THE FIRST DRAFT & WHAT LIES THERE

So, if you've been keeping up with me (which you might not have since I'm not that interesting) you'll know that I just finished my first draft of The Scion. It was fun, it was exciting and it was awesome. Then, after typing 'the end' in shiny caps and dancing and squeeing in delight, it hit me. It's not done. The fantastic (and terrifying) thing about writing is that you're never done. And if you think you're done, you're fooling yourself.

And I have news for you folks: the first draft will never be perfect. Even if you outline. Even if you spent months planning, and re-planning and making complicated logistical diagrams the size of China. When you write 'the end' the first time, that just means you're getting a break. In a few days (or weeks) you will have work to do. But how do you know what work you have to do?

Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you have no idea and in your eyes your baby is the sparkliest, most intelligent, most beautiful strange vampire/human hybrid that never walked (or crawled) the earth. (Also, this is a lie. LIE.) So, to balance out your clearly biased opinion, you need to ship it off to beta readers. Don't tell them what to look for. If they're smart enough, they'll know. (And they should be smart, FYI.) They'll find that plot hole, or this character inconsistency, or they'll tell you: um, dude, THIS MAKES NO SENSE. WTF?! (Except, nicer. Always be nice.)

So my advice: have fun with your first draft. You're going to have to fix it anyway. Jot down thing you know  you'll have to fix and during your first read through, go back and fix it. Then when it's as shiny as you can make it, send it off to beta readers. That is all.

THE FREAK OUT: PART ONE

So I've just started my read through of The Scion. The first one. Please refer below for an idea of how it went. (Also, regular, intelligent semi-intelligent posts will resume soon. Promise.)

THE DIFFERING STAGES OF MADNESS

STAGE ONE: determination
You are pumped. You are prepared. You are a little daunted. But you think it's doable. Twenty thousand words in week is doable. You sit down, stare at your screen and mentally scream, go! This lasts about an hour before everything goes to hell.
STAGE TWO: avoidance
The internet has all of a sudden sprouted all of these lovely gifts. Twitter! AIM! Yahoo! Blog posts! Deviantart! Everything and anything except Microsoft Word, which is really what you're supposed to be focused on. This can last anywhere from an hour, to the entirety of your madness.
STAGE THREE: confidence
You're in about three thousand words and stuff is happening. Real stuff. Shit's hitting the fan left and right. You can do this. You might actually finish on time.
STAGE FOUR: panic
Everything that you're writing is garbage. Why would anyone want to read this crap? IT  MAKES NO SENSE. Your career as a writer? ITS OVER. And it never even started. You stare at the screen, torn between sobbing and just getting to the part where you can write 'THE END'.
STAGE FIVE: relief
YOU FINISHED. The end has been typed. It might be crap. It might be swill. BUT ITS DONE. This is the part where you proceed to get up, dance like a mad person, and scream it to the world (or Twitter). You email the completed version to yourself, close Microsoft Word, and force yourself not to think about how, once your betas get a hand on it, you're going to be doing this all over again.

EDIT: Because I am still giddy and high (and chanting 'I'm done!' over and over again in my head) I spent a very long time making this! Click on it to make it bigger.

SUMMARY OF THE SCION

So I've been promising to post up a summary of The Scion forever and ever and never got around to it. Until now. I actually dug up my pre-NaNoWriMo query, tweaked it (with help from the amazing Steph) and voila, I have a summary! So for all you wonderful people who left such nice, encouraging comments on Friday Night Writes and Teaser Tuesdays, here is The Scion (in summary): 

Sixteen year old Behzad is many things—heir to the king of the Ancients, alcoholic, and kidnap victim. But the one thing she has never been is human. She’s doesn’t blend in with her human peers. When she reunites with her father after spending four years with her kidnappers, she fails to fit in with her own kind.

Alone, except for her two adoptive human brothers, she struggles to come to terms and accept a normal life. But when she starts seeing a man out of the corner of her eye and her dizziness becomes increasingly frequent and painful she realizes that might be impossible. And when she is ripped out of the human world and into the Divide, she is certain.

Now she must make a a choice: do as the Ancients charge her and fight to end an eternity old war or continue to seek normalcy.

TEASER TUESDAY XII

Teaser Tuesday again! This scene takes place right after Behzad's stayed up all night. She's been talking with her Familiar when her brothers' barge in. Enjoy! (Also, I will get a summary of this story up, within the week, before my life is taken over by school again.)

“What,” she croaked out. “What are you two doing up?”

If possible, Adil’s brow rose higher.

“Fajr,” he said matter-of-factly. She stared.

“You know,” he continued. “The dawn prayer.”

Blink.

“Oh,” she said.

“Definitely awkward,” Annahya chuckled. The last time that Behzad had been in a masjid was May. The last time she had prayed? When she was eleven. She knew Mihangel prayed. But then Mihangel did everything he was supposed to.

She was her father’s bastard child. Even if he had been Muslim, she doubted he would have prayed regularly, if at all.

“So what crazy psycho is messing with your head?” Ali asked, taking a hesitant sip from her coffee. “And is that why you’re up?”

