you wouldn’t believe we’re in the middle of a massive drought right now. It’s been raining for four days straight, and the garden is looking decidedly soggy. In fact, we’ve had so much rain, the pool overflowed and there was six inches of water floating around the outside of it. Anyone who knows anything about above ground pools knows this isn’t a good thing, so yesterday I was out there in the rain, digging trenches to get the water away from the pool supports. Such fun. (not!) 🙂 We didn’t get snow like many other mountain areas did, though, and that’s a bit of a shame. Would have like to have seen a bit of the wet white stuff (it would have made a nice change from the rain!)
Writing news–well, I continue to struggle on with Mercy. Thanks to Chris (a fellow lulu), I now know the problem I’ve been having with this book. There’s no McGuffin. There’s nothing vital for the characters to lose. Which is, of course, a major problem. I now have said McGuffin (it was in the book all the time, I just didn’t take it that one step further) , but it’s going to take a major rewrite to fix it and I am not going to do that now. My aim at the moment is to just get this book finished so I can start the next Riley. I’ve finally rolled over the 300 page mark on Mercy, and I have maybe another 60 or so pages to go. Which means it’ll end up being short, but I already know of two scenes I have to add, plus there’s the rewrite to fix the McGuffin problem. So, hopefully, it’ll push up closer to the 400 page mark by the time I’ve totally finished. Although right now, this book is uncontracted, so it doesn’t really matter anyway.
As for Riley, I still have no idea how to actually start this one. I think I’m just going to have to sit down and let the muse ramble on until we hit an idea that sticks. I have the rest of the story ready to go–it’s just the darn beginning that’s causing problems. Which is odd, because in every other book, it’s been the other way around!
Oh, and keep an eye on my website, because I’ll be putting up a new contest soon–this one featuring an ARC of Destiny Kills 🙂