Completed Revisions for Book 5

It was a somewhat long Sunday (and certainly wasn't helped by the poor performance of the Cincinnati Bengals), but I finally managed to complete my revisions of Wait for Dusk. They were emailed to my editor before 11 pm last night and I was glad to see the book out of my hands again. This one was a rough one to write as I was balancing something that was new for me to write and was faced with an ending that I love as a writer but hate as a lover of my characters. My fingers are crossed that my editor likes the book as well and I don't have to go in for another pass at revisions. That would result in a delay of the book, which no on wants.

In a quick recap:
5 new chapters were added
More than 15,000 new words were added
Countless thousand more words were deleted
Scores of adverbs were obliterated
Dozens of dialogue modifiers were destroyed
There were no new deaths in the revision that weren't already in the original
There was one death in the original that I was unable to reverse in the revision

I have to admit that both Pray for Dawn and Wait for Dusk have a new layer of darkness to them that has left me shaking my head. There are deaths in both books that I wasn't originally planning on. While I have to admit now that I think that they work quite well for the stories, I'm sorry to see these characters go. As a result, I have made it my duty that Book 6 will end on some kind of happy note. I have no idea how I am going to do this, but there will be happiness in Book 6! That's not to say that there won't be the usual dose of Mira's violence, sarcasm, and general chaos. I can't write a Dark Days book without those elements. However, I want to find a way to end Book 6 on a lighter note, because there are many dark days ahead for my beloved characters.

In the meantime, I am now playing catch-up with everything that has been neglected. I have only one package left sitting on my counter, waiting to be mailed. If you are expecting something in the mail from me, it should be arriving any day now. I am mostly caught up on my email and I even managed to complete the last of my holiday shopping (I think). Something last minute will probably crop up, but I think I'm done. Now, I'm down to cleaning the house and turning my thoughts to plotting out Book 6. I hope to start writing on the new book at the beginning of the New Year, if not sooner.

I do have my holiday decorations up, but then I had them up extremely early this year due to my move in November. It was just easier to put the tree up and the decorations out when everything was already spread around the house. I dread trying to find a place for it all later when I have to take it down again. Here is picture of my tree. It is artificial, but I hope to have a real one next year -- though I might regret it with two relatively young cats. Also, for the curious, yes, that is Tinkerbell as my tree topper. Her wings change colors. I am currently looking for a Jack Skellington tree topper so I rotate from year to year. The lights on the tree are red and white. So if I'm feeling somewhat evil, I can turn on only the red lights and have a bloody vampire Christmas tree.

Before I leave you, I have a special gift. Many of my readers are big Simon's Cat fans. They are great little videos and I am happy to report that he was kind enough to supply viewers with a new one just for the holidays!



Enjoy and have a great night!