Why I'm Not Writing My Sequel

I have officially made a life altering decision.

Yeah, it's not really life altering. Or official. In fact, it's almost boring. But it's sort of a big deal for me.

I'm not writing the sequel to Chasing Echoes.

DON'T PANIC. (I think I'm saying this more to myself). I don't mean I'm not writing it ever; I just mean I'm shelving my partially-written manuscript for an indeterminate amount of time so I can work on a different project. (Yeah, I hear it too. It sounds like a sugarcoated way of saying forever).

Why OH WHY would I quit right in the middle of a series? Especially considering Black Lilies is completely outlined, with every major plot point mapped out including the awesome semi-cliffhanger ending?

At this point, I'm tempted to barrage you with a slew of sensible, rational reasons. Like how from a business perspective, it simply doesn't make sense to write the sequel to Chasing Echoes when the current YA market is flooded with fantasy and paranormal romance. Or I could give you my personal excuses; how my husband just started back to college and I'm losing hours upon hours every week helping him with his essays and editing his papers, making that December deadline for Black Lilies seem more and more impossible.

And while the above is all true, it's not the real reason I'm abandoning my novel. The real reason is simple.

My heart's not into it.

I can already hear it. "WHAT?! You're going to leave thousands of readers hanging because your HEART'S NOT INTO IT? Isn't that, like, SO UNPROFESSIONAL?!" My response to this make-believe-question is, "Uh, yeah." (And also, it's only 1,182 readers, according to my recent sales report, so quit being so dramatic Fake Person in My Head).

Here's the thing. I'm not a full-time writer. I teach full-time, which any teacher can tell you is enough to fry your brain on a daily basis, and I write in the little snippets of free time that I scrap together. I have enough love for writing that I'll make the time to do it. But I can't--or won't--write something out of obligation. And that's what Black Lilies has become to me--an obligation. It sucks that it feels this way, because it's not a soggy sequel that's designed to simply take up space between book 1 and book 3. It's a beautiful little story in of its own right. But that doesn't matter. It feels like one big fat homework assignment. Yes, it's an appealing assignment that has its fun moments, but it's an assignment nonetheless, complete with deadlines and a ton of accountability.

Long story short: I wrote Chasing Echoes because I wanted to. I'm writing Black Lilies because I feel like I have to.

And that's not okay. Not only does this affect the quality of my novel, but it's messing with my quality of life, in which I feel this constant nagging guilt when my word count bar isn't budging. I can't even enjoy a simple game of Monopoly with my kids without that little voice chiding me "You should be working on your sequel." (To be fair, Monopoly's a horrid game anyway. But really, the nagging voice makes it worse, especially if I'm stuck in jail for three turns in a row). 

Now if Chasing Echoes was swept up by one of the Big Five (Penguin/Random House, Macmillan, HarperCollins, Hachette or Simon & Schuster) and I was under contract to finish the series, that would be a different story. I would have to quit teaching to be a full-time writer, and I'd be fueled to work on Black Lilies, because it would be my livlihood, and there would be an entire industry who has faith in the series. But until I can make a living as a writer, I will no longer write anything that feels like I'm "forcing" myself through. 

From this moment I hereby decree that I will write only what I feel an itch to write. Like Ray Bradbury aptly put it, my intuition knows what it wants to write, and it's time for me to get out of the way.

And what do I want to write at this moment? Well, I want to get away from the clutches of a series, and write a stand-alone novel called The Apathetics (working title), a dark and gritty dystopian with a ton of heart. It's still too new for me to give out specific details, so for now I'll just say that it has a totally unique premise, and I'm really excited about it. As of now I've written a general outline of the entire novel, a profile of all the characters, and a few pivotal scenes (including the end, which means the novel has a sense of direction). There are a few more decisions I need to make with the story line, and then I will be ready to start the first draft.

I will NOT be setting a deadline for The Apathetics. Well, not until I get closer to finishing it (which at this point my friend Mr. Moore can step in and start smacking me in the head with his shoe to get me across the finish line) (my editor will help with this too). I want this experience to be like Chasing Echoes, where I work on the manuscript at my leisure and actually enjoy the process. Once I give myself a deadline, it becomes a "job" instead of a beloved past-time. So if this book takes me ten years to write, so be it. That gives me more time to appreciate my weird kids and enjoy life with my awesome family. I love writing, but writing isn't all that I am. I'm done shoving so many other important things aside for the sake of some self-imposed deadline. I want to actually enjoy playing Monopoly with my little weirdos and going directly to jail and not collecting my much-deserved $200 (seriously, this game is barbaric, why do people play it?). 

