Sneak Peek at Love Comes Home

I usually hold off on putting the cover of my books out here on the net until closer to time for them to actually be on the shelf, but I'm giving you a sneak peek at Love Comes Home since I've been working on edits for it all week. The release date isn't until summer, July 1, 2014 to be exact. So do you like it? What do you think?

I think you're going to like visiting Rosey Corner again. At least I hope so. The Merritt sisters have a lot going on in their lives. While I've struggled with untangling some knotty writing in a paragraph here and there, I have enjoyed going back to Rosey Corner myself to live the story with my characters again as I'm editing. I got to hear some more of Aunt Hattie's prayers and homespun wisdom. I got to witness Graham doing some more matchmaking. I got to walk in the woods with Fern and that is always interesting! I teared up when the boys were welcomed home from the war by their loved ones. I went with Lorena to find out the "rest of her story." And more. Lots more. The book is already available for pre-sale on Amazon.

But while I was enjoying the story again, I was also reading the editor's comments on how to make my writing better. The surprising thing was I never thought the editor was off-base with her suggestions on how to make the story read better. Sometimes a writer can struggle with edits, and not see the need for the suggested changes. But this time when my editor noted a little muddy writing, I could see that I hadn't been clear enough. When she said I'd used the same words too often or too close together in a paragraph, she was right. Sometimes "echo" words are okay. Sometimes they're not. (Note my "I got to" echoes in the paragraph above.) Perhaps I was okay with her comments because she didn't ask for a lot of changes.There was one place where I had to shift the scene a bit, but the rest were fairly easy changes. Of course, there was that one knotty paragraph that I spent hours on and I'm still not sure I've got it right. I'll have to go back and read it again before I hit the send button to turn it in to the editor. 

These were the first copy edits where I could make as many changes as I thought were needed. So whenever my reader's eye stumbled over a phrase or sentence, I worked it over to try to make the reading smoother. The intent of careful editing is to make the words disappear so the story can play like a movie in the reader's mind. A clunky sentence or a bad transition between scenes can jerk a reader away from the "movie" and make her remember she's reading words. That's not good! I want to keep the magic of the story alive in the reader's imagination. I'll get another chance to edit, but then the book will be almost ready to go and any editing changes will need to be minor.  

So now how would you like a sneak peek at a new Rosey Corner character? Clay Weber. I'm hoping you said yes, because here's a bit of a scene from Clay's point of view as he thinks about finding a way to capture the affections of the girl he loves even though she shows no sign of wanting his love. 

    He [Clay] might not be the handsomest guy in the room. But he knew how to stick to something and get it done if it was worth doing.

    Working a farm taught a man that. Every year that a man plowed a field, more rocks rose up out of the dirt to be hauled away. Weeds kept sprouting no matter how many calluses a man got plying his hoe. Horses went lame. Machinery broke down. Cows went dry and hawks swooped out of the sky to steal the chickens. The ground didn’t give up its yield without a man watering it with plenty of sweat. But just because something was hard didn’t mean it wasn’t worth doing.

So there you have a sneak peek at the cover and Clay. Now I'll push Love Comes Home back in line to wait its turn since I do have the re-release of my third Hollyhill book, Summer of Joy, coming out in March. I'll reveal that cover on Jocie's blog, Hollyhill Book of the Strange later this week. I'm gearing up to celebrate the last story in the Heart of Hollyhill series. In fact, there's a Goodreads giveaway opening up on it Tuesday, Feb. 4. Here's the Goodreads' giveaway link. And I'll be doing my own giveaway soon too. Stay tuned for that. 

Thanks for reading and I'd love to hear what you think about the cover of Love Comes Home. 

Winners, Bicycles and Birthdays

My birthday month is over. September has slipped away too soon. No more birthday stories in my e-mail box. :( It's been a crazy month down here on the farm with Christmas at Harmony Hill out in September and Orchard of Hope coming out in its new package on October 1. Add in one of Mom's caretakers being sidelined with cataract surgery and a deadline for editing my next Rosey Corner book that included the need to snip out 13,000 plus words and you can see why I needed a few more days in September. Only 3,500 words to go! I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Hope it's not a train. 

But before we head out on a new trail, we've got a few more birthday noise makers to blow and one more story to share. 

Did you ever have your own bicycle? I didn't. I had a hand me down that needed tires, my inspiration for Jocie's old bike in Scent of Lilacs.Tara left this story in a comment on a post here, but I wanted to share it again. 

"My best birthday memory. As a second child I spent a lot of time in hand me downs. Clothes, shoes, bicycles. My older sister had a very different style than I did, so her old blue bicycle with a banana seat was not my favorite. Every trip to town for groceries would see me at the Western Auto adjacent to the grocery store, riding around and around a little yellow BMX bike. Every year, I participated in (and rocked!) the St Judes Bike-a-thon in our tiny, tiny town and I wanted nothing more than to NEVER have to ride that hand me down blue bike again to do so. I have NO idea how many miles I logged on that little yellow bike just riding up and down the aisles until Mom was done at the grocery store. I will never forget Mom telling me to take out the trash or some equally unpleasant chore, on my birthday, no less, only to discover it was a ploy to get me to go around back where that little yellow bmx was waiting for me. I continued to ride it in those Bike-a-thons for years to come. One year, I earned enough pledge money to provide every participant with the t-shirt prize after it was all divvied up."

When I read Tara's story I was doubly touched, by her mother knowing how much she wanted the bike and finding a way to get it for her and by Tara's eagerness to raise money for St. Jude's even as a child. You may remember that my great-niece was treated for cancer at St. Jude's and one of my Facebook posts about her went viral a year or so ago. You can read that old blog post, Honk, Honk for Good News if you're interested. Anyway, when I asked Tara about using her story here, this is what she said, "Oh please go ahead and use it :) My best friend had cancer, she passed away when I was 11. She was treated at St Jude and it is still the charity that gets 99% of my charity dollars."





