Battling Doubts

I wrapped up books one and two in the Merry and Bright Handcrafted Mystery Series (former series title was the Twas the Murder Before Christmas). Last week, I turned in the final edits for Not A Creature Was Stirring and the next stage for that book is release day. And this week, sent in the manuscript for book 2 Be Good for Goodness Sake. The last month (okay, actually 2) had been a little hectic with juggling both of the deadlines and even having to push hem back a bit. I was happy with book two but do foresee some edits in the story line. There was one new secondary character who I think might have inserted themselves a little too much into the story. I'll see what my editor says. Sometimes, I'm not quite the best judge of my own story.

The title of this blog post is battling doubts, and it's not the book I just turned in that's the battle field of my doubts, though I am having some for it. I think it's natural for writers to not be sure of a story once it leaves our hands/computers. Or, at least I know I always do. The doubt that has me at a standstill is over whether or not to republish (self-publish) my inspirational romantic suspense series. I have reedited the first book, am working on the second book, and designed covers for all five of the books. Yet, now that the first book is formatted and I'm about to press the publish button, I am frozen.

I love the series. The characters. Why I wrote it. It means a lot to me. But, I'm scared to take that final step and get them back out into the world. I'm not sure if it's because it wasn't well-received (as in sales wise) and I'm afraid that I'll be disappointed yet again. Or, the fact that releasing them is giving up my "hopes and dreams" on what could happen and discovering the "what is" for the books. Honestly, it's a little scary.

The New Beginnings series are romantic suspense stories about self-rescuing princesses and tarnished knights out to set the world right. I adore all the books I have written, but have to say this series holds a special place in my heart. These books are about pushing past and through the traumas in life that want to keep us captive, want to pull us down into despair and keep us there. It's about clinging to hope for a better future even though it seems life wants to break you. About knowing when to let go and when to continue fighting.

And in writing that out, I realize it's not time to "let go" but to push through my insecurities. I don't want to let this series go. And to battle these "demons" a little bit, I'm going to be brave and share the cover and the copy. Because then it'll be back out there. It'll be real. And the first step is always the hardest...next up will be uploading the formatted to Amazon.

Skip-tracer Renee Stratford-Knight’s life plan changed upon her sister’s murder. Instead of using her skills to find people, Renee opened New Beginnings a firm specializing in “vanishing” abused women. Now her ex-husband –and former business partner – Jonas Knight reenters her life asking about her most vulnerable client.

In order to uncover the secret a teenager girl disappeared to keep, and a killer wants silenced, Jonas and Renee must struggle through distrust and the pain of their pasts to work together to save the life of a teenage girl – and their own.

The Lost Email

Before vacation, I turned in the first revision for Not a Creature was Stirring and spent a week enjoying time with my husband and crafting as the resort we stayed at had wonderful craft classes. Monday's plan was to get back to work and into the swing of on the marketing/business side of writing and the rest of the week would be working on the next book. On my list was checking where I left off in the WIP, scheduling heroine interviews on my blog, filling out my weekly schedule, and double checking the due dates for the other items needed for Creature.

Next on my to-do list for Creature was filling out the cover art sheet and sending in the back cover copy. Usually, I shudder at having to write the cover copy. There's just something about having to condense an 75,000+ word book into no more than 175 words that sends me into a slight panic. It involves days of agonizing over every word and changing it one more time before I send it in, realizing it sounds pretty much like the first draft of the blurb. I do not look forward to writing them at all...except for this time.

I vaguely recalled the pitch that I had wrote for the book. I didn't remember the exact words but knew it was awesome. A wonderful mix of humor, serious, and introduced the main character and the crime perfectly. Or at least that is what my memory is telling me. So, I wasn't worried about writing it. I'd copy the blurb from the email I sent to pitch the book, tweak it a bit, and it would be ready.

Except--the email is gone. I know I saved it because it had my intention to use part of the pitch to write the cover copy. I told myself not to panic because if I accidentally deleted it during my yearly trim down the emails in the inbox, it was in the sent folder. I didn't delete sent folder emails until they were about 3 years old. Nope. Not there either. It just up and disappeared.

In examining my sent folder, I noticed that according to it, I didn't email anyone for about 8 weeks. Impossible since I email myself from one account to another at least twice a week with reminders of items I needed to make sure I did and also ideas and solutions to WIP problems. (And I have checked my other email, not there either.) So, I'm guessing there was a glitch with the server and emails in the sent folder vanished/deleted.