And who knows? Since this new novel actually gets my blood pumping, maybe it will be the magical one. As much as I love and appreciate the miracles of small house publishing, maybe this new novel will be the one that reaches the Big Five, giving Chasing Echoes a chance at something bigger and better instead of barely treading water in an over-flooded market of YA fantasy. Like my sister told me, I owe it to Chasing Echoes--my first love--to give this new idea a shot. I owe it to the future of Black Lilies too. I still love my sweet little sequel; I just need something to make it exciting for me again.

I'll end with this final thought, from elisefallson.blogspot.com:

"So I'm here to say, it's OKAY. It's okay to shelve your manuscript. And it is by no means an indicator that you suck or have failed as a writer. It's just the opposite, it's a sign that you're maturing as a writer and know when it's time to pull the plug to move on to bigger and better writing. Shelving your work breaks down the brick walls of guilt and frees your mind to develop new ideas on a healthier and more positive foundation. And guess what? Shelving your work doesn't have to be permanent, but it can be empowering."

So I'm going to resist the urge to apologize to my readers for not delivering them the sequel to Chasing Echoes. Because you know what? I think you're going to love what's coming next.

Last 200 Words - October

Okay, I'm totally cheating. As you know, I quit doing the WIP Marathon reports because of all the reasons I explained in this post. But I'll admit it, I'm still itching to post a tiny bit of progress, especially when...well...I'm actually making progress (now's a good time to mention that my idea of "progress" is moving up by a mere K or two a month, and that pitiful word counts are my modus operandi). So while I can't commit to writing full-fledged WIP Marathon reports once a month, I've decided that when all of the WIP Marathoners post their reports, I'm going to simply post my last 200 words. I'll also mention how many words I've added this month. Unless it's pathetic. Then I'll conveniently forget and leave that part off.

Word Count for October: Around 10K of Black Lilies. No, I didn't do that all in one month. This is my TOTAL word count since I started the novel LAST WINTER. I'm in bad shape here.

Last 200 Words:

“Don’t patronize me. I’m not a child. And I’ll tell you my name as soon as you tell me what’s going on.” I crossed my arms and stepped back in a show of defiance, accidentally dropping the assignment that was crumpled in my hand. Moving quickly, I reached down to pick it up.

“What’s that?” he asked, leaning forward to look at the paper.

“It’s my ‘lesson’, as you like to call it,” I bit out. “It’s what I’m supposed to be working on right now, but now I will get a zero because of your little impromptu performance of the Star Spangled Banner.”

He squinted his eyes, examining it closer. “Let me see that.”

Why would he want my paper? There was barely anything written on it. I shrugged. “Here.”

I tried to hand it to him, but he didn’t move to take it. Instead, he tilted his head, as if trying to get a better view. His already pale-face turned white, and his bright eyes grew wide. “I know this writing.”

He jerked back, his fists clenched at his side.

“Tell me your name, clever girl.” 

I stood silent. 

“It’s you, isn’t it? You’re Aviva.” 

My mouth fell open, and he disappeared.

Nothing Says Happy Birthday Like Tasty Crickets

My birthday was a little over a week ago, and I have to say that this one was pretty wonderful. That morning when my students were entering first period, they loaded me up with brownies and birthday cards, and they sang to me. Horribly of course, but it was so freakin' sweet. I was stumped, wondering how they figured out it was my birthday. I found out later that Mr. Moore (my mischievous retired-teacher-friend) was subbing on our campus that week and had spilled the beans. I gave him an earful when I found out. Except for it was more like an eye-full since it was via texting.

Later that morning, Teri swung by my work and had a large caramel iced coffee from Jack in the Box delivered to my classroom. I guess that doesn't sound like a big deal, but the caramel-flavored one is my favorite, and it's been discontinued. She had to drive all the way to the Jack in the Box by the freeway to find a place that still had a little bit of the caramel syrup left. She also bought me two additional large coffees--sans the ice--and poured them into a bottle for me, so I could luxuriate in my favorite iced coffee a little longer before I lost them forever. 

When I came home from work, Clint, who likes to torture me with the present-opening process, made me work to win my gifts. I was given thirty seconds to run through the backyard and shoot as many clay pigeons as I could. Each clay pigeon had a gift taped to the inside. The catch was I had to watch out for "whammies"--clay pigeons that had "unconventional" gifts taped to them. The game was a blast (no pun intended). My favorite gift I won was this:

I think I about hyperventilated. I've been wanting some kind of gumball machine for my classroom for awhile, but this far exceeded anything I had imagined. Since I can't keep gum or candy in it (against school rules), Clint stuffed it with pencil toppers and miniature erasers. My students LOVE this thing. Clint got the machine from a company in China that manufactures candy dispensers for businesses, and he got all of the pencil toppers and erasers from Oriental Trading Company. Since he stuck with bulk items that were being clearanced out, each eraser ended up costing about two cents. When students put a quarter in, they get anywhere from 4 to 10 erasers. I'm planning to use the "profit" to buy more erasers.