In November I'll be taking part in the St. Jude Walk in Louisville because Tara is right. Once you've seen how St. Jude wants to cure every child, you want to keep helping them have the money to find those cures.

But now get all those birthday noisemakers ready. It's time to announce winners. You may have already seen the names since I sent out a newsletter on Tuesday with the winners and the news that my book Words Spoken True was/is a free download. Only a few more hours for that so if you have an e-reader and haven't read my story set in 1855 Louisville with political intrigue, lots of romance and even a serial killer on the loose, you can download it today for free. (And yes, I know this is Thursday and that I'm a day late posting. I was in such a frenzy of editing out words last night I forgot to post.) 

Oh yeah, back to the winners of my Christmas at Harmony Hill Giveaway Celebration. Donna V. wins 1st prize, the Shaker hand ornament and her choice of one of my books. Sue B. won 2nd prize of the quilt hanging and her choice, Christmas at Harmony Hill. Rachel L can't say she "never wins" anymore since she wins the Tea book, Melody Carlson's The Christmas Shoppe and she also picked Christmas at Harmony Hill. As as extra bonus, Peggy C is my "just because" winner. Angel Sister is one of her favorite books, so she picked Small Town Girl. (I haven't heard from Donna, so if I don't by next week, I'll pick a new winner.)

Thank you all for taking part in my giveaway fun and for sharing your birthday stories. I enjoyed reading them so much and in my very unscientific survey, I discovered surprise parties make great memories, especially if you're turning 50, that grandkids are cute blowing out candles, and that everybody loves a birthday cake with chocolate the favorite there.

Out of room for this post, but check back Sunday (or maybe Monday. lol) I'll have to celebrate Orchard of Hope being back out for readers somehow.

Christmas in April, New Book Covers, and Pet Words

Happy Monday morning! I'm late with this post because I was out of town yesterday. So to make up for it, let's be early and talk about Christmas. I got the galleys on my Shaker Christmas book last week. So I'm going to have to invite the snow and chill winter winds into my imagination for a few days as I work over the story. Here's a peek at the cover. Do you like it?

Have you ever wondered about the editing process a book goes through on its way out to the reader? First there are all my own edits before I decide I've done the best I can with the words telling my story. Then off it goes to the first editor who reads it and decides if I've written a story that readers might spend money to read. That editor might suggest major plot changes or improvements as well as more minor points to improve the story. Then once she or he approves the rewritten manuscript, the book will eventually go on to a copy editor who will look for all those little things that might be missed in the bigger edit. 

This editor makes sure I don't have the characters doing something on Friday and then going back to Thursday. Time lines can get confusing in a historical novel. This editor and the proofreaders make sure if your character sings a song or reads a book in your story that the song or book was actually written by the time of your book. I've made that mistake a few times. 

They also catch all the times you use a certain word too many times. I always, always have a pet word. I'll shove one of those words out in the cold and tell it that it can't be my "pet" anymore and another word will slide right in to take its place. So now I have a whole stable of "pet" words that I have to be careful to not like too much. What are some of them? Just. Still. Before. Of course. To name a few. Usually transition words of some sort that help me keep the words going. Nothing wrong with that in the first draft. You need to keep going in the first draft, but then I need to edit some of them out. Of course, I still like them just before I get out the red pen or hit the delete key. :) 

Then I sometimes have a sentence that runs along too long. Commas are always an issue too. Editors generally like commas more than I do. You wouldn't think an author would worry about a little added comma now and again, but sometimes we do. To our writing ears, a comma in the wrong (or perhaps right!) place messes everything up. Editors have to have the patience of saints at times. 

Once the galleys are worked over and the author and editor have "fixed" everything as well as they can, then there's still one more edit. This is called editing "the pages." Here a writer is more or less proofing the book to look for minor mistakes like typos or something that might have been missed in the previous edits. Not a good idea to make lots of changes at this stage. That's why I'll need to work through these galleys to make sure I change what needs changing now. 

It will be a while before Christmas at Harmony Hill will be ready for the store shelves. Its release date is September 15, my birthday. That's sort of neat. I'll have extra reason to celebrate. But before

that book comes out, Small Town Girl will be out in July. Both books are already available for pre-sale on the internet, so you can go ahead and order your copy.

So much fun to have new books coming out. This year has been especially busy for me with the re-release of Scent of Lilacs and looking forward to Orchard of Hope re-releasing in the fall. Then the two new books, Small Town Girl and Christmas at Harmony Hill, A Shaker Story, out too. Gives a whole new meaning to "so many books, so little time" for me. But it's fun to have new stories, and old ones too, out there for my reading friends.

I appreciate all of you who take time to read my journal. Thank you so much. So what do you think about the new book covers?

Editing Down to the Interesting Bits

"I'm a big fan of editing and keeping only the interesting bits in." Sarah Vowell

I finished up the editing on the galleys of my Rosey Corner book, Small Town Girl, that will be released in July. Publishing a book with a traditional publisher is often a slow and exacting process. I know there are ways now that a writer can write a story and have it in front of the public in days. Maybe hours as they upload to the net and have the story available for download almost immediately. I've been told it's not even that hard once you get a few of the basics down. But I still prefer the traditional publishing route. I like that editors are double checking my stories and making sure my words make sense. Of course, conscientious writers can hire editors to make sure their work is polished before it goes live online. That's always a good idea.

So that's what I did last week. Polished. Corrected. Made my words easier on the readers' eyes. Gave the story a word by word look over to attempt to make it the best it can be. At least, that's the aim and with great editors it has a better chance of happening. Fresh eyes, eyes that haven't been living with the story and reading it over and over can very often note things that a writer misses. Have you ever typed something - a report, an e-mail, or maybe a Facebook comment - and think you've done it without error? You may have even proofed it, but then you hit the send button and all at once a glaring error pops out at you.

