Like children, every book gets the loving care and attention they require, but try as you might, sometimes you can’t help but have favorites. Maybe it’s because some are easier to deliver than others, or maybe, with each birth, your latest becomes the favorite.
Whatever. I’ve never had children so I have no idea what I’m talking about!
What I can say is, I love The Bonding Spell.
I love all of my other books, but this one … well, there’s something about it that makes me feel some extra pride. I love the world, I love the characters and I love the potential for this series. There are so many places this storyline could go I’m having a hard time deciding where to take it next. I’m sure wherever it goes will be just as interesting as this first one. (more…)
Multiple authors sharing a booth and my professional looking banner helped make the festival worth it this year, at least for me. Participation should be carefully considered.
My writer friends and I have had multiple conversations about book festivals. The bottom line question is, are they worth it? We toss around questions like, can you sell enough books to cover the cost? Is it worth it to invest in banners, posters, cards and other give-aways? Does participation result in readers who look for you later to buy books online?
This is what I learned from participating in the 2014 Baltimore Book Festival.
What a weekend! The Baltimore Book Festival was a bit overwhelming and a lot exhausting. As crazy as it was to get past the massive crowds and find a place to park, it was amazing to see so many talented authors of every genre imaginable all in one place. I loved the opportunity to meet and talk to other writers about their experiences, but by far, the best part of the weekend was the opportunity to meet and talk to readers. What a joy it is to watch a stranger purchase your work--people who don’t know me as a person let alone as a writer. People who don’t know the books and yet, they still take a chance and buy the work. It’s an amazing feeling.
I’ll write more about the experience soon. Until then, here’s a little gallery of photos from the event.
You write a book, you rewrite the book several times, you send it to a bunch of folks to read, you absorb their comments, you decide you’ve got your final product, you send it to your agent, your agent makes comments, you absorb those comments and finally it goes to your publisher.
Eventually, the manuscript lands in the hands of an editor who reads every word, analyses every phrase and comes back to you with more comments.
In my opinion, the pages and comments that come back from your editor are the pages that require the hardest work.
For every other set of comments, you as the writer can choose to accept or reject any of those comments. Some comments you will know immediately are spot on. You incorporate them with gratitude. Other comments aren’t so easy to hear. Some you accept, others you reject because they don’t fit your vision, perhaps you don’t trust the reviewer or perhaps you’ve decided as the writer, the comments are just wrong.
But comments from an editor are different. This is the voice of your publisher. These are changes direct from the person who will turn your chick into the bird ready to leave the nest for good. You’re not as free to ignore these comments and suggestions as you would any other. These comments, at the very least, should be strongly considered.
So you work with them, you wrestle with them perhaps. Rewrites should be fun. But to me, the rewrites that happen as the result of an editors comments have an extra added pressure to them, and aren’t quite as much fun as others.
The good news is, these rewrites could be the final rewrites before your book finally makes it to the shelves. So we wrestle with them, we dedicate ourselves to them and we try to answer every question the editor has. Hopefully, the comments, no matter how difficult they may be, will lead to a better book.
Several weeks ago, I sent two projects to the printer for pick up later. One project, my first novel, had taken almost two months to rewrite from start to finish. The second project was the memoir I’d been ghost writing for almost eighteen months. After work, I went to the printer to pick them up and was handed a large box of more than six hundred pages -- six hundred pages that equaled countless hours of interviews, research, writing group critiquing and plain hard work at the keyboard.
I put the pages in manuscript boxes, took the boxes to the post office and mailed them to my agent. Then I went back to work.
It felt a bit anticlimactic.
I did make a post to my Facebook page, and I emailed a couple friends. “I’m Finished!” the emails said. Aside from that, I didn’t much talk about it, didn’t celebrate it, didn’t even feel much like I’d accomplished something significant. I’d put the finishing touches on two books. I’d sent two books to my agent. Now, all I had to do was wait to see if she could sell them.
Still, weeks later, I’m feeling a bit alarmed at my lack of reaction.
How do you feel when you’ve finished a project? What do you do to mark that completion?
Another beautiful Saturday and I’m stuck at my computer, writing. I shouldn’t complain, I know. I am doing this because I want to but it does make me feel a little guilty that I’m sitting here in the semi-darkness typing away. There’s a whole world of possibilities out there …
The answer to this dilemma is that I need to earn enough of a living with WRITING so I can quit my day job. What a luxury to write without restricting that creative time to evenings and weekends. Maybe. Someday.