On the bright side, at least I only lost an email that contained the jumping up point for the back cover copy.

The Week Got Away From Me

I'm late! I aim to have my post up by 8:30 am every Thursday, but this week the days became a tangled mess and my schedule is off. Workdays (Mon-Fri) are usually low-key with only writing, marketing, or other book related activities on my calendar. This week, my days filled up a little more with other appointments and errands, and it threw off my normal routine. It also didn't help that I hadn't made time at the end of last week (had family visiting and a party to clean for) and didn't write out this week's work schedule on my calendar. So, I've felt like I'm playing catch-up all week and things I've usually done on certain days were pushed back because of other items. I'm the type of person who thrives on consistency and written plans.

With the release date for Not a Creature Was Stirring in January, my editing schedule is a little tighter than normal. Yesterday it was a struggle as fixing one small element turned into a huge problem when the "easy fix" messed up the timeline. So, back to the drawing board. It seemed like I spent all day fixing then unfixing the fixes. And that is how writing the blog post totally slipped my mind...until late last night.

With the shorter editing time frame, I've been skipping plotting out my weekly and monthly schedule like I had at the beginning of the year. I'm just going to make mapping out the remainder of the month a priority so I don't spend another week feeling lost.

Book Two or Three?

Two weeks ago, I found myself facing a new writing dilemma. Many times during my writing career I've questioned parts of a book, an element, a scene, and had can-I-even-write panics, but I had never questioned if I was a writing a book too soon.

I had been working on Twas the Murder Before Christmas book 2 and about a quarter of the way through I had this strong feeling it wasn't book 2 in the series--it was three. There was a major event that happened at the end of A Creature Was Not Stirring, and it needed more of an explanation than what I could give it in the story I was writing. Too much time had past from Not Stirring to the time frame for untitled Book 2 for it to be more than a mention, and I felt it needed to be a subplot. So that meant either backing up when the story took place for the untitled story, which didn't work for the plot so that meant putting that story aside and start writing a new one book...currently titled Be Good for Goodness Sake.

The fact that I had thought of a title pretty quickly, and had the main plot figured out within a day of brainstorming and outlining proved I was right, previous Book 2 was actually Book 3. It took a lot of focus and putting other items aside to make sure I was in a good place with Book 2 when the first book was returned to me for edits. But, I did it and a plus is that Book 3 is already a quarter of the way done.

Heroine on Vacation

I'm rushing a bit to get this blog post done because I've been working on a short story. Actually a new story as the first one wasn't going anywhere because my heroine Faith (from the Scrap This mystery series) just didn't want to participate. Originally, I wanted to title this when your heroine has you on ignore but that was a little depressing. And not quite accurate.

I had already decided she was the lead in the story. I outlined the main elements of the plot. I started writing and after two pages I was stuck. At first, I thought I started the story in the wrong place so I rewrote it. Still wasn't right. I wrote and rewrote the beginning of the story for weeks. I loved the plot but it wasn't coming together. It refused to move forward. All the characters seemed to hover around, doing something yet basically nothing. It was starting to stress me out. There was an approaching deadline. What was wrong?

I stepped away for a day and realized the issue was that Faith wasn't interested in being in the story. This mystery wasn't hers to tell. Once I released Faith from solving the crime, a character popped into my head. Her backstory. How she and the other characters fit and conflicted with each other. The story is flowing and I'm intrigued by this heroine. I don't know why Faith wasn't fitting in the story. All I could think is that maybe Faith needed a vacation.

The Siren Song

There I was zipping along in my car...I mean driving the speed limit...on my way to the craft store for Scrubby Yarn when a song playing on the radio caught my attention. I turned it up. Images popped into my head. A story began taking shape. The song ended and I knew I'd have to track it down. There was story being born from it. I didn't know if the idea would expand, but I had to find out.

Fortunately, I was able to find it on iTunes. I listened to it and images came into my mind. I replayed it, over and over. A more concrete plot took shape. The heroine introduced herself to me, along with the reluctant hero. He wasn't sure he was the right match for this story. But that was the basis of the story--the relationship between them--he thought he was too flawed, too imperfect for her while the heroine believed the hero's flaw was also his strength. The reason for his beliefs is what has really gripped my imagination.

