On the 21st of February, I sat at my desk here in northern Virginia writing the first draft of my blog and couldn’t help but notice a round of robins swarming outside my window. The temperature couldn’t have been warmer than 28 degrees. I always thought robins were the harbinger of springtime.
Hopefully, those birds knew more than I did, which wouldn’t be hard now that the Covid shutdown enters the second year. I think my brain would’ve calcified without my writing.
On the 13th of March, my editor at Level Best Books sent me my red line edit copy of my novel, Do It for Daisy. She seemed pleased with the manuscript, and her edits were primarily fixing my misuse of commas. I’ve also been building my marketing plan, due on the 25th. Next milestones include a final review of proof pages, updating my bio, and including acknowledgments and dedications.
Level Best Books does a wonderful job with covers, and I’m looking forward to seeing what they generate for me. As part of the cover design activity, I’m reaching out to fellow authors asking for a review and blurb to add to my back cover. It’s a big request, but the people I’m asking were in my position at one time in the past. Hopefully, I can secure two positive blurbs.
In April, I’ll be sending advanced reader copies (ARCs) to a small number of friends. The objective is to have a half-dozen Amazon and Goodreads positive reviews popping up the day of the book’s release in May.
My work-in-progress, The Man Who Fixed Things, was delivered to three beta readers last month. While I like hearing how great my writing was, I really needed them to identify the novel’s weaknesses. (Better your beta readers find them than that prospective agent you hope to impress.) They did a great job, all-in-all. The universal complaint was the beginning dragged. So, I’ve been cutting and chopping and currently have removed 20 pages or one-fifth of the story’s first part. I’ll do a second beta read with different readers and determine whether I succeeded in moving the story along.
I also attended the Association for Writers and Writing Program (AWWP) conference on Zoom. I focused on sessions where agents talked about the process. I didn’t learn too much I hadn’t already heard before, other than it’s getting harder and harder. One agent mentioned she gets several hundred submissions a week, and she accepts maybe two or three a year.
But hey, if you can’t handle rejection, get a dog.