taking a break from worry

If there ever was a time to take my mind off the stresses of the present and focus on a pleasant topic, well, it's now.

I promised I'd talk about my other love: words and writing them. I am currently in the process of doing the final edits on a 400+ page (double-spaced, that is!) YA fantasy/adventure novel. This venture has consumed more of my time in the past five years than even Ruby Red. Maybe I'm slow, but my average editing speed is 3-4 pages every 15 minutes. At currently around page 165, I have a ways to go. You do the math!

I loosely based the setting for the book on the way of life in early Renaissance Italy. In a nutshell, it's a classic trio of characters: a prince, a beggar, and a gypsy-like maiden, who join together under unusual and frightening circumstances to save the City from a ring of fire surrounding its walls, and the prince's parents from a mysterious mercenary who has turned their people against them.

I like happy endings, so my book has one. The prince learns to be a humble leader, the beggar becomes who he was meant to be, and the maiden discovers a secret that will change her life forever.

Of course every author is the biggest fan of his or her work, so though I like my story, the best praise I've ever gotten from those who have read portions of the manuscript was the praise my (then) 16-year-old baby brother gave me when he said he had stayed up until 2:00 a.m. reading the rest of my book with a flashlight so that our parents wouldn't catch him up that late!!!