Novel Writer, Screenwriter, Filmmaker & occasionally an Actor. Handy with a Sword, Ukulele, and Skis. Author of Nun With a Gun: The Town with No Name, The Matilda, Twistin' Matilda, Black Matilda, and Secret Matilda. Writer of the upcoming Sci-Fi sequel, Waltzing Matilda.
After I sent off Secret Matilda to my editors, I jumped headfirst into the rewrite of book 5. Now, it’s not completely written, so this one is a partial rewrite-slash-new stuff experience. I guess I can’t stop myself from trying new ways of doing things. Spice is the variety of life or something…
It was great fun! The story is cranking right along and ideas for what to add to it flourished non-stop in me olde skull. Everything was moving right along and then, 100+ degree days… I don’t know about other people but writing in the summer after working a full day is not easy for me. Toss on 100+ degrees where my office can get into the mid 80’s and it just gets harder.
So, needless to say, work on book 5 has slowed down.
But that’s alright! Just because it’s taking a little longer just means there is that much more blood, sweat and tears involved in the process. I mean, I’m pretty sure I’ve cut a finger or two while working on this. But sometimes, you’ve got to step away for a little. If for no other reason than to clear your head. Luckily for me, a family trip back home was already in the works.
We landed and drove until we hit the beach. It was wonderful to see (and be in) the ocean again. There was a lovely walk in the warm rain at night, fighter jets flying overhead, a concert, good food, coffee and all that. I’m a sucker for old wooden ships and I finally got to see the recreations of the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery. They were beautiful.
Then I went to rivers I grew up near and got to wander the beaches amongst the driftwood and shells. I was lucky enough to catch sight of a cast of fiddler crabs as they broke for the trees. And I ate oysters, so many oysters fresh from the water 10 feet away from me.
On top of all that, I got to swim in a mountain lake that had, and I kid you not, an ice cream boat! You hear that telltale music and you perk up like a kid and around the bend came the boat! Another boat pulled up alongside and ordered some ice cream and then disappeared around the bend. I’ve never seen the like!
We flew out of Richmond after some history walks and excellent coffee and tacos and back home we are. It was good to be back and I feel refreshed!
I received an Editorial Review for Twistin’ Matilda (found here at: Literary Titan) Does the urge to click it fill you? Follow those instincts, I say!
A quick FYI, an editorial review is an unbiased review from a professional that will list the pros and cons with a comparison to the standards of the genre the story is in.
Psst, it’s where those quoted remarks can come from.
Getting this four star review was especially heartening after a receiving a less than stellar review for The Matilda. In fact, I think I’m smiling a little too hard right now!
Just so you know, the Silver Award is bestowed on books that expertly deliver complex characters, intricate worlds, and thought-provoking themes. The ease with which the story is told is a reflection of the author’s talent in exercising fluent, powerful, and appropriate language.
She woke with a start, but the room was still blanketed in darkness. The red glow of the clock blinked greedily into her left eye as it showed the dreaded 12:00. Her eyes swiveled around her bedroom and some light bled in through the curtains from the streetlamps outside or maybe it was the moon. There was an odd softness to the dimness and a coldness that felt… unnatural.
A loud clatter exploded into the quiet as something fell to the floor followed by the thump of small feet on carpet.
“Mira? Is that you?” she called out.
Silence answered until a strange hissing echoed from the other side of the room. Her eyes tracked over as something darker than the walls slithered up and disappeared into the upper corner.
Her voice shook as she whispered, “Are you in here, Mira?”
A heavy lump fell from the ceiling and onto her chest. The lump was moist and the eyes shone pale in the low light. The lump moved a tiny bit closer to her and she recoiled when she realized what the matted lump was.
A raspy voice slithered out of the mouth of her expired pet, “Alissss…. Alissss, are you in there?”
Alice was just able to make out a long, thin shadow that emanated from the spine of Dagobert and went up to the ceiling fan above. The cold, dead eyes stared into hers. She pulled the sheet to the brim of her nose and slammed her eyes shut. The raspy voice chuckled as she whispered a mantra out loud to dispel the nightmare.
“Alissss, you read from the book,” the voice grated. “You called me, Alissss, and now I am here.” The sound of scales writhing over each other fell toward her as her dead cat inched closer to her, “Are you in there, Alissss?”
Dagobert’s claws scratched at her face until one hooked into her lip. She was paralyzed in fear as her mouth was pulled open. She felt the whuffling of the feline’s stagnant breath blow across her face.
“You are so close, but you cannot hide from me, Alisss. I can smell you inside that prison of meat.”
As claws bit into her gums, the… thing that wore the corpse of her pet as one wears an ill-fitting suit pried her mouth open. She felt the dank fur brush against her lips as the head slipped within the confines of her jaws. An appendage rougher than a cat’s tongue licked hers and a frightful vision sprung to her mind’s eye.
“There is a price to pay for using the book. You cannot hide from it….”
