Do you really call two weeks of cleaning house and writing a vacation?  Maybe I should say my break is over, referring only to my children.  Just as well too because I am terribly missing them–especially my little peanut.  He gives the best hugs in the world, and I haven’t had any in some time.  I told him he had a lot of hugging to do when he gets home.  I can’t wait!

So, I sent in the revised Stiletto entry, right?  Then I entered that entry (well the first, slightly condensed five pages) for RD’s WAW (Romance Diva’s We All Win contest) and several opinions were kinda average.  I hate average; I try not to do average.  That is easy.  I’ve been average my whole life, and I’m looking for a little greatness here.  Besides, I *know* the piece is great, it’s just a matter of whether or not I displayed it correctly.

Which has me thinking I started it wrong again.  I cut out the first chapter based on advice from one of the Stiletto judges.  But starting where I did and adding enough backstory to have it make sense is too much.  It slows down the action.  Then I was thinking of the advice I got from Gemma Halliday (yes, *that* Gemma Halliday).  She said she likes her mysteries to be linear and to start with the action.

Where is the action?

See, a couple of people kept saying the action began when my heroine enters the reality show house, but I kept disagreeing.  I felt a look into her ordinary life was important.  Not just to add scenes but because how she lived before is a direct contradiction of how she has to live in the house.  Everything she has to become is all she’s against.  If I don’t show her as herself, in reality, without internal monologue, doesn’t it take away from what I’m trying to establish?

I believe it does, and now I believe it even more.  What I’ve learned through all of this (so, I guess the revised entry is a “mistake”, and I’ve learned a lesson–grew) is that I was correct in wanting to show some of her life, but originally maybe I was showing too much.  One chapter of beforeness is fine, and that chapter will include her makeover aftermath and interactions with her dead friend.  Those things are important to the story, well the friend is, and no one who read the WAW entry picked up on any of it.

I guess I could totally rewrite the scene to reflect it all doesn’t have considering it was written as is with different intentions originally, but I like this other way better.  The scenes I have planned were my two funniest ones anyway, plus, with my heroine talking with her sister and dead friend, it gives me opportunities to add in the backstory through questions and clarifications–dialogue rather than monologue.  Much more effective!

So, today I will be spending a bit more time with my characters, creating these sheets for them based on some info I just got from EPIC.  Then come Monday it’s back to making the changes and finishing the damn book.  It’s gonna have to be a decent first draft thought, cause I don’t want to see this damn thing for a couple of months after.

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