Tuesday, June 26, 2012

It's Revising Time for Lycentia: Harrak's Scrolls!


Lycentia: Harrak's Scrolls is drafted! The first complete draft of the second book of The Land of Betrovia trilogy is done!

And I am excited!

Why?

As an English teacher of twenty-so years, I liked to edit/proof/critique/grade other people's writings. Even if the content was drab, the grammar atrocious... even if the document wasn't complete! I really did like reading what my students came up with.

The problem was having to read/edit/proofread, etc. ALL of my students' assigned writings! On the average, I had three classes of students who were writing one large paper per month. And no, I don't even want to tangle with the math to compute just how many papers that would add up to in a year!

During my first year of teaching, I was responsible for helping a group of about ten eighth-graders learn above-average grammar and composition skills. Most of the lessons were dull, drab, and disappointing. But one assignment I gave them turned into the first novel that I almost completed! I assigned each student to take a sentence... the first line of a story, and write at least one page (300 words) to continue that story. By the time the activity was over, we had a short story that was ten pages long! Was it a cohesive piece of fiction? Ha! But it did spark something in me that I hammered away on via an electric typewriter most of that winter! All 125+ pages of that novel are still in my house... somewhere. :)

So, as I begin to revise Lycentia: Harrak's Scrolls, I will try to pretend that it is one of my students' works. And it is the ONLY one I have to deal with!

Lycentia: Harrak's Scrolls should be available via amazon.com for the Kindle, etc. by this Labor Day.  


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