I'm still editing Altered to Death so it'll be a month before I can start working on the book. And to think it was a song, and not my angsting and over thinking, that has determined my next story. I do believe it'll be a book length project but I'm going to see where the words take me.

The Case of the Disappearing WIP

Now, I can look back at this particular moment with humor but almost a week ago I was in meltdown mode. I am an obsessive saver of any document I am working on, but not so good at backing up the work. I do email it to myself on occasion, but not as often as I should which is how I found myself in a heart-wrenching predicament last Friday.

I was at a crop retreat last week and spent the first hour each morning working on the edits for Altered to Death. I didn't want to get behind schedule, so I took some time away from scrapbooking to edit. Being in a different environment energized me and I found the words and ideas flowing. As I was finishing writing for the day, the thought entered my head that I should email the document to myself. Just in case. Instead of doing that immediately, I decided to browse the Internet for a bit for a die cut file I needed for a layout. I was debating between two design files when all of a sudden the screen went blank.

First, I was calm. I figured I hadn't plugged in the computer correctly or the cord got loose and the battery died. No problem. I checked the cords and pushed the button to turn the laptop on. Nothing. Double checked cords. Pressed the on button. Blank screen. My stomach did a little flip. The laptop had crashed.

While I hated to lose today's work, it was only one day. I checked my email on my phone. Oh no! The last time I "backed up" the book was over a week ago. A week of changes and additions that were gone forever. The edits are due May 9th. What was I going to do? Could I redo everything by then--if I could even remember everything? I was so angry with myself. Why hadn't I emailed it first?

After berating myself for a few more moments, I did the one thing that might make everything better...I called my computer tech who is my husband. He was golfing but told me he was positive he could fix it once he returned. And if not, he'd be able to get the drive out of the laptop and save my book.

While I felt a little better, I wasn't totally calm until my husband arrived and within a minute had the laptop back up and operational. After thanking my husband, I emailed the book to myself and will schedule my WIP to be updated on Dropbox on a daily basis. I don't want to go through that panic situation again.

The Life of a Book, Stage Two: Developmental Editing

The second stage of the life of my book is the one I enjoy (and scares me) the most--developmental editing. It's the phase where I see the story through someone else's eyes and will know if what was in my head made it onto the page. Before I send off the book, the book has changed some for the original story as I pulled out parts and added in new ones. I do my best to smooth everything out but sometimes what I believe is on the page was still only in my head. It's one of the problems of living with and story so long, it becomes so familiar you can see the words and all the pieces in your head and it makes you certain it's in the book. Or at least for me. 

This is why I consider/label the book to be in draft (aka original story) until after the development edit. I know there will be changes, and sometimes scenes I love must go. One thing I discovered about writing self is that I'd mentally dig in my heels. It was a little heartbreaking to make changes, and I'd pout over all the darlings that must be "killed." It was easier for me to delve into the first stage of edits knowing that everything had the potential to stay or go. 

The first thing I do when I get the notes is let the comments, suggestions, and questions sit in my brain, then I start writing/arguing in a document to hash out what big and little changes need made (this is my favorite part). I love seeing the book grow more than what my brain had originally thought. At times, my muse needs a little nudge and encouragement, and my editor gets me and my muse and knows how to bring out the best in my writing.

Once I've worked at the changes, and email my editor for her opinion about any big changes I'm planning on making, I start incorporating them into the book. The first editing run I focus on any changes to the main and any of the subplots that branch off from the mystery. In Altered, one of those subplot will be taken from the story so in my second editing run, I'm going to give one of the personal/character subplots more screen time to add more depth.

For the third run, I print out the book and read it in one sitting. I usually do this in another location than my office. I find it's helpful to change my environment. In this reading, I'm trying to check the flow and pacing of the book, and ensure all the new scenes work seamlessly with those from the original story.

After that is done, and corrections are made, it's time for another read to catch any grammar mistakes or typos. I'll change the percentage of the view to have less words on the screen and read the book aloud. It helps me locate any typos that slipped by my eyes. Then the next step is sending it back to my editor (most times it's right on my deadline day).

The Life of a Book, Stage One: The Draft aka Original Story

The life of a book can seem easy and uncomplicated. You get this great idea in your head, sit in front of computer, type it all out, make a few changes here and there, catch some typos, catch some more, then send it off. The first draft is either the easiest part in the creation of a book or the hardest.