Her eyes snapped open, and the book lay on the corner of the bed with its pages open. Shimmering light rippled from the corners of her bedroom. Sinuous shadows stretched outward as the chitinous clacking of insects grew louder. “I didn’t know! I didn’t understand! I only wanted to know more!”
Her voice quailed, “I had to know more…” She looked away from the corners and realized that her pet cat was emptying its engorged contents down her throat. As she choked, her eyes fluttered as she lost consciousness.
She awoke suddenly. With a hastily sucked in breath, she pushed herself against the bedrest. Sunlight shone through the windows and bathed the room in a warm glow and the only sound was her ragged breathing. As she looked around, her eyes settled on the long shadows cast by the sun. Everything looked normal, disturbingly normal. “Maybe it was all a bad dream.”
She slid off the edge of her bed and felt the rug squish under her bare feet. As she looked down, she spied the empty carcass of Mira half-hidden under the bed. As she screamed, the dry rasp of scales echoed eerily in the bedroom and the shadows slithered around her.
“It was real… it was all real!”
There was a sudden pain in her stomach, and she folded over. Her hands pressed against her belly and she could feel the sinuous flow beneath her skin. The pain increased and she fell to her knees. Pressure from inside of her body stretched out her ribs and a memory percolated to the surface, “There is a price…”
“Where is that damn book? There must be a way!” The rustle of pages stroked her mind and she spied it laying on the floor near the dead cat. As the pain increased, she reached out for it and it leapt into her hands. The words on the page shimmered as she struggled to read them out loud, “B, b, b, b.” She giggled as her fingernails raked slivers of her flesh free from her arms. Suddenly, they became clear, “Burn it… Burn it all. And with the ash, the spell is broken.”
Mad laughter sprung to her lips as the book slammed shut. She threw it into the fireplace and the half-burnt logs exploded into a blaze. Her laughter grew more shrill as the flames licked the wallpaper and spread. Once the ceiling caught, she could see the shadow creatures slither into the cracks and corners of her bedroom. Madness bubbled to the surface and she swayed in flames and smoke as she repeated over and over, “… with the ash, the spell is broken.”
Once the fire was out and the braying of the sirens disappeared around the corner, a young boy spotted something amongst the burnt timber and the ash. The corner of an old book poked up from the detritus. Something about beckoned to him and curiosity finally bit him hard. He slipped under the safety tape and watched in horrific fascination as his hand grasped the book and pulled it free.
The cover which he knew was made from human skin sweat with the sudden contact. “Secrets… Dreams… Power…” whispered into his ear.
An odd smile spread across the boy’s lips as he clutched the book to his chest.
If you wanted to find about some of the inspiration and themes I was going for in The Matilda, then you are in luck!
I was literally asked some questions in my interview with Literary Titan about those very things! You can check out my Literary Titan’s Interview: Would They Be Considered Human?
I thought I had posted about this awesome review about not only The Matilda, but also Twistin’ Matilda! But it must have been all in my mind or in the matrix or something!
It can be found on Lyndsie Clark’s page. There are some other great reviews for books on her site as well as a collection of her own short stories and flash fiction. She has a lot of excellent insight into her journeys in writing and I look forward to reading to her first book!
I received my first Editorial Review for The Matilda and it can be found here: Literary Titan (Do it. I know you want to click it!)
For those who don’t know (and I only learned this recently), an editorial review is not the same animal as a book review (maybe I should’ve gone with a tree analogy… because of the paper…). I can feel your groans from here, by the way.
Anyway, we all know what a regular book review is (and hopefully you’ve left a few in your time surveying the internet landscape). It’s a more personal take on the story from the reader’s opinion and it generally won’t have those quotable bits that you’ll find on book covers.
An editorial review is an unbiased review from a professional that will list the pros and cons with a comparison to the standards of the genre the story is in. And it has those quotable bits for marketing.
This writing and publishing journey has been fun, exhausting, interesting and I always learn something new!
My alpha reader got back to me and dropped the list of “corrections”, “doesn’t feel rights” and “this is missings” in my lap (There were other things in there too. I mean in the list, not in my lap… I think). I whipped through that pile as fast as my addled brain could handle. And then I went back over it with less addled brains. Oh, brains…
I fine-tooth combed it too! I caught a lot of little things sprinkled throughout and its all in the hope that the editor’s pen of red death leaves fewer lines, circles, and x’s in its wake. I’m sure I will be proven wrong, but hey it can’t hurt to try, right? I feel confident! (though I may have jumped the gun, but I sent it out to my beta readers with that “not edited” quantifier.)
Rewriting this one was an interesting experience to say the least. That continuity check will live in infamy in my mind for a long time to come (and finger’s crossed it won’t ever be outdone). I’m biased but I think it was worth it. Even with the corrections list, my alpha reader said it flowed well and already wants to know happens next!
Jon Gray Lang.com 