That's why it helps to work over the galleys to eliminate those glaring errors. I had one in this book. I changed the name of a character from one paragraph to the next. She was a minor character, but she definitely needed to keep the same name all through her few moments on screen! My copy editor didn't catch that either. But the good thing is that this isn't the final read through. Next out are the pages when the writer watches for typos and little errors. Can't make big changes at this stage, but a wrong name could be changed. Anyway, that's why it's good to dig into the galleys and make sure I've eliminated all the unnecessary words and only kept the interesting parts. You can see in the illustration that I did do some changing. I probably could find things to change until the cows come home, (if you're a farmer, you know getting the cows home isn't always easy.) But then no new stories would get written. So there comes a time when you send it back to the editors and hope you've fixed the things that needed fixing and didn't fix things that didn't need fixing.

With this story, I had my pet word as always. I have worn out a number of pet words. "Just" is still a favorite. And I do love "still." "Of course" popped up in my book before this one. But this time it was "before."  What's so wrong with "before?" I wondered that as well, but when you use it four or five times in two or three paragraphs, a pet word has surfaced. So I had to find ways to get rid of a lot of befores. I have found the delete key to be a great aid in editing.

"Editing is the same as quarreling with writers - same thing exactly." Harold Ross

Mr. Ross might be right about this for some books, but I never feel as if the editor and I are quarreling. Not most of the time, anyway. Instead we're working in tandem to make my book the best it can be. I like editors. I even like editing most of the time.

Remember I'll be drawing three winners in a couple of weeks for my blog giveaway. Enter by leaving a comment here or on Jocie's Hollyhill blog, www.hollyhillbookofthestrange.blogspot.com.  One entry per comment on different posts.

Watch for my newsletter. Hope to get one sent out next week with details about a giveaway to celebrate Scent of Lilacs being available again. Thinking something lilac color. If you're not signed up for the newsletter, that easy to do. Just go to my website and click on the newsletter link.

As always, thanks for reading.

A Different Kind of Whittling

The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon. You can always do it better, find the exact word, the apt phrase, the leaping simile.  ^__ Robert Cormier

Last time here on my journal I talked about whittling – the real kind of whittling where you take a pocketknife to a piece of wood. But there are other sorts of whittling and one of them is what I’m doing this week.

I had that deadline for my Christmas Shaker book that kept my fingers attached to my keyboard for several days straight as I tried to race to the end of my story. I did find the end finally with a couple of days to try to make the words sing a little sweeter tune. A couple of days are not enough. Especially when I knew I was too wordy. It seems wrong somehow to be working so hard to dig enough words out of your head to try to get a story down and then realize that you’ve dug up too many words.

 

Sometimes editors don’t mind a few extra words, but Christmas books are different. They need those stories to follow the length guidelines a little closer. I knew the story was coming in too long. I even pulled out my contract to see what the word requirements were – 50,000 to 55,000. To give this a little perspective, most of my recent books have come in at over 100,000 words. Sometimes 120,000. I love words and it takes a lot of them for me to tell a story. So even with the knowledge that I was over my contracted word length, I had to keep writing in order to finish the story. I couldn’t worry about how long it was until I got it written. I trimmed a few words here and there, but the deadline came and I sent the story in.

 

Happily, my first reader, my editor likes the story. That’s always good news. But she did notice those extra words. So now I have a new deadline to find and eliminate the unnecessary words. Tighten. Rephrase. Make better. The delete key is my best tool right now. So I’m whittling out the extra words to make a cleaner, slimmer story. Not as much fun as whittling a piece of wood, but maybe more fun than trying to whittle down a waistline by not eating all the good stuff there is out there to eat.

 

I don’t really mind editing. I sort of like it if I’m not having to totally change the story. This time I don’t have to do that. I just have to hunt down those extra words and whittle them away, one by one. Or sometimes a sentence or paragraph at a time. Good words that I thought were needed on the first run through of the story, but everything can be made better. The delete key works. 1,000 or so down. 500 to go.

 

Do you need to whittle down something in your life?

 

 

Editing - Then and Now

My goal is to strip things down so that you need just the right amount of words or shape to convey what you need to convey. I like editing. I like it very tight. ~ Maya Lin

That's what I'm doing now with my current work in progress - editing. If, as a writer, I work hard enough then the reading is going to be much easier for the reader. That's my purpose. I want the reading to be so easy that the reader forgets he or she is reading and is simply caught up in the story and riding along an imagination train watching the story unfold before his or her eyes. 

I don't mind editing. Well, maybe I'd better qualify that. I don't mind editing if it's my idea. Sometimes I'm not as happy about the editing when it's somebody else saying this or that should be done differently or better. Not that they aren't right, but I think it's harder for me to get into their mindset. So it's harder for me to make the changes they suggest. But now I'm in the first part of editing. My part, where I read the story over and change every word that clangs in my reading ear. Sometimes I change it by deleting. That's the easiest way. Sometimes. Sometimes not easy because I will have reworked the passage a dozen times when I finally realize I don't need it at all. But just think of all that practice I got switching words around. 

The picture above is the way I used to edit prior to writing on a word processor. Yes, I know some of you can't imagine that long ago, but some of us can. I was slow to the technical age anyway because those word processors used to be really expensive when they first showed up on the scene. Back then I typed all my first drafts and then rewrote them by slashing and marking out and adding in. You can see I even have some written in the margin. Then there were arrows and lines. I was never a cut and paster the way some writers were, but I did a lot of scribbling between lines and x-ing out unnecessary words.

