Finished Writing Book 2 in the Parallel Worlds Series!

This week (Thursday 2/26/09 to be exact) I finally finished writing the first draft of the second book in the Parallel Worlds series. It will probably be called The School of Magical Learning... or simply Magical Learning.

It ended up being 96,000 words. My goal was to make it 80,000 words, but 1 of the chapters from my outline ended up becoming 5 chapters! Paraworld Zero (book 1) was 100,000 words long, so this isn't too bad, but when you compare the word count (roughly 400 printed pages) to typical young adult novels, it's a little too long. I feel very confident with what I've written so far, so I don't plan on cutting out chapters.

I tend to edit while I write, so that probably was a factor for the extra time it took for me to write it. Book 1 took 1 year, but that was with a full time job. Book 2 took me 5 months, but I had several weeks of interruptions with conventions, holidays, and school visits.

I'm very excited for the next step of creating my new author friendly website and doing my edits. I feel confident that I'll be able to sell this manuscript much quicker than the first one. My first book hit 2 bestseller lists and placed in 10 contests, but I feel that this new book is even better than the first.

Major Dental Work

I just posted my latest newsletter on my site. Read it at http://www.paraworlds.com/newsletter/2009-02.php

Here's a snippet:

Thud-Thud-Thud Crash! Look, Mommy, No Teeth!

Okay, so now that the pain was finally subsiding on his ankle, he just got some MAJOR dental work done this week. They pulled out his two front teeth, gave him six crowns, and filled three or four cavities. The kid's only two years old! That’s what happens when you don’t use your mouth to eat or drink for an extended period of time (he still gets some of his food from a tube at night). Fortunately, the government footed the bill because of his special needs. I can't imagine how much that would have been. He was at the office for 8 hours. They had to get a special anesthesiologist to put him under, and the surgery took like 3 hours.

What can I say? Brush those teeth . . . even if you’re not using them!

Thud-Thud-Thud Crash!

The other day I heard some loud tumbling noises coming from the stairs. I suddenly realized that my 2-year old who just learned to climb the stairs had fallen from the top all the way to the bottom. He hurt his ankle really bad, but the doctors haven’t been able to determine anything, even after 3 x-rays. He won’t put any weight on it, though, so it’s at least sprained. He won’t even go near the stairs now. What’s sad is that he kept asking to walk with assistance, because he had forgotten that his foot was hurt. Poor kid. This will set him back now on his learning to walk. Bummer.