COURT OF ANGELS!

Good morning, my flowers:

The End. The End. The End. I love those two little words. Too bad they usually mean I will revise the story many times more before I "sleep."

COURT OF ANGELS 2, OUT OF MIND, is with my editor and I am, of course, mentally rewriting the entire book--again. I wake up with half-formed notions about huge gaps in my logic but fortunately they seem to prove totally irrational when my eyes are completely open.

Letting go of a story happens to me in stages. As I gallop toward the end I'm exhilarated, giddy and full of optimistic delight. Boy, am I brilliant and is everyone going to love this story. There will be legions of the depressed who read this book and are instantly lifted from their unhappiness. After all, I'm an entertainer so that's my job, to make people laugh. But then, I've been known to shed a bunch of tears while I'm writing. But never mind, think of all the readers who will fill their pockets with tissues and have a thoroughly good time releasing all that pent up tension. Crying is good for us, good for our blood pressure. And the sexy love story is deep, dramatic, sometimes giggly, sometimes so tense I, at least, can hardly breathe. There is the sensual pull between the characters and sometimes a measure of the forbidden, perhaps a little experimentation or naughtiness--perish the thought:) Last but pretty big potato stuff, the mystery, the intrigue, in the case of COURT OF ANGELS, the battle for New Orleans between the evil Embran and New Orleans' psi families. Who is who and what is what? Is that good guy really a good guy? It's easy to recognize a villain with bleeding eyeballs, slime-dripping teeth, blackoned talons and yells of, "You will die, painfully, slowly, and you will beg for mercy." But not so easy when the nasty one resembles the handsome man next door who loves dogs and helps little old ladies across the street.

Boy, am I blathering on. This is what happens with some people when you given them a blank screen and permission to write what they like.

All of that was part of my first stage of letting go at the end of a book. All elements come under intense scrutiny and there are inevitable times when I'm convinced I've really screwed up this time.

Next there is the, "What the hell, I did my best," phase. I get a bit truculent then, and might be bombastic if confronted--about anything. Unfortunately this ostrich stage has never hung on for more than a couple of days before the really serious questions set in, such earth shattering inner examinations as, "Can I actually write at all?" "What made me think this story was a good idea?" and, "I'd better get the thing back, maybe I'll pull it altogether."

Stella Cameron on Facebook

The real revision comes next. My editor reads, we talk at length, I get so exciting at the prospect of jumping back in to incorporate the good ideas and reword the murky areas. When I'm done with this I truly feel a sense of peace--I'm happy for, er, a few hours. Nope, I'm exaggerating there. When I feel I've done all I can, I relax and try to see the story as an accomplishment. Lo those many years ago when I was writing my first book, just to see if I could really do it at all, I eventually wrote, The End and was amazed. The feat had been pulled off. Even if the book was a travesty, I'd written it.

Q.So why is it that however many books later this is, I still go through the same horrors? Any ideas.

Hugs, Stella

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