Now I do everything on the computer. Words deleted fly off into the never-to-be-recovered land. New words are inserted with ease. Want to change a character's name. No problem. You don't have to read through and mark out the old name, add the new one, and worry you forgot to change it somewhere in the writing. You can hit the find and replace and change a hundred Harry Browns into Perry Jones in five seconds. 

But however it is done, editing needs to be done. So now I'm taking my first chance to improve and tighten the story. Plus I need to cut some words. I always write too long. But the good thing is that I will get those other chances to edit with the fresh insights of editors who aren't as attached to the words of the story as I am. New eyes see new ways to tell the story better. So tonight and next week, I'm trying to make my eyes new so I can work hard to make your reading easy.

Nothing much has been easy around here lately though with Mom not doing well at the nursing home. She hadn't slept for 36 hours before tonight, but she was finally asleep when I left. However, I'm expecting a call any minute saying I need to come back, that she's awake and trying to get out of her bed or chair. The dementia keeps her in a panic, especially at night. Typical, they say, of dementia patients. So I'm hoping she'll have a good week so that I can have a good week editing and make my deadline.


Thanks so much for reading. I appreciate each and every one of you. And I am going to have that giveaway for The Gifted very soon. I've found some Shaker gifts, so stay tuned.


 

One Last Chance to Make It Right

"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell." (William Strunk)

I got the pages for my next Shaker novel, The Gifted, dropped at my front door yesterday. I wrote the book months ago and sent it in to the acquiring editor. Then I had to sit on pins and needles a few weeks until she had time to read it and say, "Yes, the story works." Or words to that effect along with some "but you need to fix this or that" suggestions. Once those edits were done, the book headed on to the next editor in the publishing company. 

This second editor read through the book, caught more problems with the way I told the story, discovered my pet words. I seem to have some in every book. I run through a variety of them. Just. Still. Of course. Comfort words for me. Words that help me transition my thinking while I'm writing, but words that can be repetitious and often unnecessary when noted with an editorial eye. Here, with the galleys, I could fix things, rewrite things, make the story better after the discerning eyes of the copy-editor spotted weaknesses. I could also fix the things my own editing eye was able to see after a few months away from the story. 

Now, I have the pages - the stack in the photo above. At this stage of the editing process, I can't do major rewrites. I shouldn't need to do major rewrites. But if I did go crazy with my red pen, it wouldn't be good because edits and corrections are harder to make once the editorial process has gotten this far along. With the pages, I got a list of queries from the editor. Things are noted that both of us missed in the first few go-arounds. Proofreaders have read the book and their sharp eyes have noted a few mistakes here and there and have questioned this or that. Things still need fixing. I need to make every word right. 

Perfection is rarely possible. At least for me. There's always something with each reading of any of my books that I think might be worded better or presented in a fresher way. This book will be no different. But I will read through it. I will pay attention to the suggested improvements. I'll tweak a word here and there. I'll do my very best to write the story so that when you, the reader, opens it up and begins to read that the words will disappear and the story will play out in your imagination - not as words but as images. 

That's why writers edit and polish and try to make every word tell as William Strunk advises in the quote above. Words can be beautiful. The way they're put together can thrill the mind. And they can tell a story. That's all I'm trying to do - tell a story. And so, I'll read through these pages and do my best to make my words sing so that my readers will be carried away by the melody. Not perfect, but the best I can do with the help of my editor friends.

What things pull you out of a story when you're reading? Have you noted editing or writing mistakes in the books you've read?
 
On another note, all the entries are in for my Louisville contest to celebrate Words Spoken True. The blog tour for the book was last week and reviews are popping up all over the net. I'll be using Random.org to draw for the winners later today. I'll let everybody know either in a newsletter or with a special post here. 

Sunday, I'll have a special guest here on One Writer's Journal. Well known and popular author, Lyn Cote, will be sharing about her books and why she started writing about the Quakers. She'll also be offering a free download of one of her books, so come back on Sunday to see what Lyn has to say. 

Thanks for reading. Now if I can keep from sneezing long enough - I've caught a nasty cold - I'll get to work on those pages.

Editing The Gifted

What do you think of Jessamine here? I don't often let my heroines have blonde hair. Mostly I want them to have dark hair or auburn hair. It goes back to when I was a kid and everybody was always talking about how cute the blue-eyed, blonde girls were. Me, I wasn't blonde. Me, I had eyes that couldn't make up their mind if they were green or gray or, as my son told me once when he was very young, yellow. I preferred to think of them as having flecks of gold. :)

So when I started making up stories, my characters, especially the girls, weren't blonde. My heroines might be blue-eyed brunettes or redheads, but definitely not blondes. That is, until Jessamine. Jessamine is beautiful with hair like spun gold and eyes the color of cornflowers. But that's not the best thing about Jessamine. The best thing is her spirit.

I've been editing The Gifted all week. I don't mind editing. Well, maybe I should "edit" that a bit. I don't mind editing - I even like editing - when it's my idea. Actually, I've been blessed with wonderful editors at Revell for all my inspirational novels and I've not resisted their suggestions to make the stories better except once or twice. Even then, after sleeping on the editor's suggestions, I began to see the light - the editor's light. An editor simply wants to make the story the best it can be. That's what I want too, so I start editing. 

Most of the time, after thinking there's absolutely no way I can do whatever the editors want without having to rewrite the whole thing completely, I figure out a way to make the changes without that much angst. I usually end up agreeing that the editor was right. Sometimes that's almost like admitting your husband is right about something you've insisted he was wrong about for a week. Let's just say, it ain't always easy. 


