This time last year – same drill, different focus

This time last year I had just published Cross My Heart (the 4th in the series), we had only recently brought home and introduced Jozee to the family and we received a good amount of snow. Jozee was thrilled on both counts – she loved her new home and she enjoyed playing in the snow.

Time jump to today and the 5th in the series is now in the hands of my editor and will soon be ready for publishing, Jozee is a year old but still in the puppy stage and after a recent winter storm brought with it a lot of snow, she’s been having a great time playing outside. February has become our true winter month in this area of the PNW.

Now that my book is in the hands of my editor, I’m in that in limbo stage…while I wait for the return of my manuscript with suggested changes and while I consider what project(s) I want to work on in the meantime and what I will completely focus on once the edited novel is published.

My young adult novel, in the making now for awhile because it keeps getting shoved to the back burner behind my other books, will take first priority. I’ve had to complete some particular research for this book and while reviewing what I had in my folder recently when I was conducting additional research, I couldn’t deny the excitement I felt at the prospect of finally completing this book. It’s a completely different genre and a world of my own making, which makes the project both intimidating and stimulating at the same time.

It may get tricky, but I’m also working on the idea for a new series and I do hope that while I focus primarily on my young adult, I’ll be able to take time to work on this series. It’s a project that has brought about new excitement while I’ve made notes about new characters, scenes and settings. I still have some planning to complete but I’m excited to begin, as this project has already proven to be near and dear to my wanderlust heart.

And for those who follow the Jorja Matthews mystery series, I have the story line of the next novel mapped out (until the characters take over) and will work on that novel as time permits. While working on multiple projects isn’t always easy, it’s great to have options if the characters in the other books don’t want to come out and play on any certain day.

One thing I’ll say about completing one project and preparing for the next is how clean my desk looks! My desk gets a complete face lift once I update my series Bible, file away my notes for safekeeping and store my notebooks for later use when I begin to work on the next novel.

I almost hate the thought of messing up my clean desk again…almost, but not really.  J

Super Bowl or Superb Owl? My thoughts on editing...

I heard on the radio the other day that a Google search for the Super Bowl may land you on a page about the superb owl instead if you misplaced your space. I tried it, with and without a space, but most of the items on my search list only included Super Bowl news, with a couple of exceptions:

Owl hanging out in our front yard

Wiktionary, a free online dictionary, included this usage note: This spelling is used, jocularly or seriously, to try to avoid being sued by the NFL, when trying to associate places, events and products with the Super Bowl without acquiring a license first.

And then there was this tricky post from the NY Times which was a mix of a beautiful owl photo, some wit about how you may have landed on their page, football links and, if you're really just interested in owls, a link to an article you may enjoy.

Since I'm partial to owls and not football (although I do enjoy Super Bowl commercials), I'll stick to real posts and articles that relate only to owls without game day tidbits sprinkled in. [Side note: Word wants me to fix the term "superb owl" to "super bowl" - even the computer likes football more than I do. J]

But when I heard that bit about the Super Bowl vs superb owl search results, I found it interesting...

How often do we search the Internet for one thing, only to become lost down the rabbit hole of another subject we didn't realize might be interesting? How often do we type words and sentences, not realizing one misplaced space or missing letter completely transforms what we were trying to say? Or worse, when auto correct thinks it knows what you mean to say and completely changes the whole meaning of your  message (sometimes embarrassingly!).

I guess the reason I found the radio snippet interesting is because I've been editing and revising my novel in preparation for its final edit. You can edit and edit, again and again and still find errors you missed from previous passes. I've learned from using a professional editor how important it is to have those professional set of eyes review my work. While my eyes will eventually gloss over from reviewing the same paragraphs over and over, a professional editor will see the story with fresh eyes and the ability to catch those misplaced letters or words, extra spaces, unintentional meanings due to extra words and so much more.

There are many ways to edit: self edits, mixed with computer applications that will edit for you before beta readers take a stab at the story (where some are better than others at catching mistakes), but I've learned from my last seven publications, some with and some without professional edits, that a professional edit is key.

And if for some reason my words just don't make sense and aren't caught by myself or the computer, I can rely on the fact that my editor will ask me...did you man superb owl, or Super Bowl? J  

Have a great day and happy Super Bowl Sunday!