Gossip Girl Reminds Us of Fallen Angels

Who has two thumbs, a big huge smile, and is done editing her manuscript? Yep, you guessed it: this girl! I finished on Saturday, even though we all know that I'm not really finished. I added about 15,000 more words, yet it's still about 30,000 words less than the first book. I'm not trying to add words to match that first one, but I wrote so much on Saturday that I started falling back into that mental state of oh my gosh, my fingers are about to fall off so I should just end this scene as quickly as possible. Needless to say, there are a few things that I need to add and even subtract, but the first draft is done and out of the way. Since I finished earlier than I thought, I think I might fast track it and not give it all of June to marinate in my head. I have just give it a couple of weeks and then get back to it. I changed the ending, but I'm not entirely sure I like it, so that's one of the reasons why I don't want to wait too long. I want to get back to it, but I have to give it a little time, just to see if I might like it. If I keep it, I also have to go back through the whole thing and make sure that it all adds up to the ending. So we shall see.

So what does that mean for the next couple of weeks? Am I going to sit around watching TV and not touching my computer? Yeah, right. I've already started mapping out another story and want to get that going. But I also know that I have to start the whole process of creating a book out of a manuscript, and I did start that last night. I had forgotten how terrible it was to make a book jacket, but it's also somewhat of an adventure. I remembered some of the pictures I found when I typed in fallen angel into Google, but this year, the search engine really outdid itself. What's one of the first pictures I found while I was searching?

Oh yes. For my cover, I would love to have Jenny Humphrey walking the red carpet. I think that she perfectly captures the feeling and essence of the novel. Fallen angels, a world falling apart, danger at every corner...It's practically a Gossip Girl sequel! 

Sigh. For real, Google? The sad part is, this was the most tame picture that I could show. Apparently, fallen angels conjure images of extremely thin women in short dresses, high heels, and they're all blonde.

Don't even get me started on the images I found for end of the world.

This is going to be another tedious process. I wish I knew how to draw. I know I've said that before, but really. Why couldn't I have honed that skill while writing all those weird stories when I was kid? I used stencils and traced from a "how to draw a horse" book. Someone should have smacked me upside the head and said, "Kid! Do you realize what kind of pictures are going to be on the Internet when you grow up? Oh, what's the Internet? Well..." It would have been helpful, trust me.

So, for now, I'm going to crawl through the millions of strange and disturbing images on Google and Shutterstock for something I can maybe use. A Goodreads page should be up this week. I have a list of things that I need to do this week, and I'm really trying to get through it all. First up: cleaning the house and making it stop smell of wet cat food. That's what happens when it's a thousand degrees outside for the last week and the air conditioning does nothing to cool down the apartment. I leave all the cleaning for today and then promptly sit down to write this thing. I think I made a good decision.