A note from my editor

This morning bright and early at 6:20am, sitting in my email inbox was THE email. You know the big one...the editing email.

Dun
Dun
Duunnnn!

Let me say, I was pretty worried that she would come back and say something along the lines of:

1. You need to add 10,000 words, or
2. You need to delete these X amount of chapters

She didn't say either of those, so I wiped the sweat from my brow! But here is a little of what she did say:

Hi BK!

First of all let me say that you made me cry and that's not nice! But honestly, I really enjoyed your book and I could really connect with Jemma (especially the grandma story line) and that was cool. You also did the love triangle in a really cool way. A lot of times triangles seem overdone but this was interesting because it was a rock star and who hasn't fancied themselves in love with a rock star who's spoken to their soul? So glad I'm the one getting to work with you!!

Did you catch what she said?!?! She CRIED!!! Seriously, as a writer, having your readers cry is one of the biggest compliments and one you strive for...okay, well, not every writer strives for that. But as a contemporary writer, yes, I do strive for pulling the emotional strings.

So, one of my author goals has already been achieved even before RAINING DOWN RULES has been released, and I am so very flattered!

I'm still waiting on my final cover, and hopefully I can reveal it soon.

Where I'm at in the publishing process, pt. 3

I thought it might be fun to do some documenting of my publishing experience.  Now that it has been three weeks since I signed my contract with Limitless Publishing some fun things are in the works!

Let's recap:

Sept. 10 - received a partial request from Limitless
Sept. 14 - received a full manuscript request from Limitless
Sept. 20 - received an offer of a contract to publish Chasing Forever
Sept. 24 - received contract
Sept. 28 - signed contract and became part of the Limitless Publishing Team
Oct. 1 - received a cover questionnaire, book blurb sample request and synopsis request
Oct. 6 - a new title has been given—Raining Down Rules
Oct. 9 - pre-edits come in and I've been assigned an editor
Oct. 12 -sent back my pre-edits
Oct. 14 received my book release date!!!

Every publishing house has their standards for formatting a novel, and for the most part, I'm sure they are all fairly similar.  That being said, since I've never published a book before I was a little nervous about the pre-edits.  But they came in and, even though I did have a few things to change, it wasn't terribly scary—PHEW!  So here is some stuff I learned:

Double spaces after . ? ! are OUT.  Seriously?  Like when did this happen?  My thumbs are constantly tapping twice on the space bar and I CANNOT STOP IT!  In case you haven't noticed, even my blog posts are riddled with double spaces.  It is ingrained in my brain and my fingers type on autopilot.  I. Must. Resist.

Em Dashes—now I know how to make them!  I kind of felt stupid when I learned the keystrokes to do them, but now I know and will never forget.  On a Mac (which is what I'm currently using) it's SHIFT+OPTION+- and you magically get —.  For the PC you type the word--and then type the next word.

Alright does not equal all right.  So, apparently alright isn't grammatically correct, it's all right.  Check!

There are more than one type of "quotes".  As in smart (curly) quotes vs. straight quotes.  See example below.  What I want to know is how in the heck my novel had both types in it?!?!   Anyhow, they've all been corrected.

"That's a 'magic' sock." wrong (straight quotes)

“That’s a ‘magic’ sock.” right (smart quotes)

Get rid of filler words or over used phrases.  Writing is different than just plain talking.  When we talk we use filler words to help us make our point to to emphasize something.  In writing, we really don't need to do that.  So here are a few words and phrases to search for in your novels or to avoid altogether unless they are absolutely necessary (in dialogue sometimes it's okay):

that
get
just
really
feel

very
actually
make their way
began to / started to
for the most part
just then

There are others out there and check out these links for more, here, here & here.  Search through your novel to find these words/phrases and see if the sentence can work without it and if so, DELETE it.  Or, find another more appropriate word to use in its place.  (Did you notice how my words above sorta look like the bottle from I Dream of Jeannie?)

I was also assigned an editor for my novel which is really exciting.  She's scheduled my book to begin edits on December 9th and have them back to me by December 15th.  So in other words, I have to wait almost 2 months until I begin my real edits.

Patience grasshopper.

Now, one last thing.  Get ready for this...

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

Raining Down Rules will be released to the world and I couldn't be happier!!

Where I'm At in the Publishing Process

I thought it might be fun to do some documenting of my publishing experience.  Now that it has been one week since I signed my contract with Limitless Publishing some fun things are in the works!

Let's recap:

Sept. 10 - received a partial request from Limitless
Sept. 14 - received a full manuscript request from Limitless
Sept. 20 - received an offer of a contract to publish Chasing Forever
Sept. 24 - received contract
Sept. 28 - signed contract and became part of the Limitless Publishing Team
Oct. 1 - received a cover questionnaire, book blurb sample request and synopsis request

So here we are, Oct. 2nd and I have returned the cover questionnaire, blurb sample and synopsis all of which will either go into helping the designers create my cover and will help with creating the actual back of the book blurb.  I have also submitted ten different title ideas for the novel (since the title will be changing - as it does so much in this industry).  Here are the titles I sent over:

1. Seeking Forever
2. Finding Forever
3. Grasping Eternity
4. Chasing Eternity
5. Rules of the Heart
6. Searching for Forever
7. Beautiful Forever
8. Raining Down Rules
9. A Chance At Forever
10. The Beat of My Heart

Now, who really knows if any of these will make the final cut, but they were options I felt applied to Jemma, Jordan and Vic's story.

Next week just may bring some pre-edits for my novel, we'll just have to wait and see - but plan on getting weekly status updates as they come!!

SQUEE!!!

Can I just begin by saying what an amazing journey writing has been.  Seriously, I have learned so much over the past 4 years and even more in the last year then I ever thought I could learn about writing.  I've met some wonderful people in the writing community, taken part in awesome contests and Pitch Parties - and it has all been...simply amazing.

Which leads me to my SQUEE!!! post.

I have just signed a contract with Limitless Publishing to publish Chasing Forever and it's sequels if I should write any.

Ummm - so I've done quite a lot of girly squealing over the past two weeks, as it all happened rather quickly.  I participated in Brenda Drake's #PitMad (if you're a writer, you should check it out) on September 10th.  I received a couple requests for Chasing Forever that day and within 4 days, Limitless requested my full manuscript.  I was at an interior design client's house when the email came in and I may have squealed a bit.  Then, a short (though it did not feel like a short) 6 days later, I received an offer to publish.

<<INSERT GIRLY SQUEALS AND HAPPY CLAPPING HERE>>

I'm thrilled to be working with Limitless and can't wait to tell you all about the process and then be able to share with you Chasing Forever (which, like many books, the title will more than likely change).