I would consider the month of October to be a “transition” month in terms of writing, for three reasons. Beta Readers. I finished editing my manuscript based on my expert beta readers’ initial feedback. I just have to tweak a couple medical and law enforcement parts after receiving clarification on a few followup questions. I Read More …

My story is complete. Exciting! My first couple rounds of self-editing are complete. Exciting! So this past month I reached out to personal contacts in law enforcement and the medical field. I want to make sure that what I write is as close to realistic as possible. My mindset was, I hope someone will make Read More …

I briefly mentioned in a previous post that I had an unplanned meeting with Monster Ivy Publishing (MIP). But, how that meeting came about and what resulted are the more intriguing and important parts. Originally, I planned to sign up for a couple one-on-one pitch appointments at the the Realm Makers conference. Unfortunately, due to Read More …

So, I got to do something super fun! 😁 I attended the Realm Makers annual conference! There were SO many things to participate in. MOST amazing was the opportunity to meet my book “hero” Frank Peretti. His two most well-known novels are This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness. Outside of that, there were very Read More …

Points of crisis never come planned. As mentioned in my previous posts about my writing journey, I had gone through surgery and then we started the process of moving. As soon as I was given permission by my doctor to lift over ten pounds, our journey took an unexpected turn. I found myself in shock, Read More …

The month of May did not go as my writer self had planned! I had all these goals to reach, to get my manuscript ready for an agent. Instead, on top of recovering from surgery, we decided to move. The day I had my first post-op appointment, we went to look at a house afterward. Read More …

I thought this post would just be about starting to use beta readers, which I did. I thought I would have this post written in time, but I didn’t. (Fortunately, I can backdate the post.) Instead, I had surgery April 29th and a longer recovery period than I anticipated. Sometimes we go through a chapter Read More …

I mentioned in my previous writing journey post that I wanted to “figure out what I’m going to do to celebrate” accomplishing a writing goal. Well, I decided! One of the phrases I have come to love is “don’t give up on your daydream.” That phrase has special meaning for me since I was known Read More …

Through the end of 2020, I edited my barebones manuscript. My two main goals were to 1) re-familiarize myself with the story and 2) figure out what parts I needed to flesh out. I also color coded scenes, according to perspective and who the main character was with. Despite color coding, it still took too Read More …

I’ve mentioned I’ve been sitting on this (my first!) manuscript, off and on, for years. I decided to try NaNoWriMo in 2012, and that is how the first draft was birthed. I called it my barebones first draft. It had a beginning, middle, and end. If a person read it, they would be able to Read More …