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. 2

 I thought it might be fun to do some documenting of my publishing experience.  Now that it has been two 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!

So here we are, Oct. 9th and folks, a change in your novel's title during publishing is inevitable and mine is no exception.  Remember the list from last week?

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

Well, which one did you like?  The publisher and I both agreed and have decided upon one of the ten listed above ^^^.  Here is where I'd love to insert a drum roll, with sound effects of course.
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I think it's a perfect title as the novel takes place in the Spring—hence the rain—and Jemma has her set of rules she's created to protect herself, yet she finds them crumbling around her—so the rain is bringing down the rules.  I'm super excited to see my cover when it's ready and even more excited to reveal it to all of you.

Let the game of patience begin...well, at least let it continue!

PS - use #RDRNovel on Twitter for sneak peaks and updates of Raining Down Rules.

New Project in the planning stages

I'm a sucker for matching actors/actresses to characters in my novels because it helps me really hone in on their physical descriptions. It's also fun to imagine those actors/actresses actually playing the characters. So, now that Chasing Forever is in it's editing phase, I'm ready to start planning out my next project! Yay!

Honestly, I don't have much "story" to go on yet, but the characters have been popping into my head lately and I wanted to share them with you.

First, is the leading man in the story. He's quiet and reflective, deeply passionate about his younger brother's success in the world even at the expense of his own possible failures. He's more interested in living in the moment than planning for his own future. He doesn't do relationships, he thinks they're messy and doomed to fail anyway.  At this given moment, he is nameless in this new story, but I'm sure it will come to me soon.

Jai Courtney (Terminator Genesis Jai Courtney, not Divergent Jai Courtney)




The leading lady is in a way opposite of our leading man. She's a planner, scheduler and likes things in a precise way. She's not afraid to go after what she wants when it comes to jobs or schooling.  She expects perfection in everything she does as well as those around her. 

Britt Roberston (The Longest Ride not Tomorrowland)





The younger brother is a senior in high school with excellent grades.  He's smart, amazingly athletic with a full scholarship for soccer.

Phillip Phillips (see, him and Jai Courtney could actually be real brothers)



The friends, what is a novel without it's supporting characters?  Well, these are the people who help our main characters get through the book.

Maia Mitchell


Chris Egan


The brother's girlfriend is clingy and doesn't want him to go off to college and leave her.

Elle Fanning


Alright - that's where I'm at right now with the planning, I have a long way to go, but it's a start.

This week in Twitter Contests

Oh man, this week has been crazy for me!  Which is a good thing, I promise.  It started on Saturday when my oldest son turned 8 and was baptized!  On the same day I took part in #CPMatch on twitter.  CPMatch is where you post a quick tidbit about your book and see if anyone else in Twitterland, who also has a finished manuscript, wants to become a critique partner.  Well, I ended up with two and both their books are so great so far!

Then fast forward to Wednesday.  Wednesday was holy-hecka crazy.  Two Twitter contests and I took part in both.  The first was #Pitch2Pub and then later in the day was #NewAgent.  Whew!

#Pitch2Pub required you to create a 140-character pitch to give to 27 publishers.  If they liked your pitch they would favorite it and then you submit your book to them.  Well, I had 6 publishers give my pitch a favorite.  SIX!

Here is my pitch:

20y/o fix everything Jemma takes in substance abusing rock star crush then finds love in the one guy she never coming. #Pit2Pub #NA #CON #R

Let me tell you, summing up your novel in 140-characters is NOT easy.  I wrote at least a dozen before settling on the one above.  I'm still researching the publishers and will be submitting my manuscript to at least two of them soon.

And back to #NewAgent.  So this contest is a little more intense.  It's a mentoring contest with published authors and new agents in the industry.  It sounds like an amazing opportunity and I hope I get selected.  For #NewAgent you submit the meat of your query letter and the first 250 words to the host and then the mentors read through them and select the ones they are considering mentoring.  They had over 250 entries, so my competition is fierce!

Here is what I submitted:

Title: Chasing Forever
Word count: 71,000
Genre: NA Contemporary Romance

Query:

Twenty-year-old Jemma Bowers always dreamt of marrying a rock star and when the rocker of her dreams ends up in her care she begins to feel she’s bitten off more than she can chew. Sex, drugs and rock-n-roll don’t have a place among the rules she’s created to avoid heartbreak.

Troubled by the death of her mother and then her father’s abandonment at an early age, not to mention a traumatic miscarriage at seventeen, Jemma finds herself caught between rock star, Jordan Capshaw, her teenage fantasy crush and the real-life affections of someone she never saw coming. A budding relationship with Vic Harper, a swoon-worthy firefighter from her past, and the failing health of the one person Jemma could always count on, just may be the driving force to push Jemma to break the rules she created three years ago in order to protect her heart.

CHASING FOREVER, is a new adult contemporary romance novel complete at 71,000 words, and is told from two points of view about a girl who tries to hard to keep her distance in order to save herself from heartbreak and a rock star determined to prove his father wrong.

First 250 Words:

I haven’t kissed anyone in over a thousand days, so when my date, Cody, leans in for the customary end-of-the-first-date-kiss, I step away, bringing my fist to my mouth and pretend to cough.

“Sorry,” I say, quickly trying to come up with a valid excuse as to why I dodged his kiss.

“I’ve been fighting a cold or something for a couple days.” Lame? Yes. Effective? Apparently. He backs away, shoves his hands in the pockets of his khaki Dockers and clears his throat.

“Alright, well…goodnight. I’ll call you.” He walks away from the door to my dorm and I have the distinct feeling I’ll never hear from him again; so much for Trish’s attempt to have me break my no dating rule.

