Friday, August 4, 2017

Four Books in Two Months and Now to Get Serious

On May 31st I was finished with The Fairlawn Investigation, closely followed in June by The Victoria Wayfarer Investigation. Those two novels were written in 2013 and 2011 respectively, then joined the ranks of unpublished material in binders sitting around in milk crates and file boxes for 4 and 6 years. Not feeling well enough to tackle a new writing project, I've spent the past two months polishing up stuff already written and getting it out there. Bending Birches was written in 2015. It's sequel was partially written then abandoned when my friend Pauline (Mrs. Thayer in the novella) passed away in September of that year. I cleaned up Bending Birches, tracked down the sequel (having to open and start reading a number of files because I couldn't remember the name I'd given it). It was almost finished, so I did finish it, and then backtracked to make sure both novellas meshed. That's how Bending Birches came to be. Finally, thinking about all my cat and dog loving friends and fellow authors, I plucked 9 stories in which kittens, cats, puppies and dogs play a role in the romance going on between two people. Life, Death, Love, Cats & Dogs was an easy put together since I pulled the stories from previously published books. Only Franklin, a ghost cat story, had not yet been published. I gave it a read through, fixed up punctuation and grammar here and there, and then plugged it into the new book. To perk up the book, I plucked cat and dog quotes by famous writers, authors and others and added them at the beginning of the book, then added a quote of my own. To make it more enjoyable for family and friends, and facebook acquaintances who have seen the boys on my facebook page, I added one of my favorite photos of Riley Beans and Revere as the cover image. It took me about eight hours on a Saturday to pull the stories and put them into a new interior book file, fix up Franklin, then upload the file and create the book. Technical glitches with the internet and CreateSpace created a few delays, but by Monday evening the book was approved and now it's in the hands of family and friends already.


So, for me, it's not a matter of OMG- you wrote four books in two months! No. I have been writing for decades and NOT publishing anything. I have tons of written material lying around my house. I have been writing new books (novels are still fairly new for me) and ghost stories in between and publishing them also, so that's what gives the illusion that I'm some sort of writing whiz. I write daily (well, I do occasionally take a day or two off to read). I am a disciplined hobbyist writer. I also write to relieve stress. I write because I enjoy writing. I love words- putting them together so they tell an entertaining story.


But- now, I have one novel that I have been working on for two years. I just finished the 4th printed proof read through- making final tweaks, revisions, and corrections. I think I finally have this novel ready to submit to a real publisher. As you probably know, I do not like loosening my control over my work...so offering this manuscript to a publisher is a humongous step for me. I'm only doing it because I have had good experiences with novels I've submitted to contests with The Subtlety of Light and Shadow earning a 10 of 10 from a judge in The Golden Heart Contest in 2015, and an overall 7.49 rating (I don't write straight out romance- this was my one and only attempt at that. Then My Magical Life and The Archetypes-First Generation garnered positive comments in the Writer's Digest Self Published Novel contest last year with the judges really liking the story, but marking me down on the covers and such things as starting the chapters too high on the page (technical stuff), and the stunning surprise of Black King Takes White Queen being shortlisted for the OZMA AWARD 2016 earlier this year. Black King Takes White Queen is my 2017 Writer's Digest Self Published Novel entry this year.


So, Out is going through its revisions this weekend and if I get it done by Sunday I'll begin drafting a query letter according to the publisher's specifications (include an author bio and first three chapters for esubmissions). We'll see what happens. If it gets rejected, I'll look into one more local publisher...and if that fails, I will release the book with its current deep purple roses cover.


So, yes, during the course of my life so far, I have been a prolific writer. I have not written all of these stories in the past two years. I have written the majority of the 13 published novels over the past 6 years. I have one more I really want to finish that would probably fall into the romance category. If you've read The Winter Solstice Ball in Always Christmas in My Heart then you've read a novella based on the novel.


I will not be putting out another book for a while because I have beta reading to do for other authors and a writer's group to get started. I will be writing a NaNoWriMo novel in November, more ghost stories, and my annual holiday story/-ies, but will probably not have a second Miss Peculiar's Ghost Stories out this year. I have two longer holiday stories written last year. Not quite enough for a new book yet. However, I still have the three already self published Christmas books to do some revisions in that I did not get to when I redid all the previous books covers and spiffed up the interior copy. Still a lot of projects to tackle, but making some sow and steady progress!

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