For me, there is usually a lot of fretting involved in the first draft. Does the main plot and subplot mesh well together, but aren't too matchy-matchy? Does the subplot complicate the main plot unnecessarily take over? Is one of the secondary characters getting too much screen time and taking over? Is my heroine actively protagging or being lead to all the answers?

This is my wrestling stage where I'm trying to be certain everything makes sense. There are times when I find myself arguing with my muse within the manuscript. I'll switch over to all caps when the plot is starting to twist and veer away from my plan for the book. I'll ask myself if the change makes sense, how will this twist fit into the plot, working it all out--and sometimes not. There are times where I'll write forward with the story when I run into a snag, and other times I have to go back and work out the problem before the story can progress.

I've included a picture of one of my comments in Altered to Death when I followed a trial I hadn't anticipated. I knew where it could lead and began to talk it out. And realized...well some great ideas are better off in another book. The muse rabbit trails can lead me to a stronger story, and other times I'll created a tangle of clues and connections, that bogs down the story with nothing substantial to move the plot forward.

Altered to Death is my 10th mystery, and once again who I designated as the murderer isn't the murderer. (I've also written 5 romantic stories but don't have this problem with them.) Sometimes when I discover the real culprit, it's not too big of a switch and I'll see that clues were there all along so it's just tightening up a few places, a tweak here and there, and it's all good. But other times, it changes the mood of the story and the heart of the story.

When that happens, it can create a huge shift and I have to "Humpty Dumpty" the story...break it part and put it back together. Usually, I can put it together with a few places needing clarifying or connecting more solidly to the story. Other times, it fits together I didn't notice some weak spots that even though they are patched, can still break the story apart.

The next phase of the life of a book is for "all the king's horses and men" aka my fabulous editor Erin, to help me "put it together again". And unlike poor Humpty Dumpty, my book does get put back together stronger, better, and no longer still on a wall where it might fall and break.

Stay tuned for the next part of the saga of the life of a book: Developmental Editing.

Birthing A Book...

Many of us have shared the roller coaster ride of birthing a book.

First there's the idea, and working on it. And working on it. And... 

Then subbing, and subbing, and...

No, my keyboard isn't stuck. That's how it's gone. ha! Mostly it's not a process for the weak. It can be discouraging, but if you really love your project, and believe in it, you keep at it unless you decided to self-pub it.

Then once it's accepted, it's another edit and another after the X times you already read it.

Then as I said on my previous post, you still think of stuff to change!

The best part though? Seeing it come to life. Seeing that cover being formed.

That's where I'm at now with my upcoming book, Lizzie Borden, Zombie Hunter.  Coming soon - Sept. 13!!!  !!! 

 ***** Wanna see the cover???? Just released! See my website!! 

Yeah, you read it right. I know, it's a bit scary sounding, I suppose, compared to most of the books on this blog. At least I know I fit in somehow with the word Killer in the blog title. ha!

You can't help what comes to mind and what you decide to write about. I've always been fascinated by history and older crimes like Jack the Ripper and Lizzie Borden. Maybe it's the endless unanswered questions associated with such crimes...  

Having read years of Stephen King books, horror doesn't bother me. I admit I don't like a lot of the modern slasher movies, but I don't mind a good suspenseful scary movie And I love reading horror, maybe since I can fill in the blanks myself, in my own way. 

So, when I started reading and looking at the Borden autopsy photos (which , of course, would be tons worse in full color), it got me thinking... and I realized another, perfectly plausible explanation could be made for why she might've committed the crimes. Yes, it's horror and gore and zombies, but there's also a unique mystery running through it with Lizzie and her sister uncovering the pieces to the puzzle...


I'll share more details as they come along. For now, here's more about it: 

Lizzie Borden, Zombie Hunter

           by C.A. Verstraete

 Every family has its secrets…

One hot August morning in 1892, Lizzie Borden picked up an axe and murdered her father and stepmother. Newspapers claim she did it for the oldest of reasons: family conflicts, jealousy and greed. But what if her parents were already dead? What if Lizzie slaughtered them because they’d become zombies?

Thrust into a horrific world where the walking dead are part of a shocking conspiracy to infect not only Fall River, Massachusetts, but also the world beyond, Lizzie battles to protect her sister, Emma, and her hometown from nightmarish ghouls and the evil forces controlling them.