“How’d it go?” Trish asks eagerly as she looks up from painting her toenails an obnoxious hot pink color. She’s wearing a thin-strapped pink camisole and matching pink shorts. Her silky black hair spills over her bronzed shoulders and not for the first time, do I wish I had her body. Instead, I’m stuck with my five foot four inch frame with subtle curves. I’m stacked well for my size, but if I had Trish’s height I might feel more comfortable in my skin.

I plop down on my bed, which sits across from hers, sigh and pull my pillow over my head. “It was fine until the end and I pretended I was coming down with something so he wouldn’t kiss me.” I cringe as I await her reaction.

Round 1 edits under way

Ahh editing, the joy of every writer.  Can you sense my enthusiasm?  Round 1 will likely take me a couple days and then its off to a few beta readers.  And then more edits, yay.

But the good news here, is the first draft is finishes which means it's one step closer to publishcation!

And the end is near

So the title has grown on me and Jemma, Jordan and Vic's story is coming to a close.  I'm so excited to be finishing up this novel though I can admit, I'm not looking forward to the editing phase.  Writing a novel is almost like adding another child to your family - a part of you feels very maternal about the whole thing.  The great thing about that is novels don't eat!

So what's next?  As I mentioned, editing Chasing Forever.  Then I will finish up Terry Tarantula and possibly do some more drawings so it can be ready for pitching in August to agents.  And finally, I have a story in the plotting stages that I'm anxious to start writing, but will hold off until Terry is finished.

I am Twitter...pated?

I'm kind of loving Twitter...

...Which could be a problem...

I watched a webinar this afternoon with Barry Cunningham of Chicken House (publisher of JK Rowling's Harry Potter) and the author of Breaking Butterflies by M. Anjelais which was hosted by the great people of NaNoWriMo.  It was fun and informative!

But the best part of the webinar is that M. Anjelais offered to answer questions on Twitter after the webinar.  So naturally I followed her and then answered one of her tweets:

@anjelais "PEOPLE PEOPLE PEOPLE. I would like to know what all writers out there are currently working on. Tell me about your current ventures!"

So here is the *Twitter Pitch* of my current work in progress:

@writerkristie "Relationship-scarred fangirl breaks all her own rules as she becomes the muse of her substance abusing rocker crush. NA Contemp"

And guess what?!?  M. Anjelais responded by favoriting my tweet as well as gave me a very nice response:

@anjelais "Would definitely read this! Breaking rules and substance abuse are themes that I like seeing explored in fiction."

Obviously I am stoked that my *pitch* was received well, but that she liked the sounds of my novel too!  Gives me the oomph to get the story of Jemma and Jordan on paper so that others can one day read it.

Thanks M. Anjelais for being kind - it means a lot to us little people :)  Now go and buy her book!

clicking on the photo will take you to Amazon where you can happily purchase a copy!

"The closest he will ever come to happiness is when he's hurting her. Will she let him? A beautiful and twisted story of first love and innocence lost -- written when the author was just eighteen.

Sphinxie and Cadence. Promised to each other in childhood. Drawn together again as teens. Sphinxie is sweet, compassionate, and plain. Cadence is brilliant, charismatic. Damaged. And diseased. When they were kids, he scarred her with a knife. Now, as his illness progresses, he becomes increasingly demanding. She wants to be loyal -- but fears for her life. Only the ultimate sacrifice will give this love an ending."

Character Inspiration

I've been a member of a book club for about six years now and one thing I always enjoy is when one of the gals tells us which actors/actresses she pictured as the main characters of the story we had read that month.  As a writer, I think we all do this with our own novel, it helps us keep our characters in check.  At least that's what I think.

So, when writing my current work in progress, the New Adult novel (NA is characters between the ages of 19-24), I spent a while looking at actors and found who I thought would portray my vision the best.

Here they are:

Teresa Palmer

20-year-old Jemma Bowers,  lives with her cancer-plagued Gran on her 40-acre ranch where she maintains the property and has become a live-in nurse.  Jemma is trying to figure out life and how to get over a traumatic, secret miscarriage that happened when she was seventeen.  She's afraid to let anyone get close to her and vows to steer clear of relationships.  But when she accidentally stumbles upon the rock star she's had a crush on for years after his concert one night, everything in Jemma's life changes.

Ryan Guzman

24-year-old Jordan Capshaw is the lead singer of world famous rock band who has a drug/alcohol problem.  He and his band made it big when he was eighteen and he has since lived a reckless life that included alcohol and drugs wherever he turned.  When Jemma finds him drunk and high, walking barefoot down a dark street, he has no clue how much this spunky yet timid girl will come to mean to him.

Scott Eastwood

 23-year-old Vic Harper is a fireman by day and a farmer by night, or is it the other way around?  He and Jemma meet at a club and hit it off.  Will he be the one to win Jemma's heart?  Or will he come on too strong and scare her away?

Kathy Bates

Gran, the name says it all, right?  Gran is witty, old fashioned with a little leeway and totally loveable once you get through her tough exterior.  She's been diagnosed with cancer and needs the help of Jemma, her grandaughter she's raised since she was four.  Despite the experimental drugs Gran is on, the outlook doesn't look good.  With the sudden arrival of the rocker Jemma has had a crush on since she was fourteen, Gran will have to try to pave the way for Jemma to become self-reliant and self-assured.  But can she do it before the rocker swoops Jemma off her feet?

The name of this New Adult book is still undecided which bothers me.  I like to title my novels sooner rather than later, but I guess something will stand out soon enough.  I'm currently running with Chasing Forever but it sounds a little corny if you ask me.