Sometimes things just happen. Like you are working on a project and the wheels come off or truma happens unexpectedly. You get delayed, things get lost or worse. Well, as I was setting up this post I noticed its been two years since I announced the novel, ‘Song of Betrayal’
Its been through twists and turns, changes and rests. I have kept moving foward. Even abandoning the dream of pro publishing, I haven’t given up the hope that you all will see it and enjoy. Well as of two days ago, content is fixed. I finished the final draft. All that is left is spell and grammar checks which happen in the final read through. Barring anything spectacular (I have the final draft on several cloud servers and my personal drive), all it needs is a cover and I have pushed my personal gollum into the fires of Mount Doom. He carries with him the ‘ring of editing prefection’.
Nevertheless, there is a caveat. When I did the draft that fused Pyhhric Victory song into the story as the first three chapters it push the word count into the 100k range. Removing that much back out became impossible unlike I orginally believed. In fact, I ended up adding 5000 words to connect that story to the ocean scene at the beginning. So ‘Song of Betrayal is really Pyhhric Victory song and the first four orginal chapters. You see Forest Hills finally, a gate and how the system works.
Song of Restoration will be the rest of the orginal novel; volume 2.5. It will be the heaviest mermaid novel yet. I do need to apologize for that. It seems that in my writing I have shied away for doing the typical underwater mermaid scenes. Gwen is almost always above surface being a ‘normal’ teen. In truth, most of the assembly upper class is above water 50% time. Having the capital off the coast of Australia while the main town in Lousiana does create issues. That’s what storytelling is, resolving issues. You will see more underwater as I move forward.
Song of Restoration is how Gwen handles getting Christina’s golden ticket back and her becoming princess because Aria lost it due to that activity and her procrastination. You will get to see the vault of memories, how they manage the dead there, the underwater library, Nascent Island and Tom’s transformation.
That leads to the a few more decisions. When I was doing research for my Faking it story (more on that in a moment), I discovered something quite problematic that I glossed over when I made and corrected the map of Lafayette. As I established it, Booker Field was built first. However, assuming its location is true its a mile from Downtown and a mile from LSU- Lafayette. That means that when the school ceased being a college, the college would have simply bought the stadium et al and used it. Booker field would have been Cajun field. or The Cajun dome would have never been built. These are not things I want either.
So, I moved Forest Hills. Rather than having it on top of Lafayette Middle school and numerous housing plots, I moved it to over Arcadian High School. It blends in to the outskirts better, doesn’t disrupt Congress street and places it far enough away from Taft to make the change viable. (for the record, Lafayette High is Taft in my reality). This time, I took the Kroger and 7-11 that were at the north east corner as well and the housing south and west too. Its about a mile and 1/2 which displaced a school and not much else.
It actually would make sense, because it would develop away from the rest of the city is almost Scott, Louisana and then it would be come the west most high school in the Lafayette Parish school system. Its near a medical center and still north of Acadiana mall.
Finally, I am writing a Faking It! story. As I said before, If I do Karma and Amy now, it would be as if they are meeting Taylor swift. Its not really far to them or my characters. So instead, I am using Bruce’s comment ‘When you were 5 was the worst year’ as the jumping in point. Bruce Cooper is a minor character and Lauren’s father, little is known about him.
I devise that he got a divorce from his wife because of him and his wife couldn’t decide how to handle Lauren’s intersex. He insisted that she be allowed to remain a girl etc (hense the pagents etc). She wanted her to go her own way unbound. However, its unusual for the father to be granted primary custody until the mother is unfit or deceased.
So, when Lauren was five, 2005, Bruce and her got divorced. She got custody and Lauren remained with her in Lafayette where she was a teacher at Taft. Bruce moved to Austin as he was a oil man, (he doesn’t seem to be a coder and the actors previous characters lend to that oil man persona).
The massacre happens and the mother gets killed in an IED blast while Lauren is there. Lauren is injured. Bruce meets Tom in the hospital. This is how Tom gets to Austin.
This story will have #karmy in it. It will have them painting unicorns etc. I will save the surprise for the story.
Thanks for reading. Map will be in the next post.
