I sent my first five chapters to my critique partners in the wee hours of the AM.  I had a wave of nerves roll through my stomach as I drafted the email, attached the document and hit send.  I am looking forward to getting feedback, suggestions and most of all pointers in where I can make my novel stronger. 

And the best news of all – my husband asked to read the first few chapters.  I gave him Chapters 1 – 5.  He finished last night and said, when will you have more for me to read?  Then again today he asked if I’d have pages for him to read tonight.  He said he wants to see what happens.  OMG!!!  A super intelligent guy is intrigued.  YAY!!!  He gave me some great feedback, additional ideas and said he likes the relationships between the characters.  I had trouble suppressing my giddy grin.  I mean really – a guy – likes my story. 

I’ve made some major edits, getting rid of unnecessary scenes that weren’t adding tension and moving the plot forward.  My machete in hand, I’ve hacked it down to 144,000 words and am confident I’ll be able to trim it down to under 120,000 words. 

Did I tell you that I believe it’s morphed from a strictly YA paranormal romance to a YA contemporary fantasy?  I’m loving my story and I hope you and the masses will too…

I plan to start posting more info about the novel, such as the back of book blurb and maybe an excerpt or two.  Stay tuned…