More Revisions for Surviving

My new crit group is great! Here are some more revisions of Surviving. :)

A bullet flew past my ear and I took off in a dead sprint. My heart raced to the point of pain. My Doc Martin combat boots seemed to weigh a ton, slowing me down. The thick air, humid air, made breathing difficult.

I had to get away. Arcove’s men would show no mercy.

A man in a suit stood at the edge of the clearing, the only straight shot away from the evil men. Was he one of them? I started to slow down as a bullet zipped past me. The man ducked and I decided to take my chances with him.

The noonday sun reflected off his sunglasses, almost blinding me. If he weren’t one of Arcove’s men, then he was in as much danger as I was. I waved my arm. “Run!”

He looked behind him, then back at me.

“Run!” I yelled again, but either he was deaf or stupid. He just stood there, staring at me.

He yelled something back, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. Damn, maybe he only spoke Portuguese.

When I neared, he reached out, possibly to stop me. I darted to the left, instantly wishing I hadn’t. He grabbed me and we plunged over a cliff, hitting branches and rocks that jutted out from the side of the mountain. Our screams tangled with the sound of rushing water below.

The fall didn’t last long. I had just enough time to take a deep breath when we sliced feet first through the twisted river’s surface.

He held on to my waist, pulling me up with him. My ankles ached and my lungs caught fire. He swam hard with the current, tugging me along. I pushed against him to free myself. I was a strong swimmer and didn’t need a man to rescue me. Besides, if he wasn’t just an innocent bystander, what if he pushed me under. Still he held me.

“Let go,” I tried to say, but sucked in a lung-full of water.

He grabbed my hair and I relented, letting him and the river carry me further downstream. Away from the real danger.

After what seemed like an eternity of fighting to stay afloat, he dragged us to the grassy shore. With barely enough energy to breathe, I lay intertwined with him for some time.

“Is anything broken?” he asked.

I lifted my head from his shoulder and looked into his large brown eyes. “Um, not sure. You?”

Slowly, he moved beneath me. “Don’t think so. But do you mind getting off so I can check?”

I fought back an embarrassed smile and rolled to my side, wincing at the soreness that plagued my body. He stretched and sat, shaking water from his curly black hair.

“Just bruised up really good. But other than that…” He looked at me sprawled on the ground and frowned. “So, want to explain why we both nearly died? Who are those men and why did I almost take a bullet for you?”

I knew that was coming—even had the perfect answer rehearsed. But for some reason, staring into this man’s eyes, I couldn’t bring myself to flat out lie. So I did the next best thing. Kept my mouth shut.

A Little More Detail

Okay, so I was on Flogging the Quill and Ray said he'd turn the page, but gave me a few great tips, and so did those who commented. I revised Surviving (below) and got another great comment.

One gal, hope101, said:

Definitely better in terms of clarity, but the reactions still are off for me.

Consider: she's running for her life, presumably prepared to jump off a cliff rather than face whatever's behind her. She'll be going fast, but she'll still have enough time to note *something* about the man. And she'll want to--at least enough to know whether he's an innocent bystander who should be running in his own right, or another permutation of the Big Bad.

If it's the former she'll be startled when he snakes out an arm to grab her. (I can't envision him wrapping her in his arms, given the pace.) If it's the latter, she'd probably swerve to avoid him.

Either way, if she has any spine, she should be giving him a royal ass-whooping right about now. :)

"Getting into Character" by Brandilyn Collins is a book that might help you slow it down a little. Good luck!


So I've added more detail, hopefully without losing the pace. Any thoughts on this new version.



I took off in a dead sprint. My heart racing to the point of pain. My Doc Martin combat boots seemed to weigh a ton, slowing me down. The thick air, full of moister, made breathing difficult.

I had to get away .

A man a few inches taller than me stood at the edge of the clearing, and I screamed, “Run!”

He looked behind him, then back at me.

“Run!” I yelled again, but either he was deaf or stupid. Crazy woman yelling run at me when she looks like she’s in a race for her life, I’m sure gonna run.

He just stood there, staring at me. He yelled something back, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. Damn, maybe he only spoke Portuguese.

When I neared, he reached out, possibly to stop me. I darted to the side, instantly wishing I hadn’t. He grabbed my arm and we went over a cliff, hitting branches and rocks that jutted out from the side of the mountain.

Our screams tangled with the rushing water below.

The fall didn’t last long. I had just enough time to take a deep breath when we sliced through the twisted river’s surface.

He held on, pulling me up with him. My ankles ached and my lungs caught fire. He swam hard with the current, tugging me along. I pushed against him to free myself, but he grabbed for me.

“Let go,” I tried to say, but sucked in a lung-full of water.

He pulled at my hair and I relented, letting him and the river carry us further downstream. Away from the real danger.

Revised first page of Surviving

I took off in a dead sprint for the cliff. No looking back now.

A man stood at the edge, and when I neared, he wrapped his arms around me, possibly to stop me, and we went over. We hit branches and rocks that jutted out from the side of the mountain. Our screams tangled with the rushing water below.

The fall didn’t last long. I had just enough time to take a deep breath when we sliced through the twisted river’s surface.