She eyed him for a minute before taking the mug from him and taking a gulp.

“I’m up because I never sleep,” she responded, and dropped her cigarette into the ash tray. “Want one?”

He took the proffered cigarette and the lighter.

“Adil?” He put up his hand as if to fend her off and shook his head.

“He smokes to cope. I don’t need to cope. I deal.”

“I didn’t ask for why,” she muttered. “So damn snippy.”

“Isn’t he?” Ali grinned and took a drag. “Damn, I needed that.”

Annahya scooted back hastily, moving out of the way before he sat on – or through – her. “So you don’t sleep?” Adil asked, taking a seat next to his brother. “Ever?”

“I dose every now and then,” she said dryly.

“Hmm.” He frowned and leaned forward, his legs swinging over the edge of the table. “Interesting.”

“Not really,” Ali chuckled. Adil grinned tucking a stray hair behind his ear. They had the same hair, curly and black. But where hers was long, his was cropped short and held at the nape of his neck. Ali’s was a mess that seemed to defy control, falling around his face.

“Tried pills?” Ali asked, leaning back and blowing out a stream of smoke.

“The old man won’t let me. Says I have a problem with addiction.” That didn’t bother her. Much. She didn’t want sleep. Sleep meant nightmares and demons and terrifying half faces that she knew but couldn’t digest.

What she wanted was to forget everything. The kidnapping. The four years. The six months that she’d spent on the run. She wanted to pretend that she was twelve years old again and could spend her days running through the woods, being chased by her father. She wanted warm fires and good books and thinking she was special.

You don’t always get what you want.

She put the cigarette out and hopped off the table, heading for the coffee machine.

No. You definitely didn’t get what you wanted.

“Do you have an extra mug?” Ali asked. He looked hopeful, a shy smile lighting up his features, cigarette dangling from between chapped, thin fingers.

Guilt reared up in her throat, blocking it, swelling like a tumor. Ali didn’t care that she wasn’t twelve anymore.

“I, uh, I,” she gestured dumbly to the china cabinets. “I’ve got goblets.”

He shrugged. “Sounds good.”

“I’ll have one, too,” Adil said. He had scooted back until his spine was pressed up against the glass. His bare feet stuck out over the edge, at the end of long, thin legs. They knocked together haphazardly, moving to some silent rhythm in his head.

“Sure,” she said, turning away quickly. The pot was filled to the rim with coffee. The china cabinet was locked and after a moments consideration she broke the lock, twisting the delicate looking knob sharply.

“Won’t someone be angry?” Ali asked. She glanced over her shoulder – he was puffing nervously again.

“Stop doing that,” she replied. “You look like a fish. And no. They expect me to be a crazy bitch.”

THROUGH 2009 AND WHAT I FOUND THERE

I cannot believe tomorrow will be 2010 (in fact I'm that for some people around the world, it is 2010). 2009 has flown by so ridiculously fast. Stuff has happened. More interesting stuff has happened. I've met amazing people, writers, more people and writers. I wrote a book (OMGLAIJSDFLJAKLFDAS!!!!), started a second book, lost it and started it again. I learned, I loved, I learned more and loved more.

So! Awesome things that happened in 2009.
1) Started The Pawn: Technically, I started The Pawn in 2008, but it didn't really kick off until 2009. Writing it was one of the best experiences of my entire life. I wrote nearly 100k of the story between June and August (THREE MONTHS!). Almost every night I stayed up until one or two o'clock in the morning chatting with the amazing people from Absolute Write here and here. I blasted music, sat in a chair or on the ground and made what had lived in my head for almost a year, appear in the real world. On paper. Do you have any idea how awesome that is?!

2) Finished The Pawn: It wrapped up at about 150,000 words. But still. It finished! It was a coherent (albeit really long) piece of fiction that had a beginning, middle and end in that order! It also is the reason I'm now an English major - it helped me decide what I want to do, for serious, for the rest of my life. I want to do this - make ideas real, type on a computer, consort with super awesome writerly types.

3) Found Absolute Write: If you haven't hit Absolute Write, you really should. Right. Now. I found some of the most amazing people - friends, really - who are not only so sweet you could make yummy cakes out of them, they also are amazingly talented and are going places. Fast. They also know, really, really know, what it means to be a writer. They understand the doubt, the process, the hardship and laughter and smiles and tears that all come with the job. It's not just a hobby and they get it. They really do. So to all my AW peeps (both OPWFTRS and TWIFTIES alike) thank you, thank you, thank you!

4) Made amazing friends in RL: I'm not a loner (most of the time) so yeah, I have friends in real life (I do. Really. Please believe me! :D). I started out the year, kind of a loner, freshman at college, and different. I ended the year being friends with some of the most amazing people you will ever meet in your entire life. Seriously. We're going to take over the world together. You'll see!

