UPDATE: The winners are…Julie Andrade, Colleen C, and Debra Guyette!
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IGNORE the “Pre-Order” message — it’s LIVE now!
Thank you, Delilah, for letting me come here today! Over a year ago, I was here whining, er, I mean, blogging about the saggy middle of my book “Tin Toy” (click here to read that blog post: https://www.delilahdevlin.com/blog/2021/08/30/ava-cuvay-flabby-middles-giveaway/).
At the time, I was struggling with the storyline and the characters… Nothing seemed to click in spite of my repeated attempts to outline a general direction for it all. I’d re-written the first five chapters half a dozen times; I’d re-outlined the story the same number of times (no small feat for someone who leans more toward pantsing than plotting).
I couldn’t pants this book. Not entirely. It’s the second book in my Silver Cyborg Series, so I couldn’t just let it wander toward an HEA for my two characters and be content. The overarching story from Book One had to continue and advance and get to a point Book Three can take it in for a goal (weak sports-reference here ;-).
Apparently, I couldn’t plot the book, either. So was mired and stagnant.
BUT, then everything finally clicked. The muse hit, the planets aligned…something happened. Honestly, I credit the savage approach I took to the story over this past summer. I shredded the thing. Mercilessly. I switched things around. I cut tens of thousands of words. I turned entire chapters into alternate POVs. I was ruthless: if it didn’t move the story or characters forward, no matter how pretty my prose, I dumped it.
The experience was a lot like a plumbing blockage, to use a crude analogy. Over a year of plugging away (plunging away) to get something moving rather than merely swirling and churning, but I now have a brand new, shiny book. Tin Toy is LIVE TODAY (tosses confetti and blows party horns)!! And I’m already a few chapters into the third book in this series, Tin Soldier. In fact, I have a prelude to Tin Soldier as an entry in Delilah’s upcoming anthology: Boys Behaving Badly: Silver Soldiers. And I’m also working on my second dragon shifter story.
Whatever blockage had my writing stuck, it’s gone, and my writing is finally flowing (and in the right direction)! I gotta admit: I’m very relieved. 😉
Giveaway
Since I have a brand now shiny book today, I’m giving away three Kindle versions of Tin Toy to random winners that I’ll choose on Monday, December 19th. Comment with something you struggled with that finally went right for you this past year.
