Monday, January 26, 2015

MONDAYS MUSING—ODDS AND ENDS





I’m late in getting this up and my apologies. Mondays are usually my day off but this morning wasn’t one of those Mondays. I had to work this morning and have two meetings a little later. Sigh


Nothing really exciting going on around beyond the back forty. We’ve been enjoying the unseasonably warm weather last week and this week.  Most of days have been sunny and in the upper 40’s and lower 50’s. As you can imagine, I’ve spent a lot of time outside doing some fixing of this and that and just enjoying the sunshine after weeks of little or no sunshine. Weather has been a seesaw with the beginning of this month in the teens and below and now we’re on the up side of that. I have to keep reminding myself that while it feels like March, it's not, and we are still in the middle of what are our biggest snow months and what goes up—sunny and warmish—must come down. No doubt with with a big snow storm and more icy cold. Ah, well.
  


This month is traditionally a new beginnings month. For those who write, it’s the month to get back to work after the holidays and for some it’s getting serious about writing or publishing that book of theirs.  I’ve shared several articles about gearing up for writing—pacing yourself so as not to be stressed out, goal setting, how to create back cover copy and this coming Wednesday, I have a small publisher weighing in on optimizing your chances of getting a contract. 

Next month I plan on having an editor visit and explain the difference and importance of editing. This will be more than merely making sure the words are correctly spelled or formatted. It will also cover the importance of using a content editor and what they do. I’m also working on getting input from an agent and cover artist. There is so much that goes into creating book besides clean writing. It has to look professional and able to compete with books in the same genre. This is especially so if you are indie published. As Kat Sheridan mentioned in her two part series on writing back cover blurbs, right or wrong, if the appearance of a book is sloppy or has errors, I tend to skip over looking beyond thatespecially with indie pubbed books. That’s a sale lost when it didn’t need to be.


I’ve also had the privilege of reading two advance copies of stories from two of my favorite male authors. I read both when they débuted and have seen their growth as writers. Their stories are so much richer and joy to read—Matt (ML Buckman) and Alex Cavenaugh.  They write two different genres but both are worthwhile reading if you like stories that put you in the action and different worlds. I like the blend of romance, adventure, and danger. Both have created engaging stories and well developed characters. I’ll be sharing the reviews on their current stories soon.


Anything new happening in your world?