5) Realized (yet again) how Blessed I am: 2008 was hard. I started a new school, my father passed away; I just had a lot of crap to deal with. But with hardship comes ease. 2009 showed me that. I kept getting hit in the face over and over again with how amazing my family was. I have supportive, strong sisters. I have an empowering mother who doesn't let anything get in her, or our, way. I have cousins and aunts and uncles who believe in me, us and themselves. I have friends that care about and love me. So yes, a lot of crappy things happened that I may never recover from. But, a lot of amazing things happened, too. The most amazing of all is that I'm conscious enough to know that I'm and enjoy being Blessed.

Wow. That was way way longer than I intended. O.O Anyway - thank you all for making 2009 so spectacularly fabulous. See you in 2010!

TEASER TUESDAY XI

I cannot believe that I've been doing Teaser Tuesday for so long, now. It's strange and amazing and I've gotten to know so many wonderful, amazing people through this. (I really should write a thank you post one day...) Today is another excerpt from The Scion. Oh. Also - the picture today is different. Because I was fooling around in Photoshop today instead of writing, I conjured up a cover for my book. I always do it - for some reason, it makes the writing process more complete for me.

Don't judge me. Anyway, on to the teaser!

“This is not the balcony,” Annahya said from her spot beside her.

No. No it wasn’t. The only thing she could think that was even remotely similar to this landscape was desert. Barren, hard ground spread in all directions around her. Skeletons of what she thought once might have been trees rose out of the ground to spear and scratch at a burned sky. Thorny brambles hung like snakes from their branches and littered the ground.

“No,” Behzad said shakily as she rose to her feet. “Definitely not.”

“Don’t you like it?”

She spun around and nearly fell over. Her legs felt like jelly, unsure and wobbly. Annahya gripped her forearm, steadying her.

“You,” Behzad breathed. All she could see was the white hair and blue robes; everything else seemed to blur. She squinted, trying to bring his face into focus, but it remained blurry, like an image seen through wet glass.

“Indeed,” he laughed. “Me.”

This wasn’t a drunk delusion. She was sure of that. Mostly sure. It was more vivid than anything she’d ever imagined before. Even the heat of scorched land and air burned her lungs.

If this is a delusion, it’s a damn good one.

“You don’t know, do you?” He chuckled and swayed a little. “No one’s told you what a ride you’re in for?”

“Yeah – you are definitely a product of my mind,” she muttered and stepped back.

“So they’re letting you think you’re crazy?”

“I’m letting myself think I’m crazy.”

“What a sad girl you are. Much sadder than you were four years ago. At least then you had a little drive.”

“Girls who’d rather be dead tend to lack that,” she quipped and stepped back yet again.

“Oh, don’t do that,” he said with a laugh and beckoned her with his hand. With a sick, twisting feeling in her stomach she watched the space between shrink without either of them taking a step.

“Much better.”

“This is the worst hallucination I’ve ever had,” she muttered.

“I suppose it would be,” he was chuckling again, his voice smooth and heavy. “But the next one is going to be a little bit worse, I think. Something to convince you that I am real.”

“I can’t wait.”

TEASER TUESDAY X

I can't believe I actually have something to post this Tuesday! Luckily, I have finally started up on my plan to write this break, and even got in on some of the FNW action at Absolute Write. I'll be getting to everybody elses as soon as I can!

“You keep going that slow,” she said. “And I’ll keep letting you hit me.”

He scowled at her, incensed that a drunk sixteen year old girl was toying with him and moved faster. For a moment, Behzad considered letting him get in the faster hit, but the choice was taken out of her hands. He clipped her in the jaw, and she reeled back, shocked that he’d actually landed a hit without her letting him.

Murmurs spread like ripples through a pond. She growled, shaking her head, trying to get rid of the ringing in her ears that had started all of a sudden.

His next move came faster and he nearly slammed his fist into his nose. Annahya would probably claim that luck was the only reason she even managed to catch his wrist before it connected. With a snarl that sounded vicious, even to her, she jerked him forward and kneed him in the stomach. He grunted at the force she was able to pack in one movement, but she wasn’t done. Her hands gripped the side of his head, and she slammed it against her knee, before bringing it with a forceful boom to the floor.

She was squatting now, her hand still tangled in his hair, and noticed the blood. With a sigh, she jerked his head up. His nose was broken, blood sliding out of it in dark rivulets. His mouth, which hung open, was also filled with blood. His eyes were glazed over and unfocused.

Behzad sighed in disgust and let his head drop back to the floor. She stumbled to her feet and put her hands out to steady her as the floor tilted up. When she was on her feet, she realized the room had emptied. The outcome of the fight had been faster than what most had wanted, and in the time that it had taken her to stand and steady herself, they had collected their bets and left.

Most of them anyway.

It took her a moment to realize who was leaning against the far wall, arms crossed against his chest. But the moment she did, she groaned. Mihangel, or rather, General Mihangel.

“Looking for this?” he asked, holding up her bottle of rum. Whoever she had handed it to had finished off half of what was left. Not a lot to work with when she still had six hours of daylight to contend with.

“Are you going to give it back?” she asked, walking towards him.

“Considering the fact that you shouldn’t be drinking?” He raised a skeptical eyebrow before upending the bottle and the rest of her day’s coping mechanism. “No.”