MY COVER

Here is my BEAUTIFUL cover!  Yay!!!!!!!!

The editing has begun and cover art!

I got my edits yesterday from my lovely editor, Sasha. She gave me some very pointed notes first about where I need to fix some things within the book. And I totally agree with her on all of it.

The funny thing about writing is that you know your book is not perfect, can tell there are things that could be better, but you do get to a point where you either can't see how to fix it exactly or just don't have the heart to do it. You need that push to MAKE you do it.

I have two weeks to finish the editing. Yesterday I did about 20 pages, which is a good pace. I'd like to finish the edits earlier, but I won't go nuts trying to do that. Better to take my time and get it right the first time, then go too quickly and make mistakes or not do my best writing.

I'm adding some good stuff where the story was a bit bare. Making the whole thing just deeper and more emotional.

I also got a look at my cover art yesterday!!!!!!!! And it is GORGEOUS. I hopefully can share it soon, but it has to get the final stamp of approval before I can use it on my website or anywhere else. So stay tuned. Should be any day now!

Winter = No Production

Right now, I work from home. It's a nice place to be, because I can find many ways to sneak in writing during my day. Winters around here are pretty slow. So you'd think that would mean a lot more writing in the winter, wouldn't you?

But no. That always seems to be my LEAST productive time of year. Right around November stuff starts to drop off...and then I don't usually get back into it seriously until about April or May.

At first, I thought it was the cold. My old office wasn't heated and had no door. I used a space heater, but without a door, well, it stayed pretty cold. Especially in January! Brr....

I have my new office space upstairs where it is easy to heat with the same space heater. No more frozen fingers. But yet my production is the same. Slim to none.

I'm still contemplating exactly which book idea I want to pursue. My first thought is to wait until my editing begins, hoping that gives some insight as to where my weaknesses as a writer might lie. You know, learn from my mistakes, rather than repeat them in something new.

I should be hearing from my editor soon. I'm anxious about that. I want to think she loves the book even more now that I made some of the changes she wanted. But some of me wonders if this isn't one huge colossal mistake. If my editor won't email me and say, "You know, we've actually changed our minds...we don't want to publish this after all."

Meanwhile, I want to work on something new. I really do. But that creative side of my brain seems to have stalled right now. Ugh.

There's been a change...

This will be just a short post...my editor informed me the other day that my release date has shifted forward to April 28th. There was a shuffling in the schedule.

I'm not all that concerned about it. Just gives us more time to work on the edits...also gives me more time to get used to the idea!

Gotta figure out the promo thing. Even a few weeks of extra time is a bonus, as far as I am concerned.

So reset you countdown clocks to April 28th!

What's next?

Sure, I guess I should be promoting the heck out of my book that hasn't been released yet. But here I am looking ahead to what comes next.

My first desire had been to find an agent and be published with one of the big dogs in NY. And I still would love to move in that direction because heaven knows the idea of writing for a living and not having to do anything else would be heavenly. (not that you can't make money with the smaller epublishers...you can...but the idea of perhaps hitting it big and getting some large advance is a pretty nice dream)

When I got the offer from Samhain I knew this would be a step in a long journey. A way to improve my writing with the help of a real, live editor who liked my stuff. But after I signed that contract I started to think about how best to handle the next step. Do I write another book with Samhain in mind? or do I take what I've learned, write another book, and go for the NY deal once more?

I have a series idea. Something that's been stewing in my head for about a year. I've added bits of detail over the months. Created a complex set of characters and started to think about the plot for the first book. Because heaven knows if you want a series to go for a long time, you need a lot of characters to work with. Plus, it just makes the world you've created feel that much richer.

When I mentioned that I had a sci fi idea in mind, my editor perked up. When sci fi books come through submissions at Samhain the editors fight over them. Apparently, this is a hot genre with few good stories?

I can see why, though. Women and sci fi....yes, there are plenty of us female sci fi fans out there, but not nearly as many as I'd like to think. Not sure why that is. I've been a huge Star Trek, Star Wars, (put your sci fi tv show or movie here) fan for years. And I'm no basement-dwelling geekoid with a million cats surrounding me. I'm your average normal married chick with kids.

I think I like the possibilities presented in sci fi. Space exploration scares the heck out of me...the lack of oxygen, the huge giant vacuum right outside the safety of the spaceship, the unknown.

Unlike paranormal stuff, which to me is completely made up, science fiction could possibly be true! There could be alien races out there we know nothing about, and worm holes, and fantastic devices that will be invented (isn't there a book or a website somewhere that details the things in Star Trek which came true?).

My science fiction idea is not outer space based. It's planet Earth based. I suppose it does have the potential for some outer space stuff...but I will admit, I am not scientific enough to pull that off. I would probably write science fiction that deals more with the characters and their actions vs. creating super cool futuristic alien gadgets.

There are a couple of female sci fi authors whom I look to for hope in the genre: Linnea Sinclair and Ann Aguirre. They've done quite well bringing female voices to the very male-dominated science fiction realm. And they are bringing something I think is lacking in science fiction...a real FEMALE perspective. Linnea Sinclair is known for blending romance with science fiction. Which is totally cool!

Anyway, I'm not quite ready to tackle my idea. I feel I need to do more research in order to get a grasp on my plot. And then what I will do with the book is an unknown at this point.

Any female fans of sci fi out there?

The countdown begins...

My editor got back to me pretty quickly...she said we will begin work on the book on the 23rd of January. In about a week. I'm praying she likes what I did with it.

So strange how you finish a book, edit it, and think you pretty much have it done. But when I went over the book this time, I found a few places where it was difficult to tell who was talking and a few other tricky descriptions that needed some help.

Besides adding in extra romance stuff, I fixed the places where I saw problems Surprisingly, I ended up adding about 3,000 words and quite a few extra pages. Which is weird because I did cut some significant text as well.

I have a feeling the book will be even longer when all is said and done. I write pretty cleanly, as in, I'm not extremely wordy on every page. The action moves quickly, there's a lot of dialogue, so there might be some more fleshing out to do in order to make the book even stronger.

I'll give you the inside scoop once I get started. Oh, and I'll let you know if I burst into tears when I see all the comments she's made.

KJ

Editing Hell

My editor, Sasha, asked me to add some more romance to my book. Originally, the romance was only a minor part of the story. The focus was more on the suspense elements. However, she thought that it would find a wider audience if I could make the romance a more central aspect of the story.

I knew this was possible. There were a few moments in the original where I chose very specifically how I would handle the scenes with romance. And I knew with some work, I could give her what she wanted.

First, I printed out the whole thing. Then, I handwrote any changes I wanted to make...crossing out things I could cut and writing in new stuff or just making notes for myself. That took about a week of work on and off. This week I did the actual typing up of all changes into the manuscript.

It was tough.

The hardest part I had was not altering much of the suspense story that was already there. Some of the emotional parts had to be tweaked in order to fit. In fact, I'm not quite sure if it 100% works. But that is my editor's job. To tell me what works and what doesn't. To help me shape the story into something better.

She had told me right before New Year's Eve that we would likely start editing within 'two to three weeks.' I'm right in that window now and expect to hear from her any day now.

I just emailed her my 'finished' edit so we'll see what she says. It's a bit nervewracking. I've worked with critique partners before, had writer friends give me their thoughts, etc. But this is one step higher for me. An actual editor telling me about the good and bad in my book. Hopefully, there's more good than bad.