Into the Forest Shadows
On a world of valuable giant trees and intelligent animals, a red-cloaked headstrong teen struggles to save her family from a planetary conspiracy awaiting her at Grandmother’s house.
The above 2009 NaNoWriMo book was the novel I used to go through Holly Lisle’s “How to Revise Your Novel” class. The class started on December 1st of 2009 and finished in April. Only now have I finished one of the final stages, and that was to type in all the changes I marked up on the printed-out manuscript.
The original first draft: 81877 words
Revised draft: 79855 words
Considering I had several new scenes and no cut scenes, I’m surprised the word count didn’t go up. But, there you go. I was snipping a word here and a sentence there. Every so often a portion of a page. It all added up.
Hehe, or deleted up.
Whew, what a lot of work, but definitely worth it! I’m really happy with the way the story came out. Now to format it into chapters and prepare it for the beta-readers, who will then rip it to shreds. 
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Oh, I love retelling of fairy tales. Can’t wait to read this. Is it based on Little Red Riding Hood?
Yep, definitely Little Red Riding Hood. Complete with red hood, Grandma’s house and a wolf. Well, an alien wolf, but it still counts! Oh, and trees. Lots and lots of trees.
I love trees – that’s why I studied forestry.