Hi Jeanne,

Welcome to Sorcery!  I'm looking forward to reading your novel & working with you.

Have a great day.

Hi Jeanne,

Just printed up the first chapter from your story & noticed it's set in Costa Rica.  Could we have found a better match?  I lived there for 10 years and still spend a few months out of the year in that luscious corner of the world.  Great choice for a setting!  Looking forward to reading your story.

Hi Jeanne,

Thanks so much for having a look at 'Uninvited'.  It's my new baby so it's really great to have such positive & detailed feedback so early in the game. 

I was wondering...would you mind being a regular reader for 'uninvited', instead of doing 'Eolyn'?  I have a good list of readers for Eolyn at this point, and I think knowing someone is waiting for the next installment of 'Uninvited' would help keep me moving on that project.  Also, given the subject matter of 'Dark Angel', I think I'd gain a lot from your feedback in terms of ideas on world building for supernatural beings.  Well, let me know what you think.

If you decide to continue with 'Uninvited', give me a few days before you go to the next chapter.  I've been working on rewrites, and it'd be great to get the new material up before you read more.  I'll post in my sticky & here when the rewrites are up. 

I really liked the first chapter of 'Dark Angel', by the way.  Found very little to nitpick.  You have a very engaging writing style and I look forward to reading more of your story.

Jeanne, I just read your response to my review.  Please don't let some jerk get you down.  I've had my share of drive-by reviews with a one or two rating, as has everyone on this forum.  If it's really nasty, turn him/her in to Soln, and I bet you won't see them on the site after you do. 

All I can say is if a reviewer gives you a nasty review they better give you some honest ways to fix the problem.   But having read you, I can tell you the reviewer is talking out his/her ass. 

Just smile, send back a comment with a 1 rating and forget the crumb.  Don't let this reviewer take up valuable time in your head.  I need you to put up another chapter, sweetie!  (smile)

I will check it out Jeanne.

Thanks for the review Susan and thanks maryapryl for making the time to review (no rush - just whenever you have the time)

Thanks!

Boy Rita, that's so true.  I have cut almost half of my word count on the first novel doing rewrites (went from 148,000 words to around 87,000) and I'm still picking away at it.  I also feel finishing the novel, while doing small edits after reviews is the best way to go about it, because you're right, sometimes it's better to get it all out then do the major fixes.  That's where I'm at now. 

One thing I've found by waiting though, is if you make a major change in a finished story it effects the whole novel sometimes and it's so hard to find everything that reflects those changes in the rest of the work.  You almost have to read the whole novel to find them.  Or hope your reviewers find them.  I found that out the hard way.  An example:  if you say, change where a scene takes place you would need to make sure that the old scene is not mentioned somewhere else in the novel, or that scene did not generate another one somewhere.  Or if you cut a scene, will it change something mentioned later? 

With two books complete in my series, and a third one started, making a major change afterwards can be daunting.

It's quite pain in the ass, I tell ya.

Susan

Just printed your chapter 11 Jeanne and will read it tonight.

I have also been in a place where the writing just wouldn't flow. 

Or another problem: I have a vision for another book.  And it just won't leave me so I can write on in the one's I have started.  Such a pain.  But if it's not there, you can't push it.  So I just review and write when I can. 

It will come back Jeanne, it always does, and if you are like me it usually comes back with such a big push that I can think of nothing else.  Ha!

Susan

Thanks Jeanne, just take your time.  I'll be here.  Remember, I don't have a deadline.  I am retired.  Putting in your review today. (smile) I am enjoying 'The Dark Angel'.

Thanks ladies - you make me want to keep writing!

A question about Costa Rica?  Oooh, any time - the trick will be to get me to shut up. 

Golfito is a great place.  It used to be the headquarters of United Fruit (now Chiquita Brands).  I think they moved there in the 1950s or 60s (After having been on the Caribbean side since the late 19th century).  They abandoned the town in the mid 1980s b/c of a worker's strike (kind of a pattern of behavior with UFCO).  Since then, it's been depressed economically.

The town is squeezed between a small bay (that empties into the "Golfo Dulce") and rather steep, forested mountains.  It's got a short airstrip with an open-air hanger.  On one end of the airstrip there's a pot-hole-filled road where the taxis await passengers coming off the small planes.  On the other end there's a mountain.  (So you always land praying the brakes work in time...)

You can still see the footprint of United Fruit.  One part of town, where UFCO's executives & managers lived, has large two-story wooden homes that might have been elegant once, though they're pretty run down now.  The rest of town is built up with the small, crowded constructions more typical of Costa Rican homes.  Everything is kind of half rotting away.  I stayed at a hotel there once, and water came out of the faucet black.  (And no, there was no evil presence in the room!) 

Despite its economic troubles, Golfito is still an important town for the region.  There's a major hospital there (major, that is, in the context of Costa Rica), and a duty-free zone that is visited by travelers from San Jose looking for tax-free refrigerators and tires and such.  From a biological standpoint, it is the gateway to the most beautiful and species-rich region of the country, the Osa Peninsula.  Golfito itself has some fantastic forest surrounding it.  I have it on good authority it's the best place to collect tropical snakes and lizards in the country.  The University of Costa Rica has a small field station there (with very rustic rooms in which the shower floors have long since rotted out...)

What else would you like to know? It's hot and humid, and rains a lot.  The plants and flowers are lush, lush, lush.  And the smells are strong - whether sweet or sour.  From the bay, you can access mangroves and beaches by boat...whales have been spotted in the nearby Golfo Dulce.  [sigh] I wish I could be there right now.