Editing

I have to say, I'm actually having a lot more fun editing "Eyes on Fire" than I thought I would. Today I have done a lot of work on the first chapter, adding almost double to the beginning and I'm not done yet. I got some good feedback from a few people who checked out my chapter and it gave me some ideas for making things better. If anyone else has any suggestions let me know, I'm always eager to improve my story and make it easier for others to read.

Oh, I did some work on "Failure" and I have to say that it is completely awful. I've honestly never hated anything I've written as much as I hate this. I'm going to talk to my husband and see if he has any ideas for how to work this next chapter because Edward certainly isn't making it easy. I'm considering changing the point of view to be from either Alice or Bella... but maybe that isn't what I need. Who knows, maybe when I finally get it to work it will be from Tanya's POV! Anyway, just wanted to give my ff readers an update.

That's about it for now, I'll try to keep up with this a little bit better in the coming weeks. Being sick hasn't helped me stay focused very well.

-Krys

Keeping my promise

I promised that I would update with a teaser from my novel and I am keeping that promise now. Prepare yourselves to enter a world that has been plaguing my mind for the past couple of months...

Chapter One: The Raid

(Jenna)

"Jenna, I really don't think this is a good idea."

I groaned and rolled my eyes as Chase caught up to me. I was preparing for the evening out, I already had my stake in its hip holster and my favorite knife strapped to my ankle. I was trying to find my spare dagger when Chase interrupted me.

"Chase, I already told you that you do not have to come tonight. It is your decision," I said, pulling my dark hair up into a ponytail so it would stay out of my face when I was fighting.

"I just don't think we should go to the Blood District tonight, we can head over to the Flesh District. Besides, it is easier to hunt there. Steele is going to be pissed if he finds out we took on some vampires without him for backup," Chase growled threateningly.

"Fine, go barge into his certification class and tell him that I am taking on some Night Walkers without him to hold my hand. I am not a baby, Chase," I snapped.

"Chase, lay off her. If she thinks she needs to prove something to Steele by going on a raid tonight it is her choice. Besides, she is our best tracker," Molly said with a cheeky grin aimed in my direction. "You know, you don't have to come with us tonight."

Chase sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. "I never said that I wasn't going, I just think that it's a bad idea."

I ignored him as I led the way out of the house, followed closely by Molly and Locke. I didn't expect Locke to say much about my decision, but then, he rarely argued with my decisions on anything. It was one of the things I liked best about him.

Once we got outside I closed my eyes and took a deep breath of the cold night air. I wanted to head to the Blood District tonight because I knew that my attacks worked best on a vampire and because Steele hated to see me around the blood suckers. It was a win-win situation if there ever was one. I shook my head of that thought and focused my internal compass on finding our quarry.

Earlier this week there had been reports of a small group of vampires who were crossing boundaries and feeding from children in a nearby residential district. There had been enough eyewitness accounts given that I knew I could find the rogue group and take them out, but I also knew that Steele would think it was to dangerous for us. That is why I had waited until the night of his weekly certification class to take the group out. He was going to kill me when he got back home and found out what I had done, but I didn't care. I was through letting him treat me like a child he had to protect. He was only three years older than me and he knew I was a better fighter than he was. He just hated to see me fight since the night of my accident...

"Hey, Jenna, are we going to get going or what?" Molly asked, bumping into my shoulder forcefully.

I shook myself out of my dark thoughts and focused on what was going on. "Sorry about that," I muttered, "Let me concentrate for a minute."

Everyone got really quiet; they knew I worked best when I could focus completely on what I wanted to track. I took a deep breath and then let it out, imagining the rogue vampires in my mind. Within seconds my internal compass shifted north and I felt it pull me past the Blood District and into a residential. "Crap, we got some Night Walkers prowling around the North Res," I told them and Chase groaned.

"If we keep running around the residential areas we are going to get caught," he reminded me. Yeah, like I needed to be reminded that we were all practicing magic under age, without training and most importantly without a license.

"If we head out now we will miss the routine sweeps," I said calmly, trying to remind him that I was taking all responsibility for this mission.

"Fine, let's just go, I'm tired of trying to talk sense into you."

I hesitated, knowing that Chase usually had a good sense of how a mission was going to go. If he was fighting me it was probably for a good reason. I also knew that if I gave in now, Steele would find out about it and I would never get another chance to prove myself. Finally I steeled myself against what would come and I snapped out an order, "Follow me."

It took us fifteen minutes to reach our destination. It wasn't exactly easy for four teenagers to sneak around the back alleys of a city that was teeming with Night Walkers and government sweeps, but we knew the layout of the city better than anyone in it. We had to in our line of work.

When we reached the edge of the North Residential District I paused, trying to get a track on where our prey was. "Two blocks to the east," I muttered, attempting to be as quiet as possible. The sweeps didn't just catch movement, they caught sound too and they didn't just give you a slap on the wrist for being out after curfew without papers.

We moved as quietly as we could, taking great care not to speak to each other or step on a sweep mine. We had only been in the North Res for a few minutes when I smelled the vampires ahead. It was a smell of dark magic, musty and thick. I motioned to the others that they were close by and then I used a precious ounce of magical energy to form a silent cocoon around our group. I wasn't willing to get caught by the Sweepers for taking out a few rogue vamps, it just wasn't worth it.

After a few more steps I heard some muttering coming from just up ahead. As we made our way through an alley I caught my first glimpse of them. There were three of them, standing in a circle around a small shape near the end of the alley. I knew without a doubt that they had already claimed another victim tonight and it threw me into a hot rage.

