Donavon

Being a female myself, I know that the characters of both Donavon and Peter are especially important to my female fans. I have debated long and hard about who I think either one of them looks like. A sucker for tall-dark-and-handsome myself (yes, that means you, honey!), it was hard to find someone as good looking as my own husband.  :)

Of course, no one is exactly like who I have in my head, but I think this next actor is a close match to Donavon. (Write me a comment of your suggestions if you disagree!)

Paul Wesley

If he looks familiar, that is because he plays Stefan Salvatore on the CW's The Vampire Diaries. I was hesitant to pick Paul because of his connection to a vampire story.  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE good vampire stories... but I wanted to broaden my horizons a bit.  The only problem was, as I would try to find other "Donavon's" to choose, I kept coming back to Paul and his spiky vampire hair.  (Why do all vampires have spiky hair?  You know... Edward, Stefan, Angel...).

Any good Peter suggestions?

The Others Passes 10,000 Words

For those of you who watch the progress of my sequel on my sidebar, you will be happy to note that I am around 50 pages in and I just passed 10,000 words. Now, these are formatted pages and not standard word processing pages, so 10,000 words might be a better indicator of how far into the story I am.

The Order was slightly over 80,000 words, 447 pages and 20 chapters long with a Prologue and Epilogue). Right now, The Others is 2 chapters and a Prologue.

So, that's my update for you. The big news is that chapter two is finally done. I also have a couple fun extras that I am hoping to post soon, so keep your eyes open and check back.

Beth

Who do you think Beth Andrews looks like?

I have been thinking for a long time about who I think reminds me the most of Beth when I am writing about her. I picture someone with long dark hair, who is skinny and shy. Someone with big, innocent, dark eyes. Two actresses come to mind. A young Ann Hathaway:

And Michelle Trachtenberg:

What do you think? Any suggestions for my other characters?

Beta-Readers

I have had a couple of beta-readers give me feedback on the prologue and first chapter of my sequel, The Others. I thought you might like to see what they had to say.

Rachel: "I absolutely love what you have sent me (especailly the few chapters those are already AMAZING). Thank you for all of this. PS. Your an amazing author! Keep it up."

Camille: "Thanks so much for emailing me this! I just read it and it was amazing! The only complaint I have is that there wasn't more and it left me hanging! :) I say keep going and let me know if it ever gets published. Thanks again for sharing!"

I guess that means I better get back to writing! Thanks for sharing your thoughts guys!

Long Time, No See

Well, I must say, having a baby sure does make you get behind on things, like, oh, say, writing a sequel! Ha, ha.

Yes, that is right, we have another bouncing baby boy to add to our family now. I hope that is a reasonable excuse for my absence from the world of The Order Saga. But, my fans will be happy to know that I have started to resign myself to the fact that, if I am going to get any writing done at all, it has to happen during nap time. So, no more naps for me! At least not while the writing bug is fresh in my system.

So, I am happy to report that I have added another ten pages to my draft, and the Prologue and Chapter One are now complete. Yippee! I know my sister will be interested in getting a copy of the first chapter to read, but I am going to see how long it will take her to discover that it is done. (Does she actually read this blog anymore, or have I taken too long to post something?!)

With only twenty minutes left of nap time today, I have run out of writing time. But, to keep my fans going, I have posted the new player with the soundtrack for The Others at the bottom of this blog. It is a working list, so more songs might be added as I go. I also have a few songs that I dearly love for this soundtrack that are not available on Playlist.com. So, when you hear Tonight by Alex Band, Not Broken by the Goo Goo Dolls, Parachute by Ingrid Michaelson, or Your Love is a Song by Switchfoot, please think of The Others.

Enjoy!

Update

Did everyone see that?  I just updated the status of my sequel to 24 pages.  I know, 4 whole pages!  How exciting!  :)  But at least it is a start, and now that I have reviewed all my notes and am back into the swing of writing, perhaps the next four pages will come much faster.

It other news, "The Order" is currently under its second revision and will hopefully be ready soon.  Thank you Julie for taking the time to edit it for me!

So, hang in there.  More is coming!

Cookbook Done!

So, my project of working on the family cookbook is finally over, and now Scott and I are going to take a much needed vacation.  Upon my return, I hope to get back to working hard on my sequel.  I am very excited to get writing again.

Update- Cookbook

Well, I am sure some of you keep looking at my sidebar and reading, "Marsha is on page 20 of her sequel, "The Others," and wondering why that number doesn't change!

Well, that's because I haven't been working on my sequel for awhile now, and I just wanted to let everyone know why. My family puts together a family cookbook, and every so often we do updates. I am currently in charge of typing up the updates for our next version of the cookbook, and all my spare computer time gets eaten up by that.

The good news is, I hope to be done with the cookbook very soon, and I will get back to working hard on my sequel. Just hang in there! I haven't forgotten about it yet.

Amy

Who do you think Amy Wilkins looks like?

I found this pictures of an actress named Amanda Bynes, and I think she looks pretty close to what I see in my mind, just make the hair curly. She has that pleasant face with friendly round cheeks that I think Amy should have. Amanda Bynes was in the movie Syndey White (a tongue-in-cheek remake of Snow White). In the movie, her face was the perfect "Amy" but I had a hard time finding many pictures of her that looked much like she did in the movie.

Rachel

Who do you think Rachel Carter looks like?

I found these pictures of an actress named Amanda Seyfried, and I think she looks pretty close to what I see in my mind.