Unfortunately, I did hit two whammy gifts. Whammy gift #1 landed me with three boxes of dehydrated crickets. On the plus side they came in a nice assortment of flavors (sour cream and onion, bacon and cheddar, and salt and vinegar). I gave them to students as prizes. I made a super big deal about it. "Now whoever does the best job on today's presentation wins a highly coveted, amazing prize. It's.....drumroll please.....some delicious crickets! Never say I don't love you." By the time Monday rolled around, my students were wondering what else they could do to win crickets, and I had to give them the bad news that we had run out. Seventh graders are awesome. 

Here's whammy gift #2:

This is Amelia. She's a Brittany--a hunting dog (primarily bird hunting). Clint and Elijah got their hunting licenses last month, and Clint's been pestering me ever since that he wants a hunting dog. One of the groups he and Elijah joined, Quail Forever, basically requires a hunting dog for their outings. You can always group up with others who have a dog, but it's not quite the same as having your own. While I understood all this, we already had three dogs. There was NO WAY IN HELL I was signing up for a fourth. So I told Clint that he was going to have to wait until Cricket (our nearly-11-year-old Corgi) passed away before getting his dog. 

Then I hit that stupid whammy. Which was clearly marked with a 'W', by the way. If I had hit the other two whammies, I would have ended up with a McDonalds frappuchino and a hug. BUT NO. I scored some crispy crickets and a damn dog. Yay me.

To be fair, I don't really notice the difference between three dogs and four. I think by the time you reach three you're already so saturated with mammals that adding one more into the mix is barely noticeable. Plus Clint's doing all the work of training her, so it's not so bad. Amelia is playful and super affectionate, and she's making it difficult to not like her.

Still, if we don't reign this pet-thing in soon, this is going to be us by next year:

(Clint texted me this photo the other day and I couldn't stop giggling)

Seriously, our household is a zoo. If there was ever any doubt, this is what I was dealing with while trying to read in the backyard this morning:

Tipsy and Fable--our obtrusive geese who are still struggling with the concept of personal space.

Tumbleweed Days

So I ran a Chasing Echoes booth at our local Hesperia Tumbleweed Days this weekend! (I'm doing a great job of keeping my locations anonymous). This is my...third event now? My entire family hung out with me all day, helping me with my booth and giving me emotional support. Shannon was amazing. I think she single-handedly sold 80% of my books. My mom was pretty awesome too, pulling people in to watch the trailer. How am I this blessed? Anyway, here are a few pictures:

(This guy makes me feel tiny)

It was a great day (though by the end of it I was wiped out), and Tumbleweed Lakes is such a wonderful place to run a booth. There are so many trees that even at 95 degrees it never felt too hot. At least, not the kind of hot where you're seeing mirages out in the desert and stuff. Unlike my damn fever, where I was hallucinating that Voldemort from Harry Potter was trying to eat me in my sleep.

Okay, I need to let that whole fever thing go. But it was brutal, guys. B-R-U-T-A-L.

Chasing Echoes Trailer

Last week I asked Trinity, "What can I bribe you with to get you to make a trailer for Chasing Echoes?"

She immediately replied, "Sushi."

The girl is 15 years old, and she wants sushi. Whatever happened to pizza with extra cheese?

Anyway, I agreed to her terms, and here is the sweet little 90 second trailer Trinity created (be sure your volume is up):

On a related note, sushi ended up costing me $58, so I probably should have pushed for that pizza.

Summer Catch-Up

Look, I'm writing a post you guys. It's a post!

I went through a massive blog drought over summer. I can't explain why, since summer should be when I finally feel the freedom to write. But right from the onset I knew I didn't want to even look at my blog.

