I
I’m probably the most inexperienced writer currently with
BWL. Out of Darkness is my first published work. I’ve had minimal experience
with writing a blog. I’ve only participated once in a blog spot offered by
Janet Lane-Walters, Eclectic Writer (https://wwweclecticwriter.blogspot.com/). Janet kindly offered a question and answer format.
Since publishing Out
of Darkness, I’ve struggled with promotion and social media as these are things
that don’t come naturally for me. I’ve never been a big presence online. Facebook has always been a means of
connecting with family and for little else. Instagram is my go to for Tasty
recipes. So being a newbie, I haven’t felt like I have much to offer for a blog.
Everyone start somewhere and I’ve come
to realize that being new, my beginning is still pretty fresh. What I can offer
is my experience along with the trials and errors, my journey.
When I wrote my novel Out of Darkness, I was writing for me.
I think at the back of our minds, at some point we’ve all dreamed of writing a
book and having it published. But that wasn’t what inspired me to write my novel.
Completing Out of Darkness was an
accomplishment, a goal I wanted for myself. I’ve always been an avid reader. I
loved being taken away into other worlds. I would often imagine stories that I
would like to see written. My English teachers always encouraged me to write
and I’ve written many short stories over the years but I never had the courage
to take on such a large project.
A friend of mine is a writer and we often talked about her
projects and her writers group. She encouraged me to come to some of the meetings. I was already well on my way to writing
my novel but there was so much I still didn’t know. I became a member of the
writers group and tried to soak in the advice, knowledge and experience from
the group and from the workshops they
offered. I was learning the tools I
needed to complete my book.
I was thrilled to complete it. I thought I’d done a great
job (I had learned humility yet). I gave my finished work to my friend to read
and she gave it back to me with notes in the margins and a page of notes and
suggestions. You can imagine my surprise to find out that the first draft of my
amazing accomplishment was not the prize-winning literary art I expected it to
be. I joke about my lofty expectations but I did think it was pretty darn good
for a first attempt. I gratefully accepted her suggestions and notes and got
straight to work at improving my work. When I figured I was done I sighed with
relief and set it aside. I wanted to
give it some time before I looked at it with fresh eyes again. And it sat.
My friend eventually published a series of books. I attended
one of her book launches at the local library. I enjoyed chatting with other
writers and artists of other kinds as well that attended. During the event, I
visited with another writer. I told how her I’d also written a novel but that it’d been sitting for a while. We were discussing my difficulty in deciding which genre my novel belonged due to the
multitude of subgenres, so she asked me to tell her a bit about my book. I told her how my hero Kai, accidentally stumbles into an immortal existence and
finds himself bound to protect the mortal world until the night everything changes when he
rescues a university student from a brutal attack. She agreed that my novel would fit the
paranormal romance category. To my surprise,
I’d been talking to the publisher at the BWL Jude Pitman. She said my
story sounded interesting and she invited me to email her my novel.
Well damn, now what. It’d been quite some time since the
last time I took a look at my novel. So over the next few days I went through
it with a fine tooth comb and tweaked it yet again.
I sent it off to Jude and a few days later, I got a response.
In the email, Jude explained that while BWL usually works with experienced
writers, she liked the way I handled the
premise of my story. BWL was going to accept my novel with some conditions of
course. She explained how BWL has high expectations from their writers and how
the final onus
is on the author to deliver a Ready to Publish manuscript.
While
they rarely do this, she was going to see if one of the editors would be
willing to give me a little extra help. I was so excited. Then came more blows
to my pride. While she felt my story had been handled well and had a good
premise it needed some work when it came to the craft of writing. Some helpful
suggestions were made and I went through my work once again. Something was just
not clicking for me. I will tell you that working with an editor is not for the
faint of heart. You need to have a thick skin. And I tried. There were times
where I felt completely demoralized by the comments of my editor but I am very
grateful regardless. As my editor told me, the comments were not meant to be
personal but to make me a better writer. While it was hard to see that during
the process, I took the criticism as constructive and carried on until I
finally had that finished, ready to publish product.
One of most valuable things I’ve learned is that everybody has a different
method. I had one mentor telling me the importance of the rules while another
mentor was telling me that there are times to throw the rules aside. The hard
part is learning when the rules apply them when they don’t. There are rules you need to follow for
grammar and structure but everybody gets there in their own way. Some writers all
about the structure while I write more freestyle. That isn’t to say that I have
no structure or direction. I know when I start writing in the direction I want
my characters to go as well as the general plot. I don’t have it all blocked
out and mapped on a piece of paper like some writers. I have it blocked and
plotted in my mind. Sometimes I let new ideas flow while I ’m writing and then
I go back to make sure the continuity isn’t affected but that works for me.
I have to also say that being accepted as a part of the BWL
family is a blessing. The encouragement and support given by the writers of BWL
has been amazing. I see a group of people who are dedicated to not just lifting
up their own works, but the works of their fellow writers.
This past year has brought many changes to my life. I
published my first book. Shortly after,
my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy.
My daughter went off to college and is just now moving into the dorms. I got
married and moved to the country. My oldest stepdaughter moved away and my
youngest stepdaughter moved in. I am still chipping my way through my next
novel tentatively titled Snow Bound and working through ideas for a sequel to
Out of Darkness. It has been a very eventful whirlwind of a year.
