Randomness

Warning-- This post will be full of random info. Coherence is beyond me today.

What an interesting week it has been. Both nerve wrecking and exciting at the same time. I spent most of yesterday obsessing over how Threshold of Annihilation was doing. To my relief, most people seem to have enjoyed the book. It's reached number 1 in its genres in several countries and exceeded my expectations across the board. Thank you, everyone, for your support.

There are a couple minor typos that have since been addressed, but otherwise I'd consider this latest book a success. 

Because a release always seems to spawn a thousand questions about what's next, I'll take a moment to answer.

The print and audio versions of TOA are underway. Before you ask, I don't have any hard dates of when either of these will be available. 

For those interested in how this part of the process works, audio and print can't start until I have a completed version of the manuscript--which I didn't have until last Wednesday. 

The cover for print can't be designed until I have final page count and the audio can't be recorded until we know the words won't be changing. I could have delayed the ebook release until these were ready but I didn't think most of the fans would be happy about that :-)

As to when Firebird 4 is coming out-- I have no clue. I haven't even started thinking about it... Ok, that's a lie. I may have spent some time daydreaming potential plots and asking myself the what if questions. The additions of a few new characters (if you've read the book you should know who I mean) has me super excited for what comes next. There's even a short extra scene I've been toying with showing what happened on the planet during the bombardment with a certain new character and how she got discovered :-). 

But there's no concrete plans and I have no idea when I'll circle back as I have to finish Dragon 5 and Eva 2 before Firebird 4. 

In other news, I've slowly been adding my back catalog to Google Play. Dragon Ridden is finally getting a print version so that will slowly start making its way to publication as well.

Moonlight's Ambassador audio book goes live Dec. 17 with Dawn's Envoy following on Jan. 5.

I think that's most everything. I've been considering doing a Facebook live this weekend so let me know if that's something you guys are interested in.

The Perils of Inspiration

Most of the time I love the way my brain works. The twists and turns, the way random conversations in my head will make me laugh for no reason. It's what makes me, me. It's why I create the stories I do. It's why I'm rarely bored. There's always some bad guy to thwart or battle to win in the stories I tell myself.

It's not so fun when my brain offers up a brilliant stroke of inspiration that if followed would require me to scrap a good portion of the work I've already crafted in Aileen 5. Nearly all of it, in fact.

I'm early enough in the process that this is doable. On the other hand, the last two books where I've tried to "fix" a beginning, I've screwed the book up more. It's left me in a bit of a quandary. I'm frozen in place until I make a decision one way or another.

Some people think writing a book is a straight shot from A to B. It can be. For most of my books, it largely is--but not always. Sometimes, it takes a few false starts and an odd tangent or two to find my way.

Decisions both large and small, especially at this stage, set the scene for the rest of the book. There's a reason my writing is slower at this stage; why I don't achieve the high word count I'm used to. I haven't built enough momentum for the story to carry itself forward. Making a wrong decision will make the middle and back half of the book torturous to write and lead to more extensive rewrites when it comes time to edit.

I don't quite know which direction I will go yet. Perhaps what I've already written can be re-purposed into a short story. Perhaps my brilliant idea only seems brilliant because I haven't started working with it yet. Only time will tell.

Publishing Process

A few people asked me to write a blog post on my publishing process around the time Rules of Redemption came out. It's taken me a while but I've finally circled back to this question. Not sure how many of you are interested, but here you go. Warning - long post ahead.

The important thing to remember is there is no one way to do anything dealing with writing. This post simply speaks to my experience and what I've found to work best for me over the last eleven or so books. My process also isn't static, meaning I add new steps as I find problems with the old ones.

The other thing to remember is that I'm what they call an Indie or independent writer, which means I self publish my books myself. This post only speaks to that. If you go to a traditional published author then their process might vary.

Everything starts when I have a first draft. Usually, I hate the book by that point and I'm half convinced it needs to be trashed. I resist that temptation, however. Otherwise, I'd never publish. I do a read through to see how bad the damage really is and to identify places where the story has gone off the rails or to bookmark where new scenes need to be written to fill in the holes. Technically, I try not to fuss with the wording or editing too much, but in reality I do a pretty thorough line edit.

After I finish that read through, I start working on the scenes I've tagged that need work or need to be re-written. Then comes the second read through to make sure my patches hold. This also comes with another line edit.

By the end of this draft two or three, I should start liking the book again. If not, I fiddle with it until I do. From here, I usually send to my beta readers. These people are tasked with reading what I've created and then letting me know what works or what doesn't. If you have followed me on the blog, I've had other posts outlining my expectations of beta readers.

Once I have all the feedback, I sift through to determine which pieces I agree with and incorporate edits on. I'll be honest, when I first get beta feedback I can be a little stubborn. It's hard not to immediately reject their input. All writers tend to want to think their writing is perfect. I'm no exception. It's why I give myself time to digest their feedback and see if other beta readers agree. Usually, I talk myself into conceding they have a point when they highlight a potential problem.

After this, I either do another read through or I send to my editor. This person is someone I pay who does this for a living. I learned after my first book that editors are invaluable and can help you carve out the best story you're capable of.

After I've incorporated their feedback, the book goes to a copy editor. For me this is a fan who has been invaluable over the last few years. She loves grammar rules in a way that I do not. I'm more of a rebel who likes to make things up as I go along and who is utterly incapable of being consistent in the rules I do apply.

Once she sends the manuscript back, I do my last and final read through to catch all the things that have been missed so far. You'd be surprised at how many things I find. Sometimes, it's minor errors and sometimes it's the wrong character's name in an odd place. The last stage is formatting. After that, it's ready to be uploaded.

It seems like a long process, but it's the best one I've found. I'm not super detail oriented so going through the manuscript several times myself helps me catch the maximum issues.

My books are the only part of my life where I'm a bit of a perfectionist. Reading and the magical worlds contained in books have accompanied me through some of the darkest and loneliest parts of my life. Creating something that might do the same for others is important and it's worth getting right.