Published

Well I am finally getting published. It's exciting to know it will finally have my story out there, but a bit daunting to also know I need to finish telling the story! There's so much more that happens and I don't have much time to get it on paper! Hopefully this first story will be well received and I can be freed up to write more, but I'm already working on book 2 while we get the typesetting completed for book 1. I'm excited though! Look for the book around thanksgiving. 

It's done

I'm done. I've edited, re-read, edited, cut, copied, pasted, and then had someone else do the same until I'm blue in the face. I'm not changing anything else unless someone else tells me to. I emailed my book to borderstone yesterday and I'm not looking back. I hope Mooney can get this thing published before Christmas, it would make a great stocking-stuffer after all- but seriously, I want to move on to the next book. I feel like book 1 left things on such a cliff hanger I can't just stop there. The story has much further to go. I'm done with book 1 though. I'm hopeful it will come to fruition very soon. When it does if I can get all my FB friends to buy a copy.... Or 7. 

Rejected

Well it finally happened. The response from the publishing houses was as expected- rejection. The funny part was the excuses given: "the story is familiar," or, "we have a similar story we are already working on." Now correct me if I am wrong, but aren't most stories similar in their root? And if one publisher already has one similar they are working on, they must have thought there was a market for it.... 

Nonetheless, I've been rejected by some of the big boys. Additionally, the agency I was using doesn't take first time authors, so they have decided that since no one took the book out of the 5 houses they tried, they don't foresee anyone else wanting it, so I lost my agency too. 

So, fortunately I have a friend who owns a publishing house. Granted it isn't Knopf, Simon & Shuster, or one of the other big guns, but punished is published. I will see this book in print in the not so distant future. Once it happens I intend to work on #2 in the series (already planned out) and try and sell about 7,000 copies of this first book. I am told that's the magic number. If we can sell 7k a bigger house will notice the title. They may purchase the publishing rights from my publisher- which will be of financial benefit to both of us- and then they will decide to sell it. 

So I give this tale to say: it ain't over. No fat lady singing here! Stephanie Meyers was rejected often. Jk Rowling was denied, and so was the author of "The Help." It's the business, and it is hard to break in. There's only a few who make it big fast, and like everything in my life I have to take the long road. When this book comes out however I expect my entire Facebook family to sell 7! That would mean instant notice!

Too busy!

With school starting up I have band camp, inservice, administrative days, and then actual school. I need to find a book to replace "ender's game" in my proposal, but don't have the time to do that right now. It bugs me to think that the proposal is not being shopped around right now because of this missing link. I just don't have time to fix it!

Ender's game was so perfect for a comparison, and the fact that it was being made into a movie increased the value of that work. I wish I could just leave it in there, but the risk of offending one of the people responsible for perusing proposals is too great. If one person stands in the doorway to the publishing world, I dare not give him the finger! 

Ender's Game

So I see that the movie "Ender's Game" is coming out.  I read this book WAAAY back in my childhood, and recall enjoying it.  I had to brush up on it a bit in my proposal.  I love the similarities in my thoughts and the author's in that we both have young protagonists, both have them going into a military-like training for extra-terrestrial warfare, and both have big burdens for protecting the planet.  My book series will go a bit into Earth's past as well as the future, and in comparison I am going a different way all together.  Getting published still is obviously the biggest hurdle, but I am not above the waiting game.

I see the static that is flying about the gay marriage issue for Orson Scott.  I would be inclined to ask "Why go there?" Does it play a role in the story line of your book? does it change or shape your main character? What relevance does the argument have on the good story you want to tell?

I watch lots of movies and read lots of books, and often I find myself disagreeing with actors, authors, or agencies, but the love of a good plot is just too ripe to become so idealistic I can't enjoy the story.  Ender's game was a good book.  I imagine it will be a good movie.  Why sour the milk with modern-day politics? Let's just enjoy the story for what it is.

Shopping....

So excited to get the "hurry up and wait," email. My agent says the proposal is off to a publishing house to see if there is interest. Fingers crossed.... But this part is supposed to take a while. 

A Tale of Two Headshots

Okay, so I was born with this birthmark on my upper lip.  I first noticed the thing when I was about 4 and I was jumping on my mom's bed and looking in the mirror at our house in Louisville, Kentucky. I remember that I thought I had been drinking Kool-Aid and couldn't get the stain off my lip.  After a while of trying to lick the thing off, I tried to wash it off.  Finally, I asked Mom about the Kool-ade and why it wouldn't get off my lip.  After she got done laughing she explained that it was a birthmark and wouldn't come off.  God put it there she explained.

There it is.  It doesn't bother me.  Teaching class kids ask me all the time, "What's that thing on your lip?" Or sometimes waiting tables a guest will say, "I use ______ (insert the name of a product) to get rid of those." To which I always reply, "that takes off birthmarks?"

Anyhow, one year in my 20's we got our picture taken for the church directory and they edited the thing out.  I thought I looked weird. I figured out it was missing pretty quickly, but it was too late, it was gone. 

Fast forward to now.  I am going to put my headshot in this proposal.... Will they think it was a birthmark? Gorbechev made a lot of fame with his birthmark after all.  Or will they think it is a cold sore that I failed to have edited out? Well, with that consideration my entire thought process changes and I decided to edit the thing out.  Most of them will probably reject me anyhow, so they will never meet me in person to discover it was missing to begin with! SO, after the photoshoot with Scott Shrecker (visit scottshcrecker.com if interested) I had him edit the thing out and here's the headshot I'm sending with my proposal:

Soooooo.  Does this say "buy my book" or what?