Your Morning Tidbit on Fun Fact Friday -- To Be a Writer

 

Happy Friday everyone!! 

I would like to start off this morning by expressing my gratitude to you for hanging out with me, taking a moment to read my words because if there were no you, my words would have no one reading them. So I really appreciate that. To all of you who have added my novels to your library, thank you! I do hope you are enjoying them. 

To take care of some business, I will remind those of you who have Kindle Unlimited but are practicing the Art of Procrastination, Along the Way and The Allegheny Chronicles will be available to Kindle Unlimited subscribers for free until the first week of January.  I would also like to remind my Portrait of an Unlikely Affair series reader that book 5, Project Broken Glass, was released last Friday and is available on Kindle and in print. Book 6, The Disruption of Forever, is available for Pre-Order on Kindle and will be released on January 15, 2023. It will be the "exciting" conclusion to the series and I cannot wait for you to read it! The great news is if you HAVEN'T yet started the series, you can start now and be at book 6 by the time it releases! For those of you are eagerly awaiting book 6 because you couldn't put Project Broken Glass down, it is an excellent time to go back and re-read the series because I bet there are some subtle things that you can catch now that you know the journey up to that point. I know I'm going to do that as soon as I get book 6, The Disruption of Forever (which is due out January 15, 2023 and is available for pre-order right now) submitted for publication. I want to see how the series flows now that I have the ending. 

Alright, now today's post! Today I will answer a few questions that I have been getting lately and discuss being a writer. 

Question #1: Which of your books do you recommend? 

Answer: All of them. I say that in the most unsarcastic way and with a smile because I really mean it.  From there I'll say it depends on your individual taste. My books, even though I classify them as General Fiction and Contemporary Romance, are for everybody. I chose to release Along the Way as my debut novel because I had no intentions of ever introducing anyone to my Portrait of an Unlikely Affair series. I have several other books I was going to release way before I ever considered sharing my Portrait characters. 

Question 2: Why? How is the Cedar Grove series different from the Portrait of an Unlikely Affair series?

Answer: To me, my Cedar Grove story and characters are safe bets. Their story is believable, acceptable, and 'current.' It has romance and drama, just like real life does. Along the Way will get you emotionally involved because it makes you care for the characters and it makes you laugh. You get to know them. The Portrait series, on the other hand, felt like a deep dark secret because it was pure imagination.  As I have told you before, there is no way in reality that it could ever take place. Plus, I started writing on it when I was young and, when you have siblings, writing and sharing anything could just give more ammunition to being teased. Of course, the more I wrote, the older I got, the more complex the story became. I didn't quite have a beginning to it and I never knew if there would be an ending so I just kept writing. That is why I never intended on letting others read Portrait of Unlikely Affair. It wasn't until a few years ago that I realized there was actually an 'ending' point, although it's not exactly the ending of their story.  

Question 3: So then which book should I start with?

Answer: If you're going with a series, then I recommend starting with the first book (yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, smartass.) Download samples and whichever you are disappointed with the sample ending so soon is the one you start with. Still not convinced? Well, try this:

• Start with Along the Way and the Cedar Grove series if you are in the mood for romance, ballroom dancing, and everyday life situations. 
• Start with The Allegheny Chronicles: Eden and The Alchemist if you're curious about my writing and enjoy some conflict with romance, like a good mystery, and you like some thrill in your life.
• Start with Portrait of an Unlikely Affair if you like mysteries, thrillers, secrets, and unravelling them all with a little impossible romance. 

If you've begun the journey with my books, please let us know which book you started with and which one you'd recommend starting with.

Question 4: How in the world did you find the time to write all those books?

Answer: Time is a funny thing. Every single day you receive the same amount of time. You must sleep. You must eat. You must work or bring in money. You devote time and attention to children or animals or both. Anything after that is your choice. I choose not to watch television on most nights. I choose not to scroll on social media. I choose not to spend hours talking on the phone, going out, going to the gym, shopping, etc, etc. Instead, I write. Writing to me is as necessary as breathing and I do write every day. I may not be "up to speed" with all of the latest and greatest TV shows, movies, or social media, but I love writing so writing is what I choose to do with my time. 

Question 5: With publishing 9 books in three months, have you cut corners or rushed them?

Answer: I have gotten all of these books of mine out in a "short" period of time because I have spent 30+ years writing them. Five of them were finished and ready to go years ago. Another was basically already finished, I just didn't know how it would fit. Two more I had bits and pieces of it and just needed to know how the rest of those pieces fit together. Then there is The Allegheny Chronicles which wrote itself as I was trying to edit The Ghost of Oscar (Book 3). No corners were cut and I put everything into each book. 