I didn't have that trouble with these edits. They were fairly simple and I found myself writing "Okay" in a lot of the comment boxes to indicate whatever the editor suggested worked. My editors have nudged me toward being a better writer, more aware of the mistakes I often make while writing. Like that pet word I seem to always bring along to every new manuscript. It's gotten so that every time I type the word "just" or "still," I start hitting the delete key. You'll never believe what my pet word or I guess I should say words were in this book. "Of course." Of course, it was. I'm through with the edits but I'll have to do a search for those of courses. I caught a few, but my eyes must have slid right over the others. My sweet editor counted them for me. You know, this technology stuff is too handy at finding a writer's props and knocking them out from under her.

This is the last sneak peek I'm going to give of Jessamine until June. Got to think about Words Spoken True right now and I'm very excited about readers cracking open that book. Very excited! So excited that I'm coming up with a new celebration giveaway. I'll unveil the prizes soon. Before that, here's a giveaway just for those of you who read my blog. Leave a comment between now and when I receive copies of my new book in the next week or so, and one of you will win an autographed copy of Words Spoken True hot off the press. Each time you leave a new comment on a different post, your name will go in the drawing again. And if only one of you comments, then you know what? You'll have a pretty good chance of winning. 


Thanks for reading. It's always good to have you come by to walk with me down my meandering thinking lane. Hope you have a great week.

Thanks

Last Chance to Make It Right

"I have been correcting the proofs of my poems. In the morning, after hard work, I took a comma out of one sentence…. In the afternoon I put it back again.”– Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Last week I got the pages of my book, Words Spoken True, scheduled for release in February. That's what's in the photo along with a list of corrections or places the copyeditor thinks still need some fine tuning. At this stage of the editing process, fine tuning is all you want to see the need to do.

Getting a book from my head to a book a reader can imagine in his or her head while reading takes a while. First I get the idea. Then I research the historical era I plan to drop my characters down into. Oh, and I have to think about those characters - what they did, what they liked, what they looked like, what they wanted, what problems they had - that kind of thinking goes on and on from the initial "wow moment" of getting an idea until I find those magical words "the end." It takes me months to get a story down on paper - well, on the computer. Then comes the editing part. I like editing. To me that's the easy part of writing. The pressure's off. The story's told. I just have to make it better by cutting out the words that don't fit and changing the words that have to be there but might be awkward.

To me, editing is the process of making the words disappear and letting the story emerge. I want my reader to forget she is reading and to live the story with me. I don't want the reader to hit a pothole of awkward phrasing that will jerk him out of the story. That's why I work so hard at polishing my story every chance I get. And there are plenty of chances. First I do my own editing before I send it off to the editor. I want it to shine for that very first reader. But generally, no matter how I think it shines, the editor sees places that need a bit more polish and sometimes a major overhaul.

Once those changes are made to the editor's satisfaction, then it's passed on to a copyeditor who pays attention to every potential pothole that's going to make the reading rough. That editor catches lapses in continuity of time or character traits or hair color or names or whatever. That editor points out when I've used a favorite phrase or word way too many times. I do have my pet words that my eyes simply must slide right over when I'm doing my early edits. I am getting better at noticing that sort of thing and fixing most of it before it gets to the copyeditor, but not all of it. Those are the galleys and where I can fix and rework to my heart's content with the hope the editor is going to agree I'm improving the writing and fixing whatever problems she might have noted.

I've gone through all those stages with Words Spoken True. Now I've got the pages. Now I can't just decide to rewrite half the scenes or whatever. This is the time for fixing typos and other minor changes. Little corrections because by now the big things should already be fixed. But it is one last chance to help make those words magically vanish as the reader imagines my story with me. My goal always is to tell a story about people that you want to invite into your hearts. I'm hoping you will love Adriane and Blake. They have a very romantic story set during a volatile period of history in Louisville.

So I'd best get to work reading through Words Spoken True for the last time this side of seeing it inside the fabulous cover that has been designed for it.

How do you feel about editing? Do you think the books you read have been carefully edited? Do you care as long as the story is exciting?

As always thanks for reading. This quote from Churchill made me smile. You know about what I'm talking. :-)

“From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I shall not put.”
– Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Finding the Best Words to Tell the Story

" And that is all there is to good writing, putting down on the paper words which dance and weep and make love and fight and kiss and perform miracles."   (Gertrude Stein)

Words - the tools of a writer's trade. Words tell your story. Words make your characters leap off the page and come to life. Words plunge those characters into disasters or lift them up into joy. George Bernard Shaw has a true view of words in a story. " Words are only the postage stamps delivering the object for you to unwrap."  The object I'm trying to deliver for readers to unwrap is a story. 


I've been editing the galleys of my book, Words Spoken True, that is scheduled for release in February 2012. So tonight, since I have been engulfed in words for several days now, I'm very conscious of how much difference a right word can make or the trouble a wrong word can cause in a story. Words Spoken True deals with words in another sense too since the characters in it are newspaper people whose lives revolve around the words they put out on the street for the people to read. The power of the printed word. 


I never wanted to be a journalist. I always wanted to make up my stories, not report true stories. But I seem to enjoy making up stories that have newspaper editors as characters. David in my Hollyhill books is not only a preacher, but the editor of the small town's newspaper. I wrote a couple of mysteries that have yet to be published where one of the main secondary characters is the editor of the town's paper. Newspapers have played a big roll in the history of our nation and they certainly play a major role in the history of this new book of mine. 

So words have been my focus this week. I've read through this story at least a dozen times, probably more, and each time I find things to rewrite. I find words that clutter and must be removed. I find words that might be okay, but aren't the best to tell my story. The first words are not always the right words. 



