Love this lighthouse + train track image. Two of my favorite things.

So today . . . lemme just refer to this post on Facebook.

🙄 <– that’s all I’m saying. lol

Man. We went from a tough and frightening moment with Kat and Sean because she is at his mercy. Then we ended up headed into a territory which was incredibly passionate and powerful, and finally into the above territory.

Think Kat got to realize something very powerful today. How will that change her? Will it? I think it will. She’d been believing that the amount of hatred Sean held toward her went so deep that maybe what, there would come a time when she had to do something to him just to protect herself and her King?

But then . . . then came that one moment which changed everything she’d been feeling. Man. I wouldn’t have wanted to be in her shoes, though I was in truth. Otherwise I wouldn’t have had tears streaming down my face. That to me is how I know my readers will find the scene to be intense. But as per a discussion I had on Facebook with a friend of mine? I won’t ever know unless a reader tells me. I don’t hunt out reviews. I write, edit, publish, repeat. Learned long ago that searching out reviews was detrimental for me. And yes, even the good.

On one hand it’s hard to never see the feedback except for that rare reader who writes me or comments on this site (or a social network). On the other hand, it ensures I’m writing for ME. That’s too long to go into so I’ll leave it at that. But yes, I typically only hear from readers when they come to me. I’ll explain that later on in another post, but I’ve mentioned it before.

Back to the previous thought. I have found that through my editor, if a scene affects me emotionally? It’ll affect my editor the same and I know it’ll affect the reader. In a way that truly makes me feel good. Yes, I like scaring all of you too with the horror! Job well done *pats self on back* when I scare the bejeebus outta someone. But, I like that there is that connection to the characters and the scenes. To me, that is one of the marks of the best writers.

Apparently I just called myself a “best” writer, but I was thinking of Stephen King when I said that. The day I stop learning to be better and thinking I have no room for improvement? That is the day you can slap me and demand me to get lost.  That will never happen. I can’t be that smug, lol. I know very little when it comes to quality grammar and such so yes, still very much learning in all this. I think more like Stephen King and Dean Wesley Smith. 

When we have the ability to make you feel the same as we are. It’s like there is no distance between us, but that the reader is experiencing it with us. Within us even?

Connecting with a reader on that intimate level is a gift on both sides. For the reader to truly walk inside a story a writer creates out of nothing? Come on, how many writers really get to us on that level? Exactly. Stephen King has been one of the best for me. I am transported out of time and space and into those worlds he creates. Part of me believes it’s because of his lack of outlining. Hard to predict what’ll happen when the writer doesn’t even know. There is no plan. The characters live their lives, we just tell them as best we can.

And somewhere the writer and reader meet in that magical midst.

Today’s word count for Fury of a Queen.

Started out at – 41,742

Ended at – 43,357

Total word count for the day – 3,333