Novel

The story behind Fictional Boundaries:

In Oct ’02 and sometime in ’03, I made two short-lived attempts to write (important since these contained elements that spawned it all). Then, on Friday evening, Sept 17, 2004, I began writing (by hand).
Two days and sixty (60) pages of block text later, it was finished. Over 11,000 words. My first completed short story since the ones I’d written for my college creative writing class.

A few days later, I began my first LiveJournal (since deleted) and learned about NaNoWriMo. I joined in October and decided to write about some friends going to a writers’ convention. (I know they’re conferences…) I figured that they’d have to write a short story during the convention and documenting those stories would easily give me the required 50K words.

Of course, we all know our characters always do what we tell them, and our stories never surprise us…

A hurricane showed up. I went with it. A fight broke out – the hurricane was possessed. I went with it. A supporting character sent my protagonist into the world of the short story I’d written in September. WHAT???
With great glee…I went with it.

Proverbial Boundaries was the result (as best described by the opening line: “In which the author blurs, snorts and otherwise does away with the fine lines between genius and insanity; reality and the undefined; the probable and the infinitely inexcusable . . .”) It’s very Douglas Adams-esque. It’s also the first time I typed an entire story and began using those wonderful things called paragraphs instead of the block text I’d adopted to save paper (I was a prolific writer and filled many notebooks in middle school).

Despite writing two ill-fated sequels and trying my hand at another unfinished story, this one wouldn’t leave me alone. Things finally coalesced when I decided to begin the story at an actual convention. On March 17, 2009, I shut off my computer and began writing by hand…again.
One month and four hundred (400) pages later, I was as finished as I could be. Approximately 75,000 words, it lacked development of my villains and the (much anticipated) final battle.

Over the next two months, I typed it up, revising as I went along. Things gradually dwindled off…I still didn’t have a final battle.
Then, my husband and his friend went to MegaCon in March 2010. I stayed home and wrote that friggen wonderful battle. Over the next seven months, I revised it again (and again). I declared it finished and sent it out to my beta readers.

Three months later, I got an amazing critique back and began to revise (again). Then I looked up a website for some writing tips and editorial services and discovered the editor would be at a conference near my home the following month. My husband and I went (and took his six-hour class!).
Encouraged by two other authors I met there, I pitched FB for his publishing company instead of merely hiring him.

He liked the premise, liked my first few pages and asked me to send him the full manuscript after making the beginning more engaging.

Full-on freak-out mode.

Based on what I learned in his class and from reading his books and Self Editing for Fiction Writers (which I HIGHLY recommend), I realized that my writing was nowhere near ready for querying. Thus began this huge revision process.

Fast forward months years, and I’m finally up to Chapter 27 of 33. I know it shouldn’t have taken this long, but I’ve left the timing up to God and pray that the editor will still want to see it whenever I finally finish it. The story is still the same, but it’s MUCH more engaging and visual. The changes have been very difficult, but well worth it.

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