There's so much to talk about from this summer...it would make for a very long and boring post (and still might). So I'm just going to abbreviate the main things that happened:

• Grandma's Ashes: I flew to Cushing, Oklahoma to deliver my grandmother's ashes to her hometown. I made the trip with my half-sister Sarah. We stayed in a lovely hotel suite, swam at an awesome pool, enjoyed some nice dinners, had a little girl-time at the local bars, and met a lot of really cool people. Very memorably experience.
• My Niece Graduated! I guess this doesn't seem like a big deal, but it was for me. Not only am I close to my niece Cassidi, but she's the first of my and Shannon's kids to graduate. It makes me feel weepy--to think she's all grown up now, and sort of marks a new era. 
• Clint's Knee Surgery: Clint had knee surgery the first week of July and is out of work until October. The first week he couldn't walk and I learned what it feels like to do everything.
• Jamboree Days: I ran a Chasing Echoes booth in Crestline selling my books and some other related stuff (see here). It was fun! The only caveat was I was supposed to do the booth for two days, but I only lasted for one day before getting totally wiped out. In my defense, I was staying at my sister's house that weekend and her entire household (including my kids) were still up running around at 1:30 a.m., on a night that I was supposed to get up at 6:30 in the morning. Plus it was the 4th of July, so we were up watching fireworks and celebrating. And I had a crippled hubby who couldn't help me with the heavy-lifting.
• Comic-Con: Comic-Con was immensely fun--even better than last year (even with Clint on crutches--which he turned into assault rifles, by the way).
• Camping: This almost didn't happen due to Clint's parent's RV breaking down. But after spending over twelve hours fixing it, we ditched our original plans of camping in Oregon and, instead, found a beautiful campground outside of Lake Tahoe called "Snowflower." I could do an entire post just on that. It was gorgeous.
• Monopoly Tournament: Elijah participated in the Juniors Monopoly Tournament on the world's largest Monopoly board in San Jose. He didn't win, but the experience was awesome! We all stayed at the Hilton. Clint's parents were trapped in their room the morning of the tourney when their deadlock broke. Maintenance couldn't get them out, so they were forced to climb out the window onto the roof, down an emergency escape, and through a service door to get back to the lobby. I wish I was making this up.
• Dog Beach: I went to a dog beach for the first time with Shannon, Jeremy, my parents, and all the kids. A dog beach is just like a regular beach...with dogs.
• Ringworm: My whole family (except for Elijah) came home from camping with ringworm. I still have scars. 
• Writing: I didn't get a lick of writing done.
• Art: I drew with charcoal for the first time! And I dabbled with oil pastels too. I LOVE charcoal. My goodness where has this been my whole life? Here are my first two drawings: 

I have a ton of other pictures from summer but I'm too lazy to find/organize them.

That's about it. Now I'm back to work. We're in week 4, actually. It already feels like it's going so fast. And of course I've already slipped up in the classroom. Last week I told the class "In today's society you just don't see balls anymore." Of course we were talking about the setting for Cinderella, but it didn't matter--the class was howling (7th graders. *sigh*). Today I was tempted to play AC/DC's Big Balls to the class, since, like me, he's talking about parties and dances (ha!), but I thought that might be a little over the top.

Okay, a real song now. You've heard it before...it's pretty popular. When I focus too hard on the lyrics, it makes me sob like a baby.

Stars Across Time

Stars Across Time by Ruby Lionsdrake
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

About 3.5 stars.

This was a cute book, though I found the first half more exciting than the second half. I appreciated the strength and general kick-ass know-how of the protagonist, Andie. Her confidence and determination constantly kept me from feeling depressed or sorry for her, even when she was in predicaments that were truly bleak (such as being stripped down naked in a cave with a bunch of horny scumbags). Sometimes Andie struck me as a little too strong (unrealistically so), but overall she was likable, so no real complaints there.

The love interest, Theron, was adorable. I appreciated how the author chose to give him some sweet boy-like charm, instead of pigeoning him into the larger than life "bad boy" category the whole novel. Moments where Theron was nervous and wanting to impress Andie rang with a lot of sincerity.

One problem I had deals with the technicalities of time travel and a big contradiction that is present in this story. Near the beginning of the book, it is mentioned (I believe through Theron's narration) that kidnapping women from the past is illegal, because it can jack with the future's timeline. That is, a man might kidnap a woman from the past and return to his own timeline to discover that his best friend no longer exists...that whole conundrum. I agree with this premise 100%. This is one of time travel's more universal laws. Yet later in the book, one of Theron's lieutenants discovers that Andie, in her own timeline, (view spoiler)[has a son--one who invents something very important. For that reason Theron can not have Andie remain with him in the future. The mark she leaves in the past is far too important. (hide spoiler)] But how on earth could the lieutenant find this information about Andie's yet-to-occur past when she is STILL in the FUTURE with them? This was such a huge time travel violation that it was hard for me to overcome it enough to enjoy the rest of the story. Andie was stolen from her own time period. She disappeared from a campground at the age of thirty-something and was never found. Until she returns to her own timeline, any records concerning her should reflect that fact.

I did enjoy the dystopian world Lionsdrake created. It was an interesting mix of old and new, swaying from never before seen technology to horse drawn carriages. If a sequel to STARS ACROSS TIME were to come out, I'd give it a chance.