Plain or fancy, the words need to fit the story. The words inside the quotation marks need to be words that would come from the mouths of my characters. And so I examine every scene, every conversation to make it the best I can. I edit by ear. The words sound out in my head as I read and sometimes while I'm reading along, suddenly I bounce into a chug hole of awkward writing. That's what I'm trying to take out. I'm trying to make the reading road as smooth as possible for my readers so that those readers will not get bounced out of the story. That means paying attention to details. Things like not using the same word over and over. My pet words in this one were "a bit." Everything was a bit this or that. Of course I was also too fond of "still" and "just." Still, it's just so easy to use them a bit too often. :o)  

There are plenty of details to watch. Details like being sure the POV is clear in each scene. Details like paying attention to the time line and the names of minor characters. Details like not having your characters need to be contortionists to make the movements you have them making. Details like chopping out those adverbs and letting your dialogue do the work instead. 

So I've been smoothing out the road my words have made in hopes that the reader will pick up my book and not be jerked out of the story by sloppy writing. Details. That's what editing is about. Making the story right. Making the story sing. I'm hoping I got the details right, but I'll have one more go at it to correct minor problems when I get to review the pages before the book goes to print. And again I'll be reading and editing by ear. 


How do you like the cover? I like how the town of Louisville is behind my beautiful heroine. Adriane is beautiful in the book, but of course she cares more about writing stories for the newspaper than she does about being beautiful.  


What do you think about books you've read? Can you tell when the authors are careful with details? Or do you even care as long as the story pulls you in? 


Thanks for reading. And don't forget about my birthday giveaway. You can check it out on my website and send me an e-mail to enter or leave a comment here. I'll be doing the drawing for four winners the end of September. Remember if you've never won anything from my website to tell me that to get your name in the bonus drawing.

Editing - Theirs and Mine - Part 2

All right, I admit it. This page is from way back when I used to write on the typewriter. Pre-computer days. The dark ages. But I kept this and used to carry it with me when I did school talks to demonstrate to the kids that editing is vital to making your story readable. I never did the cut and paste - the literal cut and paste - that some writers did prior to computers. I did circles and arrows. If you read Stephen King's On Writing you'll see some edited pages that he includes for examples of how he improves his stories. They look something like mine. This page is from one of my chapter books for kids that I wrote in the 1980's.

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Now, in some ways, editing is easier. At least physically with the computer. But in other ways it's harder because once you delete something it's gone unless you save a dozen copies. You can't peek back under your cross-out and see what you said first. I miss that paper trail, but I don't miss all the retyping, etc. So it is the computer age and we embrace it. Just don't hit the wrong key and erase everything. I have done that. Lost my work for this reason or that. Computers can die in mid-sentence, you know. I have never been able to re-write a scene from scratch that felt as good as I remember that first written scene being. Whether that's true or not, I'll never know because that first scene went out into dark reaches of never recover land.

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So in my last post I had gotten to the galleys and the copy-editor. That's what I'm doing now on my book, The Blessed, that will be out this summer. It's set in 1845. Today I came to the part of the story where I'd mentioned "Ring around the roses." My on-top-of-it editor put in a note that maybe it wasn't called ring around the roses or rosies until the mid 1800's. Kids sang it but where and how much and by what name. I did the safe edit. Cut it completely out after going out on the internet and not finding convincing proof that my character would have played ring around the roses by any name. Several years ago, I had a character in my Hollyhill books be an avid mystery story reader and had him reading John D. MacDonald. But MacDonald wasn't a popular author until several years after the time of my novel. My editor caught that too.

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Good editors are priceless. They let you know if your timeline is screwed up. Are you letting your character age in real time? They keep up with those pesky minor characters who might not be in the book but two times, but if you call the same character by two different names, you can depend on a sharp-eyed reader noticing. There are literally hundreds of little things you have to watch out for to keep your story right.Spelling correctly and being a good proofreader are just two of them. Of course you know you can't depend on spell check. It can help catch some errors, but not whether you've said your when you meant you're or their instead of there. Oh, by the way, sharp-eyed readers abound, and I'm glad they do. I want readers to be intent on my story. What I don't want is to jerk them out of the story with clumsy prose.

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So I've poured over the galleys, correcting everything the editor points out and all those things I see on my own during this new read through. It's probably been at least 6 months since I last reworked the story. That makes for fresh eyes to see sloppy writing that slipped past me in all my other edits. But I finally get it all read and to the end. I'm still not through.

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After a few more weeks, I get the pages. This is my final chance to catch something wrong. Here I am reminded by the editor to not see things I want to completely rewrite. Some changes are fine. Typos corrected. A transition here and there made clearer. A pet word replaced with something fresher and newer. But there's a warning that if I make too many changes - more than 10 percent or something like that - then I'll be charged for the addtional corrections that aren't publisher's errors. But that's okay. By this time, I as the writer should be happy with what's on the page in front of me. I've already rewritten it a dozen times. So I proofread this time very carefully, but I'm only looking for minor mistakes that are easily fixable. I don't skim over this editing phase. Too many times I've found mistakes. Once a whole paragraph had been inadvertently left out. A necessary paragraph. Lots of times there will be typos. And sometimes there are those minor problems with a repetitive word or a lazy word that just slipped by me all those other editing times. Those things can still be fixed. Once more I read all the way through. Once more I get to the end.

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By this time I've practically memorized the story, but I'm not really sick of it. I'm anxious for it to go to the next step. I've already seen the cover. The title has been chosen. It may even already be out there on Amazon.com or Christianbook.com or BarnesandNoble.com for pre-sale. But my part is finished. At least the writing and editing part. The next time I see my story it will be in a book. One of those great editors who patiently worked over my book to make it the best it could be will send me a copy by rush delivery. That's always an exciting moment. Holding that finished book. Hoping readers are going to like it. Seeing the back cover. By the way, the back cover of my new release, Angel Sister is great with a picture of Kate and Lorena playing. Maybe ring around the rosies.