My mind snapped with the fury that suddenly shot through my body. I was always passionate about my work, but when children were involved I lost more than just my temper, I lost my focus as well. It was as if I suddenly had tunnel vision, all I could see was the one vampire at the back of the group, his lips dripping with fresh blood.

A snarl ripped itself out of my chest as I flipped the stake out of my hip holster and gripped it tightly in my palm. I sprinted forward, my eyes focused on the blood smeared Night Walker as I raised the stake over my head, prepared to shove it into his cold dead body. Suddenly I saw something out of the corner of my eye that made me hesitate in my adrenaline fueled attack. Another vampire came at me from the side, moving as gracefully as only a Night Walker was able. Before I could throw up my hands to block his attack his hands shifted, moving to my head. I felt the coolness of his touch a moment before the darkness claimed me and I crumpled to a heap on the ground.





Well? Like it, hate it, not quite sure yet? Anyway, welcome to my world...

Sick Day

My brain is working at less than half capacity, so please forgive me for not posting a teaser today. As soon as I finish typing this up I'm heading to bed. I'll try to have it up tomorrow if I'm feeling better.

-Krys

Brainstorming

The past two days have been very long and awful for my husband and I, so we have tried to ignore the awfulness by brainstorming some new ideas for my novel. Jon has finally started reading through and editing my pitiful first draft and I have to admit, he knows exactly what my story needs to get better. I'm beginning to wonder if he is yet another muse for me, though I doubt if Aiden would like that idea. He is a very jealous muse.

Today will be spent catching up on lost sleep and working on editing the areas in my novel that Jon has pointed out to me. Some of his ideas are so clever and wonderful that I can't wait to get to work on them!

I know this post was short, but I'm running a little low on energy. I just wanted to update everyone on my writing status. Hopefully by tomorrow I will like my prologue and first chapter enough to post a teaser of it here. Wish me luck!

-Krys

Blocked

Today I had high hopes for working on my original fiction novel. I planned to upload it to google docs so Jon could help me out and edit it a bit for me. Unfortunately, by the time I got all the kinks worked out of the document I was so sick of it that I couldn't concentrate on the story. It didn't bother me too much because I have two other stories I'm working on so I figured that I would just get some work done on those... yeah, not so much luck with that. I only got about two sentences out and they were both so ridiculously dumb that I quit before I ruined the story.

For some reason Aiden is just not in the mood to help me today. I gave him little fox treats and everything but he still refused to help me out. I'm not sure if he will be more susceptible tomorrow or if I am looking at a rough writing weekend.

No matter what I know that I need to read through "Eyes on Fire" and decide what to keep and what to axe. I already know that one character is potentially facing expulsion from this book, though I do intend for her to be very important to the last two books in the trilogy. My little Necromancer is just making things a little too complicated right now. At least I have a couple of normal characters to balance her out.

Anyway, I'll update again when I have something more interesting to say. I'll just leave with this little piece of my mind... Writers block really sucks when you are on a deadline.

-Krys

Intentions and Introductions

Welcome to my friends, family and potential readers. My name is Krystol Grayson and this is my writing blog!

I've decided to start this blog for many reasons, the first of which is that I need a place to update people on what I am currently working on. I also needed a place to begin gathering interest about my first original fiction novel that I began working on in November for NaNoWriMo and that I plan to finish before the beginning of the summer. So, now that you understand what my intentions are I will start the introductions!

I'm a writer who can't settle down to just one project at a time, that may be why I am also a fan fiction writer as well as an aspiring novelist. If you have known me for awhile, you will know that I have been writing since I was a little girl and that nothing in the world was more important to me than finding a good story. Finally, I think I've found one with "Eyes on Fire" the first book that I've ever considered putting up for publishing... but more about that later. I've yet to introduce you to the other half of my writing team.

Many of you who know me know that the love of my life is my husband, Jon. What few people know is that there is another man in my life who is quite important as well. That man is my muse, Aiden. I've been plagued with a muse since I was a child but I never really understood what that meant until I took the suggestion of a fellow writer on a fan fiction forum and gave my elusive idea creator a name. What I didn't realize at the time was that giving your muse a name is like giving a mouse a cookie... it unleashes a tidal wave of new problems that you didn't foresee coming.

From the moment that Aiden and I officially became a team my brain began swarming with ideas. I couldn't take a moment to breathe with all the new ideas I suddenly had, if I did pause for too long to think about what I was writing I would inevitably miss important points of the next idea that came my way. Eventually I had to learn that not all of Aiden's ideas were good ones and I had to let some go... oh great, now he is growling at me.

Oh, did I forget to mention that Aiden, while sometimes showing up as a wonderful (albeit sometimes irritating) Celtic man, also shows up as a cunning and affectionate fox. Of course, I don't expect any of you to understand him quite yet, I've had him around for years and I still don't understand him completely.

I wanted to add one short note to the end of this first blog post for all the wonderful ladies who read my fan fics on Twilighted. I have begun work on chapter 2 of "Failure" and so far it's going great! I hope to have it up on the site by next week and then I'll begin work on chapter 8 of "Our New Life." I love you all!

Thanks for reading my first introductory post, I hope I didn't confuse anyone too much! : D Stay tuned for many more blogs in the coming weeks, I have a lot of books to work on and I may just give some previews for those people who follow me.

-Krys