And...she is completed.

As of Wednesday the 17th...St. Patricks Day funny enough...I have completed Book 3; Stained Glass. Hoo-ray! It's hard to believe its done. I ended it with an excerpt of Book 4; Destiny so as to give readers a look at what the new story will be dealing with.

What will be hard is NOT writing Book 4 while I wait for Book 1 to come back from my Editor. To occupy my time my "plan" is to proof through Book 3 before it goes to my actual proof reader, Rachel Grundy (she is also the lovely lady who makes sure all of my British vernacular is correct in the book seeing as she's from Greenwich, UK, it's easy for her!), and then I'll go through Book 2 when she returns it to me this week and put in all the music specifics. I'm guessing that this should keep my creative head busy until April 16, which is the date my first book is to be returned to me all covered in red lines and comments.

You know, NORMAL people dread their book coming back from their editor. But not me...I'm excited to see her ideas to make it more concise AND for the opportunity it will create for me to make the book better. I say this because I feel that I am a better writing now than I was when I started that book. Hell, I'm a better writer now than I was when I finished it! Plus, being as that I know more about the series now it'll make it easier to write new sections of Book 1.

Book 3 ends in November of 1998. Book 4 will pick up right after it due to the nature of the ending of Book 3 it sorta has to. I think if I jumped ahead at all the readers would be sorely pissed off. But, that said, Book 4 will end up taking a jump at some point as it will actually end either the end of 2000 or the begining of 2001. Book 5 (which I think is the last one) will pick up 3 years after that. IF, as I write Book 5 it looks to be too long, there will be 6 books and Destiny will actually end up as Destiny Part I and Destiny Part II. No idea yet. We'll see as we write.

Someone is now thinking, "But don't you outline and know where things are going?" Not really. See, I outline in my head and create as I go. Chances are, for the rest of my life, when I go to propose a book to my publishing company with an outline...the book will already be written. This is SOOO backwards, I know this. Its just, the best creative ideas I've come up with throughout this series have come to me from the writing process. If I'd sat down and attempted to write the outline chances are I'd never have thought of these cool things that way. I think it just works better for me to open up the floodgates of creativity and let the chips fall where they may.

That said, I really should get back to proofing my final copy of Book 3 for my Proof Reader (I know, it sounds redundant). I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! It is supposed to be 75 and sunny tomorrow here in NYC so I will NOT be writing or proofing...I will have my wonderful dog outside in the park munching on goodies from the farmers market and playing with the children at the park that always attack him. One big 55lb black fluffy dog surrounded by at least 4 or 5 kids all petting him at once. It's a sight...

I leave you with the two verses of the longer poem by Nettie Pennington. I use at the end of Book 3.

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As Destiny Unfolds

There is always a choice to make
When two paths merge and life takes a break
For a split second, all things are one
As destiny and chaos collide once more

When two paths merge and life takes a break
No one will warn you that it is already to late
To change the path you have taken
As destiny and chaos collide once more…

Nettie Pennington