After spending a few weeks working on proofreading and editing The Samurai and the Mountain, I just all but abandoned it. Alice was calling to me once more. The recent twitter hashtag day of manuscript wish list, a day where agents and publishes hashtag out what they are dreaming of finding from authors, led me straight to Alice. I quickly went through, having two novels nowhere near ready to submit, I found myself drifting into floating the words out there about Alice. She’s obviously the one I am more passionate about at this point.

Samurai (now) almost seems like it was a 120,000 word exercise to prepare me for all things Alice. I know Samurai will find it’s way. I am working myself back into the habit of daily proofing and editing now. It will only be a matter of time. Alice is just much more commercial. Samurai, as my dear blog readers know, is my pet project that has been in my head for fifteen years. It’s a personal agenda and it just had to be done. Alice, is a force of nature and craves an audience. So I am giving her her due first. I am going to prep her and get her ready for the masses and the agents and the publishers. Somewhere out there someone will latch on as much as I have, and as much as my test readers have.

I’m a third of the way through the book right now, reading most of this material for the first time. Jilian has read this work more than I have. As I read, I am amazed at how well the book flows. Even in it’s rough draft form, it is paced very well and the words just roll from one chapter from the next. Even when I feel I’ve hit a wall while editing, I turn the page and something catches my eye and suddenly I’m another chapter in.

Alice gets me excited. I’m looking forward to sharing her with the world.

And yes, I print out each and every one of my works and make my corrections with a red pen. I’ve done it since my first screenplay, I’m certainly not going to stop now.