty queen, right?”

I stilled, uneasy. “How did you know about that?”

“I read the newspaper article.”

“Newspaper article?”

As if reading my mind, Winter moved to a nearby table, then handed me a newspaper. “Newspaper. It’s this cool thing where they print the news.” She leaned in and put her hand to her mouth like she was telling me a secret. “ON PAPER. Isn’t that wild?”

What. A. Jerk. I took the paper from her and shook it out, staring at the cover page.

PAGEANT HORROR, the headline proclaimed. SEVERAL INJURED, ONE DEAD. PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL’S SON INJURED. There was a gigantic picture of Lee with his clothes torn, his head bloody as he picked through the rubble of the stage. My pageant headshot was a tiny black and white photo in the corner, and it mentioned me as the victim.

I burst into tears. They’d proclaimed me dead.

##