She Rises Again

I have happy news! I finished the final edit of Twisted Saturday night at 11:30 pm! I'm not entirely sure of half of what I wrote, but hey! I like everything in it, the only things I want to change are the typos (reasonably.)
Oh plus, I should put chapter 15 back in. I kind of skipped over it. How you ask? Read it and see. :)
Anyway, I turned 18 over the weekend. I can officially be labeled as old. Before you ask, YES it was a good birthday, except for our late night visit to Silver Lake. There were bats flying around. I thought they were birds until I realized that normal birds don't fly around at night. I had the hood of my jacket over my head in a flash. I don't know if the myth is true and bats really do nest in your hair, but I wasn't taking a chance.
Also it was funny because only my brother and I thought to bring some kind of jacket. It was ridiculously cold in the mountains. I thought it was awesome that we were hiking in the dark (it was a short trail, and yes, I'll admit, not very reasonable) and it's what my characters do. I experienced what they do the first time (second, if one will get technical) that a wraith shows up. They're riding down the road and suddenly it gets dark, their torches die and their horses go absolutely berserk.
Aster bolts into the darkened forest to get away, I was looking at the trees around us and I was sure I'd pull an Allie. There was no way I'd run into the unknowns of a dark forest. I'd run down the path.
Yeah, and that's how Allie gets caught by our friend Happy the Wraith.
Allie btw, is one of my characters. Obviously. I needed a girl to balance out the boys, otherwise Aster and the Secret Keeper would probably strangle each other. Fun fact, her name has evolved from Leslander, Les, Jackie, finally my older sister said (not in so many words) "Allie! Just name the girl Allie!" and Alexandra Rose Taylor she became. Allie for short.
I've gone through some rough times with Allie. She didn't walk onto the page and say "Here I am. Love me or hate me." like Aster and the Secret Keeper did (I love both of them, I'd cry if someone took them away.) I didn't understand what drove the girl, why she did what she did. Eventually, after a lot of versions with a cardboard cut out of her, I managed to flesh Allie out. I get her now. She's angry because of the deaths in her family, she's constantly compared to her independent great uncle and she's ignored or taunted by the people in the kingdom she's living in.
All that equals one crazy girl that thinks up wild schemes to get attention, and it's not because she's greedy for it, but because she wants people to see HER, not her great uncle's memory living again in her.
It has taken quite a bit of time to get to know Allie like this. Now I think I could have her as a best friend, either that or I'd hate her, but isn't that how it goes with all people?
And yes, she is a blonde. But I like to call it sandy blonde, kind of brown, kind of blonde. I tried brown hair, and pure blonde but neither worked with her, so a lesson for the wise, if you run into trouble with the later drafts of your book, return to square one, your first draft, you'll realize you had more going than you originally thought. :)
Or you combine two drafts together. Confusing, but you can manage.