First off, happy October. I’m taking a break from beta reader mistakes today to talk about something super exciting. *drumroll please* I’m going to be in an anthology. For those not familiar, an anthology is a collection of short stories, … Continue reading
Gollum has always freaked me out, but this is a fascinating way to think about writing and fear. So, which one is it? Gollum or Smeagol?
The book. The book. It’s always the book. So by the end of this week I will have finished the third draft of ‘The Kirkwood Scott Chronicles – Skelly’s Square’. 120K words. 90 plus chapters. 400 ish pages. I’m now in a position where it can be printed out, bound and attacked with a red pen. I have beta readers waiting in the wings and the pressure is most definitely on. Suddenly this dream of mine is starting to feel very real.
Last night in bed I had a mini panic attack. I suddenly didn’t want to be a blogger or aspiring author. I wanted to step back into the shadows of anonymity and forget I ever started this crazy journey. I didn’t want the attention, the expectation, the pressure. I wanted to bin the manuscript, delete the blog and pretend the last 15 months never happened. Why did I…
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Sorry I’ve been so MIA, but another thing to know about the book process is that it’s slow as Christmas. I sent my baby off to seven beta readers and I’m finally starting to get some good feedback back. Some … Continue reading
I have now hit the freak out stage of editing. Beware. I know that there is such a thing as over-editing, but I don’t know how to tell if I’ve hit it yet. I’ve read through my draft several times, … Continue reading
I know I should have done this yesterday, but because this was my most non-traditional end of a year ever, I was in an airport most of the day. I saw this though, so that was cool. Also, I feel like it … Continue reading
It’s weird what you learn about yourself when editing your own book. For instance, I put a lot less on paper than I actually think about. In case that doesn’t actually make sense, let me give y’all an example. One of my handlers is Asian. I know this and this is how I’ve imagined her, but while reading through my draft, I realized that I never actually said that. It took me two edits to realize this. Granted they were a spell check edit and a grammatical edit, but still. During my content edit, I can fix this.
What are y’all’s weird editing things? I know it can’t just be me.
I was at Barnes and Noble with my mom today and this woman passes me and says, “These are good books, right?” and I politely reply yes and she starts giving me a sales pitch.
Her name is Charlotte Fairchild and she tells me her book, Murder on the Silver Comet Trail is free on Kindle, which upon further research means KDP not Amazon. The link to the book is below.
So we have a long conversation about Agatha Christie, because she says that the book doesn’t have any blood and guts in it, which I thought was weird because murder generally involves blood.
Then she tells me about this button she has, which I found out later was part of a non-profit. Link to it below.
https://www.gofundme.com/remind-women-to-use-buddy-system
We talk about self-defense and women in tech for a while. She was an extra in two movies and didn’t think there were enough women working tech. I don’t know which movies.
I didn’t get the chance to ask, because her sister comes up to her and tells her they need to go. That’s when she tells me her name and we talk about the movie Sabrina.
It takes guts to cold sell someone in the Young Adult section of Barnes and Noble. I don’t think I could do it. I get nervous calling people I know.
What do y’all think? Could you ever coldsell someone in a book store? Do you think it’s a good strategy? Has anyone read this book?
Why is it so many new novels are—to be blunt—crap? How can we find an author we love with one book, then all the love goes away with the next? What’s going wrong? What’s missing? Where did everything go wrong? How can we learn and do better? First and foremost, to be an author it’s…
Killing characters comes naturally to some authors, for others its a struggle to harm their precious babies. I talk about the considerations that should go into such a decision and what impacts character deaths can and should have.
I finished the first draft of my book!! I actually finished it in May, but I’ve started the editing process now and want to keep y’all updated. This hopefully means that I’ll remember to post more.
