Revise! Revise! Revise! Was the summer mantra.
June, July and August were spent deleting, adding and tightening my new young-adult novel entitlted, Torn. I must admit, deleting was hard. The character I thought would add depth and interest to my story ended up in a word document I fondly named Pieces. All the scraps that were once cherished, but now trashed, live there.
Once the excess was drained and the ingredients refined, Torn was ready. Torn is a story about Eva, a sixteen year old girl, whose family decides to care for newborns awaiting adoption. For Eva, the idea of being a provisional sibling is absurd. How can she love a sister for 4 days and then return her like a pair of too tight pumps? When Mattie, Baby #1, arrives, Eva is reminded of her brother Michael who died at the age of 6. She wants nothing to do with this new baby. She wants her license, her friends and ex boyfriend, Nate. Not the baggage of a new baby. But slowly Eva’s mind begins to change. She realizes she adores this little blue-eyed boy and handing him over to the Lynches, the adoptive couple, tugs at her soul. But the angst doesn’t compare with the raw torment she feels when she learns she’s going to meet Casey, Mattie’s birthmom. Eva’s preconceived notions of Casey run contrary to the sad, young woman whose hair smells of jasmine, leaving Eva even more confused when Izzie, Baby #2, arrives. Izzie swims into Eva’s heart, making her impossible to part with when it’s time to say goodbye. A long walk turns into so much more when Eva decides to take matters into her own hands, rather than give Izzie to the 2 men adopting her. Complicating Eva’s journey is Nate, the boy, who wants more than she’s willing to give, Eva’s mom’s confession of a recent pregnancy, and Gracie, the pregnant teen who Eva realizes is her own path not taken, her real-life alternate ending.
So…what do you think?
