In my last post here, I wrote that Marguerite's Diary, the sequel to Erin's Ring that I've been working on for the past year or so (per special request of four of my granddaughters), was finished. I published in on a site called Bookemon on December 8, thrilled that the date coincided with one of Mary's special days.
I quickly ordered enough paperback copies for my granddaughters (and myself, plus a few extras), so that I could wrap them up as presents and bring them out to Wisconsin with us when we go to visit our oldest son's gang next week for a belated Christmas.
I've always had trouble reading my own books once they get into print. It makes me so nervous. But I spent yesterday and today slowly reading through one of the copies, and sure enough, despite my great efforts to catch all errors, I found some. AAAGGGHHH!!! Typos are my nemesis.
My husband (my beta reader) caught some typos for me before I sent it to print and his help was invaluable (because an author sometimes looks at a sentence that she's rewritten, leaving in one of the words that was supposed to be deleted, and sees what she MEANT to say, not what's there on the page). But we both missed a few boo-boos. I even spelled a character's name wrong once (it was supposed to be the French name Georges, and I called him George!).
Aside from a couple of typos that we'd missed, I found one instance where I was too repetitive in my phrasing and needed to do a little rewording, and also some formatting issues that didn't really hamper the enjoyment of the story but made the book look less neat and professional. I have exhaustively gone over the manuscript to make it cleaner and more perfect (I'm pretty sure 100% perfect is hard, if not impossible, for me to accomplish!). Now I am ready to push the publish button on the book once more. And this time, I may actually pay the fee that will give it an ISBN number and make it available on Amazon in both hard copy and ebook form.
I hope no one out there ordered a copy of this book yet--not only because I think it's way too expensive, but also because it was not in its most perfect condition yet. I think there will be an affordable ebook version if I decide to publish it with an ISBN. I plan to make a decision very soon. I'll let you know!
Hi Laura! Happy new year and a big congrats :) how exciting!
ReplyDeleteI remember in an earlier post you said how this story felt very big and overwhelming. I'd love a post about how you tackled that! I am in same boat, with a story idea that keeps nagging at me but it feels way too ambitious and big for me! I wonder how a rookie like me will be able to pull it off!
Hi! Please, please forgive me for taking so long to reply to this comment! We traveled out to WI after Christmas to meet our newest grandchild (#22!!), and it's been extremely hectic since we got back home. But I wanted to make sure to get back to you. Finally!
DeleteI sat on the story for this book for a number of years, actually. The idea for it was suggested to me by the dad of one of my daughters-in-law shortly after Erin's Ring came out in 2014. I wrote up the first two chapters and started doing some historical research and taking copious notes, and then life just got too busy. (The grandchildren started coming rapid-fire: we had four of them in 2014; today, we have 22!). So I put the idea on the back burner and really never thought I'd get around to writing it.
But then our four oldest granddaughters started growing up, and becoming voracious readers. And when they said they'd love a sequel to ER a couple of years ago, I got my rough draft of those early chapters and my stacks of notes out, ordered a couple of books, and started in again, working in fits and starts.
But the event around which the climax of this book is centered really felt almost too big to handle (the Peshtigo fire of 1871), and that gave me a bit of writer's block for a number of months. I had about 10 chapters finished and couldn't seem to go on, because I knew I was getting to the tricky part, the sad and scary part. What helped me was realizing that even though the event was HUGE, and there were so many people's different stories involved, I really needed to focus on my particular set of characters; so I could just tell the story about what happened to THEM, and give a general picture of what happened to others. I couldn't possibly cover every angle of the event, especially in a 200-ish page book targeted at YA readers. So I focused on the people I'd created (and had grown to love!).
I'll tell you, what helped the most was just deciding that for a couple of weeks, I was going to sit at my computer as soon as I got up, at 6:00 or 6:30 in the morning, and just work at it. Like it was my job or something. And each day, I would still be in my pajamas at 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon, working on my first or maybe second cup of coffee (cold, of course, because I'd forgotten to drink it, so wrapped up was I in the process of writing!). I just decided I had to make myself do it, and since I'd spent so long reading about the historical event, highlighting online articles I'd printed out, taking notes...when I finally figured out what the fate of each of my characters was going to be, the story started to flow. It's amazing how fast the second half of the book got written. But as I said, I'd been thinking about this book idea for years, off and on, even though I never really thought I'd actually do it.
I hope this helped! Good luck with your writing!
One more piece of advice: have a number of beta readers before you publish. My husband and I went over the manuscript and found some typos, but we missed some, too. Our four granddaughters and their mom found a few more in the copy that I originally published for them, errors that I can't believe my eyes didn't catch. When you're too close to your writing, your eyes will tell you you're seeing what you meant to write sometimes, and the mistakes won't jump out at you. I've cleaned up the manuscript (including the back cover synopsis) and re-published it, and I hope the book is better now! (Putting your "baby" out there, where it will be open to criticism---sometimes deserved!--is a hard thing for an author! It's a very vulnerable feeling!)
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