Question 6: How long does it take you to write a book?

Answer: It depends on how I write. It's complicated and technical way of writing but it works for me. (For other people, my method would cause alcohol consumption and screams of frustration, but it works for me.)

1. First I write, either with paper and pen or on the computer. Whatever is rattling around in my head gets put down in words. I don't have any specific time I do this. Just whenever my stories "talk" to me. It's usually when I'm washing dishes or somewhere I don't have a pen and paper. 
   
   
   
2. I then see where it fits in my current project. Sometimes it doesn't. So I save it for later. Sometimes I have to do some research into various different things that pop up in my writing. It's amazing where an imagination takes you. 
   
   
   
3. When I think I am finished with my manuscript, I do spend a lot of time reading and rereading my writing in different ways. First, I do an edit while reading the computer screen. I also run spell check and grammar check. 
   
   
   
4. I fix whatever I can find and then I do another edit by printing it out with my printer. 
   
   
   
5. I fix all those edits and add it to the manuscript on the computer before I go back to step 1 because always seem to I bust through writer's block or something new pops into my head or I find a scrap of paper where I wrote something on years ago that now fits into the story now. 
   
   
   
6. I redo steps 1-5 as many times as it takes until I think I am done then I whip up a cover and I submit it for a proof copy because no matter how many times I have read, reread, edited, and re-edited, there is always something I didn't see. 
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7. When the proof copy arrives, I read and edit it, find all sorts of mistakes, spelling mishaps, and inconsistencies. There is a lot of red ink all over my "finished" product. So back I go to step 3 and repeat the process as many times as needed.
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9. This time, I really think I'm finished so I submit my 40th draft for my 10th proof copy and, voila! I impatiently wait for my proof to come to me, hoping my characters haven't come up with something else they'd like to put into the story. When it comes, I do both a line edit and a copy edit. If I don't have any further red ink, it's time to go to publishing. If I do have red ink, it's back to step 3.
   
   
   
10. Now, this is where it gets tricky. I upload it to the Kindle converter and as I go through that new format, I find tons of errors I obviously couldn't see the first 50 times I read it. Why? Because the format is different.  So, back to correcting and editing I go. Spell check is done automatically on Kindle and it tells you what errors you have. I write down the errors I find because I need to correct them in my manuscript. When this is all said and done, I am able to publish both kindle and paperback.
    
    
    
11. Being so very proud of myself, I order my author copies of my books and sit down to start reading it when, twenty pages in, I find a mistake. I hurriedly go back and correct all the mistakes I can find (Seriously, what the frick? Did a buffoon edit this thing? I should so fire my editor) and then re-upload and submit them. I repeat this step as many times as I need to because I have trusted people letting me know what errors they have found, which is always different than the ones that I have found. 
    
    
    

So, how long does it take me to write a book? Decades. Seriously.

Question #7: For all of those considering writing something, anything, do you recommend becoming a writer?

Answer: If you've got a story to tell, by all means, put it down and tell it. I've only been a 'published' author for about three months now. It has been a wild journey, I've learned a lot in just three months and next month I will be stepping into the world of advertising. Right now I am relying on word of mouth from my readers but next month I will be putting it out into the world. The biggest lesson I have learned with writing is this: If you want it, you will find ways. If you don't really want it, you'll find excuses. 

I love writing, I write anyways, and getting paid royalties for doing it is the icing on the cake. I've sat there for decades telling myself that my writing isn't good, nobody would read it, and I can't make money doing what I love. Then there came a day when I thought, "Why can't it be worth reading? Why wouldn't people read it? Why couldn't I find prosperity in doing what I love?" So, find out what you really want and then do it because whatever you focus on, you create. Why not create what you love?

So, there you have it, life inside a fiction writer's head. 😳 (Scary, isn't it?)

On that note, I'll let you get on with your day. If you have any questions or comments at all, by all means, let me know! I'm not scary (well, at least I don't think I am 🤔) and I will respond to you (writers do love to write.) If you enjoy reading these little blurbs, enjoy reading my novels, or just enjoy life, be sure to share those thoughts with your friends. If they like to read, I just may have some books for them to enjoy. Also, thank you for letting me know what you think in your reviews on Amazon!!😍

Thanks for stopping by and hanging out with me today. Hope you enjoy the rest of your day and have a great weekend!!💕

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Have you read Along the Way, Wherever It Goes, Portrait of an Unlikely Affair or any other of my books? Have questions, comments, concerns about frightening grammar mistakes, or just burning curiosity about something in the story? Leave a comment, give me a review, or send me a message -- I'm easy to reach. Like it👍, Love it💖, and Share💃!