L.E. DeLano's Blog, page 34

“You’re not jesting with me?” He asks.

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“You’re a girl named ‘When’ and I’m taking you to an island named ‘If’ – is that correct?” “Yes. But you mustn’t ask questions.”

#2bitTues

Open Theme

From: WIP

My Bazillion Outlines

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I’m in the construction phase of the latest story, and that involves multiple outlines in multiple formats, snippets of scenes written down as they come into my head, lists with bullet points of important stuff that needs to happen, and eventually, only half of all of this will be of use. If I’m lucky.

This is where you grab a handful of metaphorical seed and scatter it, hoping it grows. Later, I’ll add fertilizer, walk around in the field, mow it down a bit, dig up an area or two to overturn it and re-seed, and perhaps even find something fascinating that scattered on the wind and now grows between the rocks.

But right now – it’s all just about the scattering. Because seeds are precious and few.

Fertilizer, however, I have no shortage of. Ever.

Metaphor, baby. Keepin’ it real.

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Guess What’s Coming In The Month Of June???

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That’s right – something big is on it’s way! I just got word that the cover reveal for  DREAMER will be on the Swoon Reads site on June 26th!! Cue the happy dance!

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Okay, maybe not that happy dance.

I was sent the cover about a month ago and it’s absolutely KILLING me that I can’t share it yet!

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Just wait till you see it! On June 26th!!

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You’re going to love it, I promise.

So many stories . . .so many far-off lands . . .

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His life was out there, and he reveled in it. Nothing could

match the freedom of the open sea and the sun on his sails.

#1lineWed

From: TRAVELER

Topic: “Freedom”

Oh, That Wonderful “What If” Moment When You Write

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I was hammering away at my first draft of my next book over the weekend, and let me tell you, it felt like hammering. Like there was a big rock in my brain and I was just aimlessly chiseling away without a whole lot of real direction.

And then it happened – the “What if?” moment.

I was writing out a scene that I was pretty sure was going a certain direction, when suddenly, my brain wheeled about and said, “Wait a minute – what if she did this instead of that?”

Ohhhhhhh. The possibilities! And while we’re at it, what if we kept her doing what she’s doing, but what if he was hiding something?

All of a sudden, my stream of consciousness turned into a handful of tributaries and a whole lot of bubbling rapids that tossed me from the boat a good half dozen times and soaked me with new ideas. Oh, it was glorious!

Now I get to figure out how to make it all work. Or if it will even work. And once I do, I’ll probably come back and cut and rework a lot of it. But at least it’s there, and every “What if?” leads to a whole lot of “Surprise!” and that is writing gold, if it’s done right.

Oh, please let me do it right.

Onward.

“Ah, Jessa,” he murmurs . . .

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“When it all comes together, I’ll be here. I’ll be here with you. I swear it. I’ll love you to the end of it all and beyond.”

#LoveLines

From: DREAMER (Feb 2018)

Topic: “The End”

Tidbit Tuesday: He’s Been Alone Too Long

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In this scene from DREAMER (the upcoming sequel to TRAVELER), Jessa has just had an argument with her mother, and a certain reality-traveling pirate tries to give her a dose of perspective . . .

“Don’t fault your mother for being concerned when you aren’t yourself,” Finn says.

“You don’t understand.”

“I do. But I think you’re inflating things a bit.”

“Inflating!” I pull away from him, raising my arms and slapping them down at my sides in frustration. “Look you don’t have a mother like that, so you can’t really understand–”

“No, I don’t have a mother like that,” he snaps, and I can see the hurt in his eyes. “I grew up without any mother at all, but I believe I can still offer some insight.”

My face reddens with chagrin. “I forget what it’s been like for you,” I say by way of apology. “Don’t you ever get to have a complete family?”

He smiles slightly. “Here and there. But never for very long. There always seems to be something to pull me away or pull them away somehow. The only real constant in the vast majority of the realities I’ve seen is you. So I presume you’re as close as I get.”

There it is again, that swelling warmth inside of me that no one else can seem to tap into. I don’t like the idea of him being alone. He’s been alone too long. And if I’m the one who makes him a little less that way, I’m glad.

Finn is a wonderful, wandering soul, and Jessa is a girl with a thirst for adventure. We only scratched the surface in TRAVELER – just wait till you see where DREAMER takes them!

“You’re stuck with me,” he says . . .

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“I’ve saved your butt too many times. And I’m fixing to save it again, if I have to.”

From: TRAVELER

Favorites Friday – Ray Bradbury Was A Master

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I’ve made no secret of my deep and abiding love for all things Bradbury. The man could paint with words like Michelangelo. He was amazing. Today, I’m going to share one of my favorite passages, from “The Martian Chronicles:

There was a smell of Time in the air tonight. He smiled and turned the fancy in his mind. There was a thought. What did time smell like? Like dust and clocks and people. And if you wondered what Time sounded like it sounded like water running in a dark cave and voices crying and dirt dropping down upon hollow box lids, and rain. And, going further, what did Time look like? Time look like snow dropping silently into a black room or it looked like a silent film in an ancient theater, 100 billion faces falling like those New Year balloons, down and down into nothing. That was how Time smelled and looked and sounded. And tonight-Tomas shoved a hand into the wind outside the truck-tonight you could almost taste time.

Can’t you feel it? Smell it? Hear it dropping down on hollow box lids? I recently visited Stonehenge for the very first time, and I paid extra (a lot extra) to do the private tour, and be allowed to walk and stand among the stones. This passage kept playing over and over in my mind as I wandered between them, the sheer timelessness of the place.

That’s the kind of power words can have, to transport and transform, to paint and to play across your mind.

Amazing.

Oh, The Little Extras . . .

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I’m working on one of the funnest parts of the book (at least when you publish with Swoon) – the extras!

In my extras for TRAVELER, I added a recipe for Glitter Mousse (courtesy of a fabulous chef who was up to the challenge of recreating it), and for DREAMER, I’m going to write a bonus scene.

I can’t tell you what about, because that would be a spoiler, but let’s just say it’s about continuing someone’s story. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

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Can you believe the ARC’s for DREAMER will be out in a few months? Where did the time go??