Sometimes I Wish I Had Staff

Sometimes I think - if only I had staff like the big guys – Grisham, Baldacci, Penny, King—you get the idea—I could put out books a lot faster. But that’s just not going to happen. So, I was pleased, a few weeks ago, when I was at my son’s house, someone showed interest in my work. We are still negotiating a contract, haggling over how many Greenies a day I need to provide. In the meantime, I continue chipping away on the fifth Caitlyn Jamison mystery, Uncharted Drift. Chapters five and six will be critiqued on Monday evening during our Fiction Critique meeting, which is through the CRRL in Fredericksburg. An earlier post showed how I used the erasable whiteboard to work out the plot and how the characters were connected. That graphic was transferred to paper so I can use the whiteboard to try out various plot scenarios. Ideas often come when I am not at my computer, so this way, I have the whiteboard on my lap and can brainstorm away. When chapters are polished and ready for critique, I fill out Post-it® notes, color-coded for each character. It’s a way to manage the plot lines and track when the characters appear. Before I can start Chapter 7, I need to spend time on the whiteboard, figuring out what’s next. And so goes the life of a writer.

Deja Vu - An Unexpected Death to Imminent Danger

A question every author has to ask when starting a project is: What is this story about? That question has to be asked throughout the writing, because when the plot and characters are developed, the story will change. Revisting the story I started in 2019 (see earlier blog), I asked the question, and couldn't come up with a good answer. I had so many feelings going through my mind. Thoughts and emotions of what we had gone through the last two years. There were too many issues I wanted to touch on and plant the seed for readers to think about. I continued to ask the question: What is this story about? I boiled it down to the root issue. In doing that I felt the similarity of my feelings in 2008 when I started writing An Unexpected Death. At that time I was frustrated and angry over what was happening in our country. People were losing their jobs, and then losing their homes. And those responsible were not being held responsible. I had to release this anger, and through genealogy I'd learned that writing helps you make sense of things. And that's when I started writing. As I honed in on the root problem of the last two years, it was a similar feeling I had in 2008. Write about it, work out the frustration and anger, and plant seeds for readers to think about.

Will this book ever be published?

The road to publishing is often bumpy. I take some pride in the fact that my manuscript was accepted with no adjustments needed. It’s the cover that has been giving us angst. We thought we had provided enough space for the bar code, but alas, it took three tries to get it right. I have ordered another proof and am keeping fingers crossed there won’t be any major mishaps.

What I forgot … this is a first time novel, so there is a certain level (read: high) of stress associated. I am now thinking of things I forgot to put in – like the statement: any mistakes are mine! I also should have included a little more about myself as a person and as an author.  

Writing, publishing, and marketing are new and wonderful experiences for me.  I know I am growing in the craft and although there are some sleepless nights, I think it will all be worth it.

The bottom line is, I hope readers will enjoy the story and overlook the mistakes they find.

Lavender Helps

Was it just coincidence that my Amazon order of an essential oil diffuser was delivered early Sunday afternoon, at the exact time I decided to tackle the great unknown, creating a CreateSpace account and loading my manuscript?

I was surprised to see the U.S. Postal truck stop by our house shortly after we arrived home from church. Although the notice from Amazon said the item was to be delivered on Sunday, I never thought it would – it’s Sunday!

But there it was and I immediately started it up in our office with drops of lavender essential oil being diffused into the air.  We needed it.

When I loaded my manuscript into CreateSpace, I realized the pagination was off, as well as the fact I didn’t have enough pages in the front matter. Back to the document. I added the correct number of pages into the front matter, and then worked on pagination. Only problem was even with a section break, whenever I paginated the main body, the front matter also paginated. Very frustrating. After a period of time trying different things, reading online help articles (read: no help), my husband finally said, “Let me take a look.”

He is more advanced in his technology knowledge than I, but we were both a bit frustrated after he tried all his tricks to correct the pagination.

After spending all afternoon fighting this issue he remembered how he had melded two documents into one for one of his genealogy monographs. That is what we ended up doing. We had three documents going, melding the front matter document with the main body document making a third. We then paginated the main body, and voila! It worked.

I tribute our ability to not let frustration and anger take over to the calming influence of the lavender filtering through the air we were breathing.  We got the job done and toasted to our success. Needless to say, we still need to learn how to use section breaks!

Lavender helps.