Destructive Magic
Ellodie Sharp is the most extraordinary person you’ll ever forget. Cursed with her powers permanently in the ‘on’ position, Ellodie causes the people around her to forget her. Abandoned by her parents, she lives in DUMBS with other magically out of control children. Her world is turned upside down when students go missing and she’s enlisted to use her out of control powers to find them.
My Works in Progress
The Search for Magic
When a girl suffering from survivors guilt is thrust into a magic world she never knew existed, she learns she can undo the past that killed her sister, but first, she must sacrifice her soul.
Out of Time
When a prisoner on the run, hides in a world with fragmented time, he becomes a reluctant time traveller and the only one who can save the inhabitants from annihilation, but only if he chooses to stop running.
Destructive Magic
YA Fantasy
Ellodie is the most extraordinary person you’ll ever forget.
Querying
Destructive Magic
Writing Destructive Magic was a fun experience that I’m pretty sure I did three times. I love writing new stories. The characters are new and fresh and can do anything and go anywhere. Revision is more stressful because you have lives and words on the page but you know you can’t keep everything. Revision is literally re-envisioning your story which means that maybe by the time you truly type THE END, nothing from the first draft will have survived. Tender moments, exhilarating action will lie in a discarded folder because they didn’t serve the story. There is grief in deleting those moments. But if you can get over the pain of deleting, then the story is made better, more than better. It’s where the magic of story happens.
What was hard about writing Destructive Magic was that 90% of the book was rewritten from a blank page in draft 5 (also in draft 3 but that was somehow less painful). It would have been nice if I’d plotted it out perfectly the first time, but for this story, that wasn’t possible. Each rewrite led to story I didn’t know was there. Led to hidden moments that have made it into my current draft (draft 7). Not to mention that as I added new plot lines and removed others, everything changed— characters, settings, tone—giving birth to new scenes. I just had to roll with those changes. But I’m happy with the story in draft 5. However, revision doesn’t end there. After that, there are scenes to tighten up, language to polish, words to delete. But I’ve finally finished and so I’ve begun to query. I know there’ll be more changes to make and I’m excited to do them because I know they’ll make the story better, but right now, I’m happy.
The Search for Magic
YA Fantasy.
Ashlin discovers if she just plays along with the crazy world she’s stumbled into, she can rewind time and save her sister from the accident that killed her.
Middle of Draft 2
The Search for MagiC
Writing The Search for Magic was the easier book so far to write. I don’t know if writing it after both Destructive Magic and Out of Time made it easier to write because I’m a better writer but I don’t think so. I think some stories are easier to write.
But saying that, I rewrote the first chapter six times before beginning. Three versions of that first chapter are so different from what ended up in the current draft that it’s unrecognisable. I think perfecting this first chapter made the novel easier to write because the story flowed from that first chapter. Get it wrong there, and tell the wrong story.
I also wrote this first draft differently to Destructive Magic’s first draft. I wrote each scene in a separate file. A weird psychological attempt to make it easier to delete scenes later. And I was right, it was. I wasn’t deleting, I was simply choosing what material I wanted to include. I’m in the middle of the second draft and I’m in a much better place than I was with Destructive Magic. At this point, in Destructive Magic I was still trying to find my story. With The Search for Magic, I have my story pretty much locked down. It’s just a matter of keeping it on track. Yes, I still have to rewrite entire scenes but the idea behind the scene is the same.
I know, though, that the second-half will be harder to edit/compile because there is payoff to consider. I have to pay off what I’ve set up and I’ve got to bring the arc where I want it. But I see it all in my head and I’ve planned it out and I’ve written it in my messy first draft, so all I have to do is stay the course, and it will get done.
When do I hope to finish the second draft? I’m taking it slow because I think fast writing only works for draft one. Revisions should be done slowly. Ideas, scenes, changes need to sit in my head for a little bit. I’m hoping to be done by May.
Out of Time
YA Fantasy
Hiding on a broken world from the people who imprisoned him, Andrew falls in love with the people, who without his help, will be destroyed.
Messy first draft completed.
Out of Time
This book is still in it’s messy first draft form. I wrote it before either of the other two books above. I wrote it before I knew enough about craft to write it. Since then I’ve attended a dozen courses and even more webinars and read a ton of craft books. It’s a fun book with time travel, a romance, intrigue, a war and a baby dragon. I need to reread it and plan it out, then re-write it from a blank page to create a tighter, better paced book with all the new knowledge I’ve gained.
