WIPpet Wednesday

What in the world is a WIPpet? I wondered that myself when it was suggested to me that I start doing these weekly posts. Here's the definition: A once weekly post about a current Work In Progress(WIP) where the only rule is that the post has to relate to the date. For example, since today is July 31st, you shall get 31 lines from my new WIP, which is entitled Devil's Salvation, and is the fourth book in my series. Hopefully you enjoy!

Chapter 2

Braxton was jerked from sleep by a pounding on his bedroom door. Gage’s voice came through the door. “Wake up. Angel invasion.”

Braxton groaned and rolled out of bed. He stumbled in the dark, yanking on pants and a wife beater over his boxers. He yanked open the door and blinked against the bright light. He saw Greer and Damon heading down the stairs, her hair mussed from sleep and him dressed only in shorts. Aradia came down the steps from Gage’s chambers, wearing one of his shirts and her own jeans.

“Did you wake Alaria up?”

Gage turned and nodded. “Yeah. The morning sickness is back. She said she’d be down when she was done throwing up.”

“Has Greer helped her?”

“Not yet this morning. Alaria won’t let anyone in until she’s done.”

“What the hell are the Angels doing here at—” he looked at his watch. “four-forty-three in the morning?”

“The fuck if I know.” The vampire yawned. “All I can tell you is that I was sound asleep and then there was a bright light and Gabriel was standing in my bedroom, telling me that I needed to assemble the troops and met him and Michael in the kitchen.”

Greer’s voice carried up the stairs. “Coffee’s on!”

Alaria emerged from her room, her hair scraped back from her face and into a ponytail. Her face was pale and drawn and there were black smudges beneath her eyes. She spared a quick look at each of the men before starting down the stairs. To her chagrin, she had to hold onto the railing as she climbed down and her knees shook by the end. She went straight to the coffee pot, pouring a cup and drinking deeply.

Gabriel looked at her with concern. “From my knowledge of human gestation, I believe caffeine is something that should be avoided during pregnancy.” He gestured to the coffee. “That liquid is quite high in it.”

Alaria glared at him over the rim of the cup. “Fuck you.” She smacked the empty mug down on the counter and sat next to Aradia. “I don’t need pregnancy advice from the son of a bitch that did the knocking up.”

“Traditionally, prospective fathers do get an opinion in the manner in which their child grows.” Gabriel perched across from her.

 

My Grammar Issues

No author has perfect grammar. Not one. Me included. In fact, I would argue that if I were to publish something without have passed it by the keen eyes of Adrian and Amy, it would be nearly painful to read. This is from someone who has an English degree.

Here's the thing: I don't feel too bad about it. After editing my first novel and learning where my problems are, I have caught myself finding the errors in other authors' work that I didn't notice before, especially if they're the same ones I make. For example, I am prone to this sentence structure:

He rolled the office chair across the floor with his feet, reached back t turn the knob on the door.

That is not a good sentence. There should be an "and" instead of the comma, or reached should be reaching in order to keep the comma. So, how did I get into this habit? Well, a high school teacher once told me that I used compound sentence and the word "and" to much, and thus began a nearly ten year quest to avoid using the word "and". Turns out she was wrong and I was wrong for listening. Now that I know how often I did that, when I read some best selling author who has literally sold hundreds of millions of copies of their books and see that they do the same thing I did over and over and over again.

My other big thing is starting sentences with conjunction. I was almost constantly using "and" "but" "so" to start sentences.

Now that I've told you all about how bad of a grammarian I am, I'll get to the moral of the story....I got better. My second book was much better than my first, and I believe the third will be better than the second. I may be to the point where commas are my biggest consistent error, and I'm not sure anything will make that change.

The editing process is painful. It brings all your flaws to the forefront, and sometimes it feels overwhelming. Unfortunately, it's a valuable part of the process, and in my opinion, all authors need to find at least two good beta readers to find all those flaws. Because what's even worse than betas tearing apart your grammar is reviewers tearing apart your grammar after the book is published.

Absence

So I realized that it's been two months since I last posted. I know I need to get better at it because blogging is a great way to drum up readership, and there are at least a few of you who follow this.

I'm not going to give excuses. The truth is simple. I lost interest in it. I was writing Devil's Redemption, which is now done! Woohoo! Done, done, done!

I also enjoyed my summer, without the pressures of this.

However, I'm going to make an effort to be better at it, and I'm going to start doing WIPPET Wednesday, which is about my current work in progress, which is Devil's Salvation, the fourth book in my series and I believe the last to have the "Devil" title. There will be three more after this one unless I change my mind again.

And I'm very hopeful that my first book will come out in September or October. I'm very much looking forward to making those announcements and doing a cover reveal here. This is an exciting time for me and I hope you all stay with me through the ups and downs.