I really thought I was ready. Criticism is nothing new, and criticism of things I’ve created are part of my life. How could sending a manuscript to an editor be any worse than that? What could an editor possibly say that is worse than what my colleagues and I say to each other every day?
Well, funny thing about that.
I expected a sea of red all over the manuscript when I got it back. Verb tenses were inconsistent. Word choices were clunky and needed some smoothing. Sentence structure was too consistent. My editor pointed every last one of them out, and I duly made all of the updates. Those were the painless ones, because they were purely mechanical. This is how the language works. These are the rules. Follow them. The scientist saw the flaws, and the scientist corrected them. He owns the words, and he cleaned up his mess.
But there were a few things in there, a few comments, that somehow bypassed all of the calluses from decades of peer reviews, that circumvented every last defense to cut to the quick. These weren’t missing commas or extra periods. These were deeper questions like “Why does so-and-so have to die here? What purpose does her death serve?” Those didn’t go to the scientist. Those went to the artist.
The answer to the question, of course, is that the character died in my head when the artist was spinning the story. The death didn’t have to mean anything in my imagination. It’s just what happened. The artist paints the pictures and spins the stories. He doesn’t require there to be a reason behind it, and I think that he’s the reason that the comment hit me so hard. The scientist doesn’t see the comments as criticism: it’s either right or wrong, and if it’s wrong it needs to be fixed. The artist, on the other hand…that dude is seriously sensitive. You come after his story, his art, and it crushes him. There is no right, and there is certainly no wrong.
I was destroyed by that comment. It took me months before I was even willing to open up the file again, let alone try to write anything. Finally, I talked to an author friend of mine, and the conversation we had is probably the only reason I ever went back to it. It’s a debt she probably doesn’t realize is owed, and one I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to repay.
She convinced me to try again, and to look at the death as a reader instead of the writer. It turns out that the editor was right all along. The death was out of place. Not only did it not serve a purpose, it actually detracted from the rest of the scene. I figured out how to change it and forge ahead. I dreaded every new page, hoping not to find other comments like that. There were more, but I found it easier to divorce myself from the artist and solve the problem. I even came across one comment far later that said “That took an unexpected (and totally awesome) turn.” I let the artist have his moment there. He earned it.
So where does that leave me? The first book is in the can. Done. I need to find people to read it now. I’m writing the second one now. I’m about halfway through the first draft. I’m going to go back to the same editor when I’m ready for it. Or rather, when I think I’m ready for it. As much as her comments stung, and as much inner turmoil they churned up, she was amazing. I can’t imagine sending this to anyone else.
Sometimes you read a book and when you finish, you smile and think, “Gee, that was a good book.” Other times you finish and you think, “I can’t wait for the next installment!” Then there are books like Twilight’s Dawn by Anne Bishop, where I was crying with 100 pages to go, and didn’t stop until long after I finished it. And when I say I was crying, I don’t mean a tear slid down my face. I mean I was out and out sobbing, to the point where people were stopping by my cubicle and asking if there was something wrong. Don’t get me wrong — I was sobbing in a good way, if that’s possible. It’s just…after so many years nurturing and loving these characters, to have the series reach its natural conclusion, and to see how happily the ever after is destined to be…yeah, it was an emotional time.
I guess now would be a good time to say that the Black Jewels series is my all time favorite. I hate to play games like this, but if I had to choose one and only one set of books to go with me to some desert island, these would be the books. The original trilogy enthralled me back in the late 90’s, and when the follow-on novella anthology followed in 2005 I nearly fell over myself trying to lay hands on a copy. The continuation novels, with an expanded character set and wider-ranging adventures, were good, but part of me longed for a return to the tried and true characters that I had fallen in love with.
Twilight’s Dawn brought everything full circle, incorporating the expanded characters with the core gang, and explored various aspects of their life, from the extraordinary to the mundane, that didn’t fit into any of the other books. We got to see domestic life, holiday celebrations, and in the end, the culmination of the story arcs for all of the major characters. I’m trying not to spoil anything here, so this may seem really vague. But that last novella, might be the most heart wrenching thing I’ve ever read, but also the most heart warming. A word of advice, however. Read the other books first. Much of this one won’t make much sense, and the emotional impact of what Bishop has done will be lessened for not taking the full journey before reaching this destination.
All of the hallmarks of Bishop’s work are on display here. Hers are character driven stories. The settings are left to the imagination, and in a lot of ways, the plot is a secondary device for us to get to know the people that populate the world. That might make for weak books, but in this case, the characters are so strong, so well developed, and so addictive that any other perceived slights are easily overlooked. In fact, I think the books would suffer if any less consideration was given to the characters. By the end, Daemon, Jaenelle, Surreal, Lucivar, Marian, and the whole gang are part of the family. Or, rather, the reader becomes part of theirs.
The Blood Gospel is the first book of the Order of the Sanguines series, written by James Rollins and Rebecca Cantrell. Rollins has been a favorite of mine for years, but I was still dubious when I saw the co-author attached. Turns out I shouldn’t have been worried at all. I’m drawn to Rollins for his uncanny knack of tying deep scientific research with history and current events, and those hallmarks are all of The Blood Gospel. But Cantrell injects something that Rollins has never dabbled in — paranormal horror.
Dr. Erin Granger, archaeologist extraordinaire, is on assignment in Israel when a helicopter arrives, and her life is forever changed. Along the way she meets Jordan Stone, American soldier, and Rhun Korza, Vatican priest. Together, the three of them are plunged into a mystery as old as faith itself. They race from the Holy Land to Bavaria, and finally to the Holy See itself, chased relentlessly by a mysterious entity headed by “Him”.
The Blood Gospel is deep in Christian lore, much like the Da Vinci Code. I’ve seen Rollins compared to Dan Brown before, but to be honest, that is more of a compliment to Brown than it is to Rollins. Rollins is the standard, and next to him Brown is a poor imitation. It is rare for a work such as this to actually come off unbiased when it comes to religion — too often the Vatican is shown as manipulative and deceitful. Rollins and Cantrell take a different tactic, leaving the motivations of the church to be decided by the reader. Set against an immersive religious backdrop, the Blood Gospel deals as much with personal religion as it does formalized churches.
Despite my initial misgivings, I really liked this book. It does have a fair amount of blood and some really creepy moments, but for a book billed as a horror adventure, that shouldn’t be too surprising. I anxiously await the next installment.
Book 1 is still sitting on a flash drive, waiting for a decision about editing vs. readers. I’m still torn, which is a pretty way to say that the perfectionist in me is afraid for anyone else to see the mistakes that I’ve inevitably made. I’m leaning toward editor, because I think it more likely to need significant rewrites from an editor’s opinion than a beta reader.
In the meantime, I’m diving into Book 2. The first draft was done awhile ago, and now it’s time to put some meat on the bare bones and turn he story into a book. I’m sitting at just under 100K words at this point. I expect that to balloon quite a bit during the second draft, and then the trimming and tuning can begin. Hopefully this editing process will be quicker, now that I know what to do (and not to do) from the first book.
On a lark, I went ahead and converted Book 1 to and ePub, just so I could see what it looked like on my Nook. I admit, I giggled a little when I saw my name pop up on the title page. I need cover art though. The Calibre default image kind leaves a lot to be desired.