My urge to create can vary from a background murmuring, like a stream, to crashing ocean waves. When the waves hit, I have no problem setting myself in front of a notebook or computer and writing. But, if too many tasks in my everyday life smother that urge to create, until it’s barely a trickle, I can easily ignore my writing.
My Writing
As I mentioned earlier, back in 2016, I have resurrected a book I wrote in 2000 that both my agent and I loved. When Paige suggested I try revising it, I was skeptical, worried I would be unable to modernize the story. (Technology, which had a major influence on the plot, has changed radically in the past seventeen years.) Yet as I began revising, I realized that many of the changes, which required both rewriting and writing new, were quite simple. The two major revisions I made led to the introduction of two new characters, one for each revision. Those characters shifted a few other plot points, and it became apparent that both characters would play an important role in the last third of the book, which I already knew would need to be almost completely rewritten. The first two-thirds only required revision work, some minor, some (with these two new characters) major.
I am thrilled to announce that my two most recent books, Lost Mothers and Every New Beginning, are now available in paperback! This has been a long road for both books, from the original idea (Lost Mothers has a particularly interesting backstory, which you can read here), through the many revisions, the editing and proofreading, and finally the actual publishing process. For anyone who hasn’t been down this road of writing and publishing a novel, I assure you it is a long and often frustrating trek. But the end result, being able to write those words “Now Available in Paperback,” is well worth it.
I’ve taken the next step toward the publication of my paperback books! I received from CreateSpace proofs of both of my books, Lost Mothers and Every New Beginning. They look terrific. Wonderful cover art, thanks to Nika Dixon, and great blurbs—and thanks to Martha Barron Barrett, Brunonia Barry, and Doris Parmett for those.
When I was talking to a friend about my two new books, Lost Mothers and Every New Beginning, she asked me what had been the original idea for Lost Mothers, that first spark that had lit the fire that became the novel. This is my favorite question—as I imagine it is for many writers—because it is so easy to answer. In my experience, there is always a moment, an incident, a conversation, even the appearance of a stranger, something a writer saw or experienced that sticks with her and either slowly or quickly grows into a story idea, a group of characters, an expanding tree of story lines. I know what the original idea was for every book I’ve written.
Tomorrow is the day. Well, one of the days. Tomorrow, May 1, is publication day, the day my two books—Lost Mothers and Every New Beginning—will be available from Amazon as e-books. Although they are $3.99, I am selling them for a brief time for $2.99. Not quite two for the price of one, but hey, they’re both good, so why not buy both?
As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I had to delay the publication of my two books, Lost Mothers and Every New Beginning, because I got bogged down with the proofreading process. It simply took longer than I expected. I’m a bit embarrassed to say that that is still the case, and I am postponing publication again.
My cover designer, Nika Dixon, has been working hard on the covers for Lost Mothers and Every New Beginning. My agent, her assistant, Nika, and I agreed that the original covers that were used when these were published as e-books are great front covers. Since the books will now be published as physical books as …
I announced a few weeks ago that I have set for myself an ambitious publishing program for this year, and that it was going to start with the publication of two of my books, Lost Mothers and Every New Beginning. I set the publication date for March 21, 2016, but a production issue has slowed …
When I used to work for Bantam Books, back in the day, I occasionally was tasked with writing back cover copy for books that I had edited. I should say, rewriting. Bantam did have copywriters, but my boss, Carolyn, was a perfectionist when it came to back cover copy. After all, along with a book’s …