Gone, Daddy Gone

mood: dancey
pandora/ipod: "gone, daddy gone" by the violent femmes

Fifteen smiles, oh yes!

Cuz it's gone, daddy gone,
This book is gone!

That's right. As of yesterday, I sent a complete, readable draft of TEN off to my readers. Unreal. Unbelieveable. Unimaginable. I wrote a novel in eight weeks. Now I still have time for feedback and another round of revisions before it goes to my editor. *passes out*

Where she is now, I can only guess.
Cuz it's gone, daddy, gone,
This book is gone!

Sorry. I'll stop singing.

Anyway, this manuscript was a rough journey for me. When I got the offer and realized what the time frame was, I of course said, "Yes, I can do that." Now, whether I believed that deep down in my heart is a different story. There were moments when I aboslutely believed I could do it, others when I was convinced I couldn't. Up. Down. Up. Down. The emo-coaster ride of publishing.

At one point, I wrote a query letter for TEN. I know, that sounds crazy, but when I get muddled with a manuscript, I find writing that concise pitch like you do in a query letter really focuses me. I did it with POSSESS, too, and that blurb - which is currently on Goodreads - ended up on the jacket cover copy for the novel, in a slightly modified form. Crazy, right?

Anyway, so when I got completed twisted around in the middle of writing TEN, I did the same thing. Wrote a blurb.

It was supposed to be the weekend of their lives – three days on Henry Island at an exclusive house party. Best friends Meg and Minnie each have their own reasons for wanting to be there, both of which involve Kamiak High’s most eligible bachelor, T.J. Fletcher. But what starts out as a fun-filled weekend turns dark and twisted after the discovery of a DVD with a sinister message: Vengeance is mine.

Suddenly, people are dying and the teens are cut off from the outside world. No electricity, no phones, no internet, and a ferry that isn’t scheduled to return for two days. As the deaths become more violent and the teens turn on each other, can Meg find the killer before more people die? Or is the killer closer to her than she could ever imagine?

It saved me, reminded me what the hell I was writing about, what the stakes were, and where the tension came from. And helped me finish the draft.

So there it is. My exercise in writing a novel in 10 weeks. Almost done. Want to add it on Goodreads? :D