One of the things I try very hard not to do when writing, is read anything in the genre I'm writing.

I have this conscience that is warped. Seriously. Trust me when I say this. Take for instance, a few weeks back some money came up missing from my mother's secret stash. A stash I had no knowledge of the whereabouts, yet when she confided in me her worries, I felt so guilty, I almost convinced myself that I had done it. I live in a world of paranoia, always have. I' not sure where it stems from, it very well could be a genetic thing. But that's neither here or there right at this point. One day maybe I'll share the darker side of my brain.

Anyway, as I was saying, I never read anything of the same genre. But, I was really excited about the chance to read and review a book of a debut author. (Look for it at RRT on September 17th). I began reading late this afternoon and have made it have way through the book. I won't tell you about my thoughts on the book. No-what I'm going to tell you is how my warped mind and the first half of this book relate.

In Hellion's Haven, my heroine has suffered some abuse in her life. Her father was a monster. At one point in the story, Fiona, a prisoner of the hero, is disrobing to take a bath, when her maid witnesses scars on her back. Eerily similar to a scene I just read in this debut author's book. I kid you not. Now if I had never read the book, I never would have known. But since I have, my guilty conscience demands that I go back through my work in progress and remove all and any references to the scars.

That's okay. I'll give Fiona something else. Something that will grip the reader's heart, something that I already had on the pages but didn't use it to the fruition of it's possibilities.

Wish me luck! Now I leave you so that I may finish the second half and pray that there will be no more similarities.

Renee

Join me over at Romance Roundtable today, where I talk about my journey to the perfect tagline/blurb.

I'm digging deeper into Hellion's Haven, and I feel like I'm on a wild roller coaster ride. There are places I absolutely love my manuscript. There are others that I hate it.

I'm pushing through and pushing hard, because I feel like I can't move on until it's done. Once I send HH to my cps, I'm sure it'll be a while before I hear back from them. I'll take that time to work on another work in progress.

One cool thing, while I was digging for a stronger more realistic motive for my Hero's celibacy, I came up with yet another story that needs to be told. Well actually, she didn't show just then. She came to me a few days prior to digging into polish and I was trying to figure out how to work her in.

Check out the side bar and you'll see my polish progress.

I've always wanted to do something. Like try and save the world. But I'm only one person. So I'll start small and do something that I'm good at to help a worthy cause.





Support my efforts!

I've joined a team, headed up by Tessa Dare. Will you help us reach our goals?

My individual goal is 100.00
My word count goal for the month of September is 15,000 words. (My word count is low, do to polish)
Our team goal is 1,000.

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Maybe not everything I wanted to get accomplished, but I did work hard. My revisions are near complete. I say near because, as I was revising, I noticed two scenes missing. One won't be too difficult, or it shouldn't be. It's the HEA. Most of the scene is done, I just need the resolved ending. A few paragraphs, that's it.

The other scene that is missing, is one where my hero needs to figure out how to save the heroine without killing the king. It's something, I'll have to obsess over for a while.

So tomorrow-I continue with the polishing I began. I hope it'll go much smoother, since now I can see more of the whole picture.

Sometime, when I'm not so tired. I'll share my learning experience with HH, as well as the things I'd do differently.

I had decided to work my rear end off this weekend to get this manuscript finished. If you look to the right side you'll see my progress meter. I'm in the last 10% of my revisions. I hope to see that meet 100%. It may even go over, since I've added at least 8 pages to Hellion's Haven.

I'm also working on some polish. I want to be able to give the entire manuscript to my cps at one time.

I'm trying to come up with some questions to have them answer. I want to make sure there are no major plot holes.

The one thing I'm worried about it is the Happily Ever After. Every HEA, seems hokie, mushy. I think I've only read one that was not, and that was Anna Campbell's Taming the Courtesan. I have yet to read her second book, but I'd be interested to see how she wrote then ending.

I want my ending to be memorable. Dramatic. Just like a border story should be.

How do you prepare yourself to write the ending?