Yay!!!

I'm excited!  I wrote a "short story" (not so short - around 10,000 words) for the Western Ohio Writers' Association, where I'm a member.  Since I was trying to get it finished in time for the October meeting where members would be reading at Books & Co. in The Greene (in Beavercreek OH), I wrote a ghost story/horror/suspense kind of thing, not at all my usual genre (magical fantasy with a bit of romance involved).  I was very insecure about how it turned out.  Did I create enough suspense?  Did I withhold the clues long enough?  Did I give too much away?  Did the suspense build?  Did I manage to save the "surprise" until the end?

Well . . . I wasn't able to go to the October meeting, so I just kept working on the story because it intrigued me as a project.  Then I heard about an anthology project that sounded interesting.  I decided to polish that story and see if it would get in.  It was all I had since I normally write novels.  Imagine my surprise and pleasure to learn it was accepted to the anthology!  It will be published late this year.  I'll have ordering information both here and on my website when it's available!

The story is called "Lisa Goodman, Writer."  I've been given a detailed critique to help me rewrite it for publication.  And no, I can't tell you any more about it except it takes place in Dayton (which doesn't have a lot to do with the story - but that really is all I can tell you about it!  LOL).

So HUZZAH!!!!  My attempting a totally different genre wasn't a horrible failure (which I feared it might be!).  I'm a happy camper!

Book publicity

Wow, I've been busy, not that you could tell from my blog posts (maybe the lack thereof was a clue!). I've been busy getting business cards and bookmarks made to publicize "Star Sons" as well as working on other things for promotional purposes. Add to that the complete revision of my book, "Sculpting 101: A Primer for the Self-taught Artist" as well as two sculpture commissions I'm racing to finish, and I'm pretty much busy every minute I'm awake! But it's better than being bored! At least the Hollywood writers picked a good time to go on strike (and I'm glad the strike's over!) - I got a lot done all those evenings when I would've normally been watching TV!

I was interviewed about both "Star Sons" and my sculptures in January by Bill Schmidt of the Dayton Daily News. He did a very nice article on me that you can read here: http://tinyurl.com/2agdu4.

Helen Ginger, who writes and publishes the "DoingItWrite" newsletter and "StraightfromHel" blog (http://straightfromhel.blogspot.com/) has done an interview with me about "Star Sons" that will appear on her blog on March 13 and in her Doing it Write newsletter the same day. I'll post a reminder of the interview's appearance closer to its release date. Many thanks to Helen for giving me this opportunity to promote "Star Sons"!

My book's on Amazon!!

(sung to the tune, "Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay")

My book's on Amazon! (repeat 3 times then start over LOL!)

"Star Sons" is now available for pre-publication order on Amazon.com. It should be on Amazon.co.uk and BN.com soon as well. I've gotten word from several of my friends and readers that they've already ordered it, yay!

The ordering page is here: http://tinyurl.com/3655g8

I'm supposed to get a case of books today, one of which will go to the Copyright Office, another will go to Amazon for their "search inside" program, and the others are for reviewers and marketing the book to local bookstores (and selling to folks face to face, of course). I'm so excited!

YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, and my note in my previous post about the missing serviceman - he's been found! He isn't home yet, but he's safe. Thanks to those of you who prayed for him!

What fun!!!!

I uploaded the first chapter of my novel, Star Sons: Dawn of the Two (which will be published soon) to my HP Yahoo group and to my writing group, as well as to the publishing website (http://www.whspubs.com/). I was nervous as could be, exposing my "baby" to the world that way, but it's gotta get out there and be read if it's gonna be successful!! Imagine my delight when I got a bunch of responses very quickly, all cheering and delighted with it and wanting to know when and where they can buy it! YES! That's sweet music to my ears!!!!

The book's cover is being set up now - as soon as it's ready to go, the book will be printed! YIPPEE!!!!!!!! Can't wait to have it in my hands!!! Exciting times here!

It's a lot more work than it looks like . . .

Getting a book published, that is. Yikes! I've gone through my novel close to thirty times now (I lost track a LONG time ago - it may be a lot more than that!), editing, polishing, proofreading, editing and polishing again, proofreading again, sending it to my group of readers and my copy editor for their input, editing/polishing/proofreading after input from each of them, etc. Then there's the proofreading after sending it to the typesetter. Thank goodness he's a patient man, because it's absolutely amazing how different the manuscript looks when it's typeset! I found errors that should've been caught in all the other proofreading and copy editing, which are being fixed, thanks to a kind-hearted typesetter. And today I sent him my final read-through. Once he fixes the few glitches I found (missing quote marks here and there - tiny things like that), it'll be done!

The BIGGEST headache to me has been coming up with a synopsis for the novel. I write long-form (novels) - short stuff is HARD for me! But with the help of a lot of writing friends, I finally managed to come up with one that's 150 words (which was my goal) and seems to be pretty eye-catching. Hopefully it will intrigue people enough that they'll want to buy my book! Telling the story is the easy part (124,000 words later, I'm a happy camper with a told story!). SELLING the story is HARD (synopsis, queries, whatever else - argh) - for me, at least.

Today I had the very great pleasure of looking at my second novel's manuscript for the first time in a very long time. I wrote the bulk of it (57,000 words) during Nanowrimo last year. It's now about 90,000 words and finished in first draft form. Now I can polish and refine it. I can't wait!

I'm supposed to be working on a short story for an anthology too. I need to get my first novel out of my head a bit so I can work with completely different characters, plot, setting, etc., and in short form, which isn't as easy for me as novels. (My second novel is a continuation of the series I started with the first one.) Various things about the short story intrigue me a lot - I just have to get immersed in it to get it going. With "Star Sons" out of my hair for a little while, anyway, hopefully I can immerse myself in the story of Robin and Cricket (Robin being a young woman, Cricket a cat with a tale to tell).

Watch for "Star Sons: Dawn of the Two" to appear on Amazon.com in a few weeks!! YIPPEE!!