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At this point, a lot of writers sit down and read through their book again just to make sure everything's the way it's supposed to be. I admit that I have never done that. But for my last book, I should have because even with all our careful edits, one rewritten transition sentence didn't make it into the final copy for printing. A few months after the book came out, one of those sharp-eyed readers asked me how come my characters were in one place one paragraph and in another place the next paragraph. A sentence had been accidently omitted. My editor fixed it for the next print run if there's another print run, but it really bothers me that all those books are out there with that scene looking like I wasn't a careful writer or proofreader. But those things happen. Other writers have said that whole sections were accidently left out or put in the wrong place. That happened to a few of those last books of mine too. A printing mistake that left out forty pages or so. Some readers let me know about that too. The point is mistakes happen even when everybody works hard to keep them from happening. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to keep them from happening by editing as carefully and as completely as we can.

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As I said in the first post - my aim is to make my writing smooth enough that the words disappear on the page and nothing, absolutely nothing is left but the movie playing in the reader's imagination. It takes two to bring a story to life. The writer and the reader. Thanks so much for being a reader. Oh yeah, and by the way, I may talk about the comma in my next post. Maybe it will be Editing 3 - How can one little squiggle of a mark cause so much trouble?

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Thanks for your comments. And tune in Sunday. Besides the comma thing, I hope to announce a prize giveaway to celebrate the release of Angel Sister.

Editing - My Ideas and Theirs - Part 1

On my Facebook author's page last week I mentioned I would be editing my galleys for my next Shaker book this weekend. Someone asked me what exactly that meant. What did I have to do when I edited a book. So I told her I'd post a blog about editing.

Of course we all know about editing our work, our letters, our e-mails, our posts or tweets. Sometimes I don't edit those posts so well and typos sneak through. I hate typos and spelling words wrong. Don't mind it when somebody else does it. Just when I do. But nobody's perfect. And that's what I have to remember when I get the editing suggestions back from my editors. I may think I have it perfect or as near perfect as I can get it, but fresh eyes see new imperfections. To be truthful, I see imperfections every time I read over one of my manuscripts. If I had to wait until I had it where none of those imperfections popped up, I'd never be finished with a story.

So the initial editing is my idea, what I do before I submit the manuscript to an editor. I write the story and then spend a lot of hours going over the story to make sure I've written it the way I wanted and that I've used the best words and haven't repeated everything a dozen times. I make sure names stay the same all the way through the book and eye colors too. I cut out everything that seems to slow down the scene and that is not absolutely necessary. Sometimes I work on a sentence for a long time, rewriting and rewriting it to make it sound right and then realize it doesn't need to be there at all. Delete key time. I can look at that as wasted time or I can look at that as practicing my editing skills and honing my editor's eye.

I don't mind doing this kind of editing. I like it in fact. I like polishing a finished story. I want it to shine the best it can. I don't mind working it over a dozen times or however many times it takes. I want to submit a clean manuscript. That is, one without those typos and repetitive words and other things that might yank a reader out of the story. Because to me that's one of the purposes of smooth writing. To make the words disappear and the story come to life in the readers' mind.

So I scrub and polish my words and sentences. Then I send it off to the editor. My editor reads my story and perhaps spots some holes or places she thinks could be better written or explained. She sends back a letter suggesting changes to improve the story. This can be major rewrite time for an author. It can also be a difficult time for the writer. For me. Because I love my story. I love the words I've chosen to make my scenes come to life. And now here's someone saying maybe I didn't do it right. I've found it's best to read over the suggestions and stew about them for a while. At this point, it's never a good idea to call your editor or e-mail her either. It's better to wait. To let her suggestions absorb into the editing corner of your brain until you realize that she's got a point. This or that scene could be better. That section was overwritten, underwritten, left murky, made too clear. This or that character could come to life better with a bit more work. A good editor is the best kind of friend to a writer - the kind who will tell you when you've got mustard on your face or you forgot to take the tag off your new jeans. Mine will tell me where my story isn't right and give me a chance to fix it.

Okay so I've worked through the first editors suggestions and changed some things and perhaps argued for some other things that got to stay the same. I don't do that often and when I do I try to go back and write something somewhere that will make the scene better even while staying almost the same. My acquiring editor is satisfied. The book is put on the schedule for whatever month to be released. That's usually at least a year away.

Then the book goes to a copy-editor. This editor reads through the book slowly looking for every kind of stumble and lack. She makes sure words are spelled correctly and that in a historical novel like mine I haven't used an expression that wasn't in common use. She helps to make sure the years and ages match up correctly. She makes sure the names are right all the way through. She tells me when the transitions are murky. She sticks in commas that I always want to take out. She notes run on sentences for me to rewrite. (It's a good thing this journal doesn't have a copy editor.) She notes if I have a favorite word that I've over used.

I always have a favorite word. This time, believe it or not, it's mashed. Usually it's still. I love to do transition with still. I'm also very fond of just. But I've begun to notice those more in my first edits so now a new word generally pops up to give me fits. Every time. They must do computer searches. That's what I have to do to try to fix the problem. Especially with still. I don't even see that word most of the time when I'm reading over my work.

This is becoming a run on post. My editor wouldn't be happy. So I'm going to do Editing part 2 on Wednesday. If you've got questions, leave a comment and I'll try to come up with an answer maybe without being mashed down with still and just. Still, I just don't know. I'm hoping my inner editor can take over this week and get these galleys done so I can get back to struggling with Shaker book 5. But then nobody promised me writing would be easy, but easy or hard it's all I've ever wanted to do.

Talk to you Wednesday, and I'd love to hear what you think about editing.

