My Writing week Dog Days Quitting

We're coming into the dog days of August but I think here most of July fit the picture. Thank heavens for air conditioning.

As far as writing goes I'm progressing on Confrontations and have started to block in the third section while also doing rewrites on the second section. All seems cool there

The big discovery of the week was a decision to look at two books that I've received the rights back from the publisher. I'm thinking about getting them ready for submitting to one of my publishers for re-release. They're both fantasies and the first one at least seems to me to be one of the best books i've ever written. Part of the reason the rights were returned was because the publisher decided to head in another direction. While this is an adult book, it is not erotic. So we will see as I send out feelers.

The last thing on my mind is to share with people the time I gave up on writing. I do not do things by half and working as a nurse plus going to school for my BS took a toll on my creative juices. After having sole the first four books I wrote, I sort of turned to fantasy. While the rejections were rather golden, at that time publishers weren't interested in fantasy. Science fiction was hot. After these rejections and then some interest from an editor expressing an interest in anything else I might send, I read about his death. I had collected probably 500 rejections. I cried a lot and decided I would never write again. What I did then was insane. I bundles up every manuscript in my filing cabinet and put them in the trash. 10 years later I returned to writing and wanted to shoot myself. Then I found tucked away several notebooks with hand written manuscripts. From them I retrieved Murder and Mint Tea, several other stories that I was able to rewrite. The moral of this is do not throw all your old manuscripts away even if you've decided to give up writing. You may mean it at the time but not forever.

The New beginning

As I said in yesterday's blog, I headed in a new direction with the opening of my new start. If you want to see what the original opening was. you can read the first two paragraphs that I posted last week. Here goes for the new one.

Ashlea
"The time has come." Ash bolted upright. Her heart pounded like a maddened drummer hammering a staccato rhythm. Her gaze swept the room. Her companions slept. Had someone spoken or had the words been an event in a dream she couldn't remember. When her heart slowed, she cautiously opened her senses to read the winds of the keep. With her affinity for Air she found the only person awake was the doma and the words hadn't been hers.

Fingers of moonlight slid through cracks in the shutters of the windows. She eased her feet into her slippers and crept across the room to peer outside. A gasp sounded when she saw the birds, one white and one dark, circling above the keep. She rubbed her arms to erase the chill of the late winter cold. "Mama. Papa," she whispered. "What does your appearance portent." Since the destruction of the Wesren henge the birds had appeared as an omen or a warning. What was the meaning now?

Excerpt -- start of new work

I've decided to do something a little different here and have posted the opening of the book I've just begun. Some of you have heard parts of the others in the Henge series. I'm inviting people to comment.

Confrontations
I Easren

ASHLEA

While those on kitchen duty bustled around her Ash sat at the massive granite table and searched the winds of the princedoms. She brushed the thoughts of three friends who also had an affinity for Air. What would they learn? Steam from an aromatic tea blend reached her and she savored the aroma of mints. What she read on the winds ruffled her calm center. Voices shouted of pain and fear. These cries rose from each of the four princedoms.

With a mournful sigh she turned her search for information to the highlands. She found few troubled thoughts but the number of blank spaces aroused her curiosity. One marked the protective dome they’d woven over the lodge where the four heirs of the princedoms lived. She believed at least one of the other ones marked Dom Senet’s hiding place. She shuddered as remembrances of the evil man who sought her and her companions rose.

Once more she focused on the lowlands. In Easren the rains continued. Flooded lands present the people of this princedom from raising crops. Hunger cries assaulted her. With the approach of the venal equinox melting ice and snow in the highlands would add to the already raging rivers.

The news from the other princedoms seemed as dire. In Soutren the deserts grew and threatened to invade the fertile lands along the coast. The rivers were mere trickles. Before long Soutren would become a barren wasteland. Epidemics swept through the animals of Nortren and spread to the people. In Wesren the airborne dust caused by the destruction of the henge rode the winds and brought blight to the forests, orchards and farms.

A questing thought stabbed her barriers. She closed her affinity with a snap. Who had quested? The touch had been rougher than the probes Dom Senet sent.