Embraced by Darkness Book One: Sacrifices
I have been working on Embraced by Darkness (book one) for over ten years now. My mother still talks about the day her fourteen-year-old daughter started spewing out this story on a car trip. I never stopped talking. I remember it so well, I remember how excited I was. I remember how I couldn’t hold it in and I talked and I talked and talked. The stats on the front page are as close as I can get to the dates I worked on the first Embraced by Darkness along the way. The first time I finished the book, it was ugly, oh so ugly. I was very young and I wouldn’t call it now any better than a really rough outline. The next time I sat down with it I wrote it through and through, it took over two years and the resulting beast was over 250,000 words. I took a break from it for awhile, my boyfriend at the time and my mom read it. I read it again and there were a few months there when I was in total writer’s turmoil. I hated it. I thought it was awful. I thought all 250,000 words needed to be chucked in the trash. My boyfriend at the time, and the fact that I simply could not bear to start over, convinced me to try to salvage it.
On November 1st 2009 I made it my new years resolution that by January 1st 2010 I would have Embraced by Darkness cut down by at least 100,000 words. I started this blog as I began that journey and I did it. I actually did it. When I finished in early January the book went from 250,000 down to 149,000 words. I kept fiddling with it and editing it for another two months but the bulk of the cutting and re-writing I did in that two month period. It is truly amazing what we can do if we put our minds to it. And, this probably won’t surprise, I no longer thought the book was total crap. From there EBD has gone to my editor (my aunt Sharon Harris) and is with her now. Throughout the summer of 2010 and 2011 she has been working on it, with me, on and off and I’m hoping by this December Embraced by Darkness will be truly finished.
Embraced by Darkness Book Two: unnamed
I am working, as we speak, on the second book in the Embraced by Darkness series. I have no plans for a third book but I guess, never say never. My blog right now (October 7th 2011) is focusing a lot on my writing the first draft of this book. It’s been so long since I wrote a first draft and so much has changed in my thinking and the way I write since I wrote the first book. I had no idea how much a change it would be switching from revising a huge copy to starting something from scratch. Oh that blank page… But it is going, slowly but surely, and I’m playing with either calling this sequel Forsaken or Stricken. We will see 
The Death of Eliana
The Death of Eliana is a book I finished a few years ago. I love it. I absolutely love it. I love the story, I love the characters. This is the book of my heart. I hope, maybe someday, someone will say that The Death of Eliana was the Clockwork Orange of its generation. But I am working on EBD right now and have no focus nor energy left for The Death of Eliana. One day soon, I hope my blog posts will start with “I am working on Eliana finally!” It is technically a short and finished book right now, but I am expecting to do a complete re-write. You might be groaning at the idea at a re-write but I am very excited because all the trouble spots were worked out on the first push through and now I feel like when I get back to this I can truly enjoy just writing.
Other Books
I have three other novels, one basically with a first draft written and completed called “He Called Her Baby” and another that is nothing more than some scribbled post-it notes lying around to support my ideas called “Want”. I’ve also been working on an apocalyptic book in my head for the last year or so. I hope to get them all someday. First the EBD books, then The Death of Eliana, then I can focus on “Want” and from there we shall see
About Me
My name is Tarah L. Wolff and I am the co-editor of The Talking Stick and on the board of directors of The Jackpine Writers’ Bloc. I have been writing since I was eleven years old. There are many things that I do now to support myself but, when it comes to a job, I only want to write.
I was home schooled and brought up watching my incredible mother, with no college education, buy a business and make it a huge success. I was never told that I needed to go to college, or do anything typical with my life. I am very spiritual but not at all religious. I am an independent who may or may not vote republican or democrat. At nineteen I bought a house in Oklahoma and renovated it over the course of five years with the man I was with at the time. With that long distance relationship over I finally came home to Minnesota for good in August of 2010. Many things have changed in my life since then. There have been great sorrows and many doors closing that I thought would be open always. But with the closing of some doors, other doors have opened to me and I have never before been more free to choose my path and find my destiny.