Deadlines and Other Worries

Actually the deadline isn't that much of a worry. I like having deadlines. That means some editor somewhere is wanting to read my story and then suggesting ways I can improve it before readers pick it up. I'm always ready to improve what I write. Of course, I do admit I have times I resist the improvement, but usually if I read with an open mind I see what the editor or copy editor is seeing. I have one basic rule in editing to suggestions made by my editors. I tell myself if the editor had problems with this or that sentence or scene then I can be fairly confident that at least some readers will have the same sort of problems. I don't want my stories to be a problem to read. So I change it.
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Sometimes that means changing something else and that changes another thing. You know like those rows of dominoes that all fall down when you knock down the first one. What is a story except scene built on scene built on scene. They all inter-connect and must line up for the story to make sense. So if you change one thing then you have to be sure everything else still lines up the way it should. Gee, if my editor read that last sentence she'd be getting her red pencil out for sure. But I'm hoping you kind readers out there will understand what I'm trying to say. You know that old saying, do as I say, not as I do. Maybe that goes with writing too. Write as I say, not the way I write. Especially in this journal. Journals are for free thinking and writing, aren't they? Now I'm going to be like Sesame Street's Grover in that Hide and Seek book my grandkids love for me to read to them. He asks the reader to pretend not to see him on the page since he hasn't found a good place to hide. "Please say yes! Please say yes!" That's the only way I can write in a journal. Just as it spills out.
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It wasn't a good day down here on the farm yesterday with family health news. My mom fell and wasn't able to get up. Until she gets better, we'll have to stay with her around the clock. Not sure if she had a stroke or not. But we're praying that she'll begin to be more like her old self soon.
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And then my niece had trouble giving birth and now her baby girl, Emily is having breathing troubles and has been put on a ventilator. That's the family that has the little girl, Kaelyn, who is taking treatments for cancer. But the mom and dad and Kaelyn, too have such powerful faith and are so depending on the Lord that they are an inspiration to all who know them as they continue their faithful journey.
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My recent books have all shown the faith journey of my characters, but we all step out in faith each and every day. Some days are nothing but flowers and sunshine and some days it rains troubles. In my books, of course, there has to be a good amount of that trouble rain to give conflict to the stories and give the characters something to overcome. Life often is the same. Hope you are overcoming and looking forward to some days of flowers and sunshine. Thanks for reading.

Speeches and Book launch for Summer of Joy

Finally got those galleys corrected and off to the editor. I'm hoping I made the story read better. I like to read books that don't jar the reader away from the story because of awkward wording and so that's the kind of book I want to write. I even sometimes read my final copy aloud so that my ear can catch what my eye missed. And then I still miss stuff. Like those too many stills.

I didn't lose my voice and I was able to give my speech at the Anderson County Historical Society. I told them I was talking about the history of one Anderson County writer -- me. That's the only history I know well enough to talk about for very long. I like reading history, but I'm not exactly a sponge when it comes to facts and figures. I remember things that happened that I think might make a good story, but I wouldn't want anybody quoting me. The temperatures plunged that night and we had windchill temps that sound scary when they talk about them on the radio and t.v., so the place wasn't packed. But we still had a good time and the people asked lots of good questions. That's what I like best about giving speeches. The question and answer time. I used to do a lot of school visits and kids could come up with the best questions. One thing most everybody always wants to know is how long does it take to write a book. And that's not a one answer fits all. It's according to the book and according to the writer and according to what else is going on in the world around the writer. Not to mention the level of inspiration. Some stories are harder to dig out of the brain than others.

I'm hoping to do more talks in the future. I'm coming up with some good motivational topics and of course, I'm always ready to talk about my writing. I'm doing one speech on "Where in the story of Jonah are you?" Another is "You didn't mean me, did you, Lord?" But although I enjoy speaking, my first love is writing. I'm ready to get started on a new book.

I'm still not sure I've named this blog for the final time. I've changed the name three times already. I'm thinking about another name, but maybe I'll wait another week and think more.

I went to Georgia last week with Darrell and his group, The Patriot Quartet. They had a couple of great concerts or singings as we've always called them in the Southern Gospel world. And the bus ride was long, but we had fun. Next trip for me is the South Carolina Book Fest in Columbia. But before that I'm having a book launch at the Corinth Bookstore in Frankfort, Kentucky. That's a great store run by some great Christian people. Come by and see me on Friday, February 15 and get your copy of Summer of Joy autographed. Also my interview with Novel Journey will be posted February 2. http://www.noveljourney.blogspot.com/

Till next time, keep the faith and never, never forget the power of prayer. Ann

Colds, red noses and deadlines

Hey everybody.

Hope you have all escaped the cold bug, but alas, I did not. Our preacher came down with something the week before Christmas and managed to pass it along to everybody in our church. We have a small congregation (average around 40) so it wasn't exactly an epidemic, but there's been a lot of coughing going on while he preaches ever since. I thought I'd gotten over it a week ago but no such luck. It came back with vengeance. So I went to the doctor. Not something I do often. I think it had been over a year since I'd gone to a doctor because I was sick. I usually just tough whatever it is out. But this time I gave up and decided I needed medicine. Then I get home and read in the paper where antibiotics or no other medicines help sinus infections a bit. But at least I feel as if I'm doing something to help get better. I don't want to lose my voice. I'm supposed to give a speech Thursday. You think if I whisper, that will make everybody pay more attention? I've heard teachers say it works. And there's always makeup for red noses. That lasts until the first time you have to blow your nose again. Oh well. They're hometown folks so they'll be kind. I hope.

I'm still working on my galley corrections for The Outsider. I thought I was through and then I remembered the editor asking me to check out all the many, many times I used the word still. I still don't know how my mind could have gone on vacation and let me type still so often. Still, I do seem to like the word. It must have been my comfort word in this book. One other book it was the word just. So now I'm paying the price for my comfort zone and having to do some rewording. And I was sure I had it so perfect the first time. Well, actually not. I never think I have it perfect. I could probably rewrite till the cows came home and still (oops, there's that word again) find things to change.

I got my new book, Summer of Joy. That's exciting. Hope everybody else will be excited to read more about Jocie and family.

More next time.

Ann