Critique Partner to the Rescue

 

       Hello, gentle readers! Hope you are all well and staying safe!

       Well, my lovely, talented, and so very intelligent critique partner has, once again, talked me off the proverbial ledge! And it’s a good thing, too!

        As you all know, I’ve been working on Wife Unexpected, the fourth book in The Wives of Bravado County series…and…let’s just say it’s not going as well as I want it to. I have ripped out the entire first chapter and started over. It wasn’t right and that was something I felt deep in my bones. My critique partner felt it, too, so…the change was necessary. Usually, my beginnings are fun and pretty much what I expect (I always enjoy starting a new story…it’s exciting to get to know my characters, set up the conflict, etc.). With this story, I started on the wrong foot, so to speak. It’s all been fixed now and the new beginning is much, much better than the old (I will admit the loss of words was devastating, but seriously, the story needs to start in the right place with the right tone). 

        That being said, since I rewrote Chapter One and changed so much, my problem then became Chapter Two. Yes, I’d already written it, but it doesn’t quite fit with the changes I made to the previous chapter.

        Now, just to understand how I write my stories, I generally write the scenes as they come to me then puzzle them together, and for this particular story, I have already written a number of scenes that occur further along in the book. I just write up to those points, make a few changes where necessary and keep going. You know. Puzzle the pieces together.

        So, during our usual Friday night zoom chat, we went over it and she…started with the questions. Oh my gosh! So many questions, things I hadn’t even thought about, but the biggest ones were “Who is Tysen? What drives him? What does he want? Does he even know? ”Apparently, those questions (and so many others) was exactly what I needed. 

        I didn’t quite ‘know’ Tysen well enough to write him. Faith, my heroine, I knew. She’s been with me for quite some time, and I love her for who she is, but him? I learned so many things about him while my critique partner and I talked (I took a lot of notes) and it seems to have fixed the problem I was having so now…it’s on to re-writing Chapter Two. I’m ready! Whooo-hoooo!

        Stay well! Stay safe! And remember to spread kindness wherever you go!

Marie

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

 Isolation can happen in a city, at work, or anywhere people gather.  Those are the same places that relationships grow.  

Forever a resident of Ireland, Eleanor Oliphant has no intentions of disrupting her strategic and purposeful regime of work and weekends of pizza and soothing vodka.  She has a respectable job, which many may consider boring, a subsidized place to call home, a weekly call to her mum, and her life is plain and simple.  

This is her life-long plan to keep the past from distracting the rest of her life.  

Her coworkers occasionally whisper or make jokes about her detachment, otherwise they ignore her for anything other than work.  The new IT worker, Raymond, is the exception.  

Eleanor's computer has an issue, and Raymond eventually gets to her desk.  She's not impressed with his careless dress and sloppy attitude.  It surprises her when he somehow inserts himself in small parts of her days until they help rescue an older man who's fallen on the sidewalk and needs an assist.  

Raymond is super friendly, ready to give a hand, and always open for a new friend.  Eleanor is the opposite, so she grudgingly responds on limited terms.  Besides, she recently decided to remake herself from the outside, to hide her ugly past, and find the perfect man she saw in an ad for a local concert. How hard can it be?

This is a lovely story of unassuming colleagues getting to know each other, while having no intentions.  As details of their lives are slowly exposed, their need and respect grow.  It's this that helps Eleanor realize what she has to do to be whole and happy and Raymond is a specific ingredient. 

Happy reading,

Dawn Kunda

 

I Love Early Mornings!

 

        Hello, gentle readers! Hope you are all well and staying safe!

        It’s a beautiful morning here in sunny Arizona. The sun is just starting to come up. I love this time of day (I must because I’m up early to greet the sun every morning!).

        Actually, I started getting up early so I could write…without taking anything away from family time (our son was young at the time) and before the day job takes whatever brain power I have. It’s just me and dogs at this hour. They’re sleeping on the futon behind me, having already been fed, given fresh water and their treat (hahahahaha, yes I am well trained by my dogs). I’ve been doing it so long that I can no longer sleep in, even on weekends (sleeping in means 4:45 or 5 o’clock).

        It’s all good. After doing it so long, my brain is trained. It knows that this is the time to write and sometimes, I’ll wake up with words already in my head. I love that!

        So what am I working on? The next book in the Wives of Bravado County series. It's called Wife Unexpected. This is Faith’s story. You might remember her from the last book. She was the best friend of the heroine in Wife by Surprise and well, she needs her own story. The words are flowing, which is always a good thing BUT after completing Chapter One, I realized I started in the wrong place. This happens (all too often, it seems). It’s a little frustrating but a story has to start in the right place so after finishing the corrections/edits in The Madam and Mr. MacLean so I can submit it on time, I got right back into it…and ripped out the entire first chapter to rewrite it. Works better now though the loss of all those words hurt my heart! I am now back on track and much happier. The daily word count has been surprising, even for me (I’m a slow but steady writer). I have an hour to write before I need to get ready for the day job and not to toot my own horn but I have been nailing it! That makes me happy, too!

        That being said, I should get back to it before I need to start my Sunday chores. 

        Stay well! Stay safe! And remember to spread kindness wherever you go! 

 Marie