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Writing is hard, and re-writing is harder, but I'm a staunch believer in Nabakov's assertion that a writer's pencil should outlast its eraser, so I've learned to play with my manuscripts. I had a lot of fun weaving secret little jokes into the story and finding places to hide tiny Easter eggs. If I've done my job well, neither the ones a reader catches nor misses will distract from the narrative, but just add a touch of color where visible. Some of them are so corny, I probably wouldn't confess even if caught. Some, I thought I'd share.

Jokes don't work once you explain them, but chapter titles, for me, are almost always games. In chapter one of and Falling, Fly, "What You See" does a few fun things for me. First, it is what you see, being the first chapter, so that's satisfying just on its own. Secondly, I'm playing with the expression "what you see is what you get," because that's clearly not the case here. I'm also using the expression to call out early on what will end up being one of themes of the book.

In this book, I'm interested in exploring how seeing a thing changes it - from the physics of Heisengberg to teen girls with a Vogue magazine. And I play throughout the book with the question of who sees and who is being seen. And who watches.

For Olivia, sight is paramount. She can't see herself in mirror unless someone else is looking at her, and the gaze of anyone who wants her subtly reshapes her body in conformity to their ideal. Still she believes, perhaps irrationally, that if someone can see her for how and what she truly is - fallen angel and vampire with terrible wingscars and cruel feeding teeth - and still love her, she will be able to escape her curse and be redeemed. For Olivia, then, the quest is to been seen and loved.

For Dominic, of course, the question of seeing is different. He's a scientist, and believes only in what is observable or provable. Seeing is believing. But Dominic is troubled by flashback-like memories of lives before his own. He's working on medical ways to treat delusion. Dominic's goal is sight without visions.

Another place I'm having a little fun with language shows up in the first paragraph:

"The angel of desire is damned--at least that's what my tattoo says. Okay, if I'm honest, it just says ‘dam', with ‘ned' still only outlined in purple stencil. But twenty-first-century angel that I am, I don't give a fig for honesty."

Here, I'm using my grandmother's era's expression "don't give a fig" to indicate Olivia's age. She's been around for millennia, and her speech is occasionally anachronistic. But "fig" is doing double duty for me here, because it's also the term vampires use for the human prey they hunt. They are an inherently erotic fruit, with their lightly haired skin and deep pink flesh. And fig leaves, of course, are the symbol for inadequate cover from shame, tying the story into the Garden of Eden story, which I'll pick up again in the third scene of this chapter, and again later in the book, where I have two scenes set in the garden itself. Or at least at the foot of the famous tree.

In the first chapter, though, it's ‘The Fall from Grace: Lite Version'. Set in a posh sushi joint, Olivia is meeting her boyfriend of seven months on her birthday, fearful that he will propose to her. His name (of course) is Adam. And he is the first man. He's the first guy we've seen in Olivia's world that she sees as a man, the tattooist in the first scene never being more than a fig to her. But she's worried about their dinner. If Adam asks her to marry him before she's able to reveal who she really is, the seen-and-loved loophole will close. So what's hanging in the balance is salvation, as it was in the garden, and as in the garden, the danger is knowledge. I don't name the sushi place until the end of the chapter, (Eden Sushi), but Olivia and Adam walk through "tiny tables dotted like topiary in this garden of sensory delights." When Olivia, like Eve, offers knowledge to Adam, I wink at the apple-eating a bit too:

"His mouth, anticipating, is delicious. I hate to shove truth into it, but he must taste before he speaks."

Later, in chapter six, a snake offers Dominic an apple, and in chapter seven, he takes one from Olivia. Also, and at this point just for fun, Adam orders Szechwan pork ribs which he doesn't eat, but which allow me to have him address himself to them:

"'Why do I always fall for the crazy girls?' he mutters to his ribs."

So woman, made from Adam's rib causes him to fall, and of course he, mixing the signals of apples and blood, asks if Olivia's problem is an eating disorder.

Finally, having fallen and been ejected from Eden, Adam is left shouting for Olivia, who's standing above him on the building's roof:

"Shout yourself hoarse calling for your angel, but don't lift up your eyes to see."

The bartender who has followed Adam into the street to say he's no longer welcome within is, of course, named Michael - although I don't let him bring his flaming sword.