Rewrites from the ground up

I thought I'd give everyone a little writing update to let you know what I've been doing with my writing time (besides devising blog posts and losing countless hours to critiquing and Twitter).

My current project is "Racing the Dark" - book one in my "The Mortal Cure" trilogy. I started planning it out at the end of 2008, and finally began writing in October 2009. The first draft was finished in January 2010, and I began rewrites later that year. Just when I figured I'd sorted it out, I discovered Critique Circle, and some incredibly helpful people who offered some fantastic comments on how I could improve it.

A bit of research - Allergic to the sun

In "Racing the Dark", the world is ruled by vampires. While my vampires don't follow every rule the myths lay out for us, they do follow the "burn in the sun" bullet point.

Part-way through the story, Darin comments that, "It is derived from a human genetic disorder." That disorder would be Xeroderma Pigmentosum, and the short explanation of it is that the person's body can't repair the damage caused by UV light.

The MedicinePlus Medical Encyclopaedia defines it as "a rare condition passed down through families in which the skin and tissue covering the eye are extremely sensitive to ultraviolet light."