Skip to main content

The Secret of Haversham House is on shelves!!!

It has been a week since my book was released! People have been so nice! I have been walking on cloud nine all week. I'd like to thank all the people who encouraged me and helped me.
About 18 months ago I happened to be at a place to hear Brandon Mull talk about breaking into publishing 'Fablehaven'. I got up the courage to go and speak to him about it after. He was so encouraging and supportive and told me not to give up. He was soooo nice! He gave me the boost I needed to go for it, along with my friends and family. So dreams can come true.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

First sub-edit from editor

I have written about this before but it's worth mentioning again. I feel like a fraud. And it's not just me. A niece recently shared a NY Times article  (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/26/your-money/learning-to-deal-with-the-impostor-syndrome.html?_r=0) about this very topic and according to researchers, pretty much everybody feels this way at some point. They call it the 'Imposter Syndrome'. Famous writers have experienced it, a renowned marketing expert and even US presidents. The key is learning how to deal with this feeling. We can acknowledge it and cower, allowing it to stand in front of us like a club bouncer, denying us from moving forward, or we can recognize it, tell it, "You don't scare me!" ( even though it scares our pants off ) and push past it. It makes me wonder how many people with amazing potential have been frightened off by it. How many wonderful creations, thrilling inventions or new strategies have never seen the light of day becaus...

P.A.I.N.ting and Writing

Just over a year ago we bought a fixer-upper. It had been ravaged by at least three renters and you had to be able to envision its potential to want to buy it. Fortunately, most of the work has been cosmetic but we have invested a lot of sweat equity to begin bringing it back to its former glory. Every wall needed to be painted. Every wall. We began slowly, a room at a time - you know, the old 'you can eat a whole elephant one bite at a time' proverb. But then it came time to do the two story entrance and staircases (one going down to the basement). Frankly, I thought this might be a job for the professionals but my husband insisted that we could do it and that it would probably save us several thousand dollars. I've decided there is a reason the word painting begins with 'pain'. P.A.I.N. The only thing that has kept me going is the fact that the money we are saving will pay for my writer's conference registration fee and an educational cruise I want to go on....

Thesaurus, I love thee!

The first draft of my work in progress is done and now I am onto the deep edit. I got what I wanted to say down and now I need to pretty it up, so to speak. This part of my writing process is grueling. This is when I get down in the dirt and wrestle with the words. This is when I exploit my thesaurus app. I use it so much I feel like I should contribute to their site! I circle all the times I use the same word in a chapter and then make lists of synonyms to see which word works better with which phrase. It is not a task for the faint-hearted. There are times when I find a word so perfectly suited for the sentence that I want to throw my fist in the air. There are other times when the perfect word is just out of reach. Imagining doing this without a thesaurus makes my brain hurt so this is a heartfelt tribute to the genius who decided that a book of synonyms was just what the world needed. Thank you!