He held on, pulling me up with him. My ankles ached and my lungs caught fire. He swam hard with the current, tugging me along. I pushed against him to free myself, but he grabbed for me.

“Let go,” I tried to say, but sucked in a lung-full of water.

He pulled at my hair and I relented, letting him and the river carry us further downstream. Away from the real danger.

After what seemed like an eternity of fighting to stay afloat, he dragged us to the rocky shore. With barely enough energy to breathe I lay intertwined with him for some time.

Finally, he asked, “Is anything broken?”

I lifted my head from his shoulder and looked into his large brown eyes. “Um, not sure. You?”

Slowly, he moved beneath me. “Don’t think so. But do you mind getting off so I can make sure?”

Random excerpt from SURVIVING

Monkeys squawked and howled in the treetops above us, birds twittered. The jungle had been disturbed and screamed its fury.

Still, we ran.

We came to the edge of a small stream and Talmage crossed with ease. My foot caught on a rock and I fell, banging my knee.

Helping me up, Talmage panted, “We have to keep going.”

I nodded. He practically dragged me to the other side, and we started running again. Every muscle in my body cried out in protest. My lungs would collapse at any minute. The humid air I sucked in burned my throat. I stumbled on a vine and went down again.

To Read or Write?

Have you ever been so sucked into books that you forget to write? Well I have. This last week to be exact. And they aren't the published kind of books either, but those of fellow writers, who are so talented that they pull me in and make me forget, for a time, that I should be writing and not just reading.

I've needed the distraction this week, so I am grateful for it, but I am glad that I am back to writing and have even managed nearly a thousand words today.

Here's an excerpt of Surviving.


I lay pressed to Talmage. Our naked bodies intertwined. Silent tears fell to my pillow. As much as I tried, I couldn’t cease their fall. My body shook, no longer out of pleasure. I’d promised him I wouldn’t leave him again, that I’d marry him. But did that mean I’d just wait for him to betray me?



Okay, back to the MS.

Good writing folks!

On my group blog, If you give a Girl a Pen, Marj asked this question:

I have a really great idea for a book that I am attempting to write. I haven’t ever written a book before. I have written over forty pages, some of which I like and some I do not. For those of you that have written books how long does it take to write one, how many rewrites do you have to do, and when do you start sharing it and getting feed back? Thanks.

So I thought I'd blog about it.



My first book, Legend of the Protectors, took me 3 weeks to write and two years to edit, and has gone through the editing ringer about 80 times. For one reason, when I started, I had no clue as to what I was doing.

I have books I’ve started and stopped on because of life demands my attention, or the characters quits speaking to me, or research is in needed. But I keep them at the ready, to jump on whenever inspiration hits. Some of these are at 50k words. :)

I work on multiple books at a time, so that can lengthen the process. Often, when I have one book as my focus, then I write it faster.

The genre also seems to play a role in the time frame. Legend is a Young Adult Urban Fantasy based on the Cherokee legend The Stone-Shield which, as I said, was pretty easy to write the story down. But one of WIPs, Surviving, has required many hours of research and the characters are far more complicated than seventeen year old Samantha. These types of books, for me, require more time.

It’s also relative to how many hours a day you write and your understanding of "the rules". I’m writing one now, that won’t need nearly as many edits. This comes with the practice of writing. One thing I do, at least once a week, is practice. Not writing on my WIP, but grab a picture or a song, something of inspiration, and write for at least five minutes. Just write. Don't think. Glimpse at the photo, listen to the song, and write the first thing that comes to mind. I feel, often we over-think everything, instead of letting the story tell us where it wants to go. This allows me to listen to my story as I write it. (And I have some pieces I plan on following through. Surviving got it's start this way.)

As far as sharing what you have, you want to be careful with whom you share a WIP. You don’t want someone who will do major overhauls before you’re finished writing it. If you share it, you need someone who will read it and see if it makes sense. With your first MS, you may want to hold out until it’s finished, then let a few beta readers make sure it all makes sense on the first round. When it does, then do line edits.


Piece of advice: Grow thick skin. I try to always be kind in my crits, but everyone is not. And if you want to be a writer, you must take crit. Decide now that you want to learn from others. Open yourself up.

But don't take every piece of advice you get! Know your story and characters well enough to know if something will work for them. In the beginning, I changed everything that was critiqued as being wrong in someone else's eyes, fixed everything they thought would be better, to the point that it no longer felt like my story. I then went back to the original document and started over.

And the last thing, BACK UP EVERYTHING! And keep old documents!

This has saved me many times. Date the changes and save them, then when you work the next day, you save it under that date. I didn't do this date save in the beginning and lost a lot of work one day. When told about the date save, I have done it, and am soooo thankful I have. I also, not only save to my computer, but have bought an external harddrive and save to it. Then, I email it to myself and put it in the folder for that story. Saves a lot of worry, because I can access it from anywhere. (Oh, save in doc. even if you have docx. becasue I just recently realized that I couldn't open my attachment at my sis in laws, because she has an older Word. So now I save in both.)

Good luck in your writing endeavors! And have fun!