Finished Proofing

I finished proofing and am producing the final product of You Want to Be Me. I'm glad I did it this way. I caught many mistakes that I didn't see before. I have sent out a few more submissions of the manuscript and have received a few rejections. But, that is ok I expected it and with each one it gets a little easier. I think I might be completely shocked if someone does ask for a full read. Until then, I have restated prices of the kindle version of 2.99 because I am noticing that many of the Young Adult title prices have been lowered for the summer. Now, I wait and hope someone buys it, or someone reads this blog, or someone notices that I exist.

Proof Copy

I received the copy of my proof in the mail yesterday. To be honest, I struggled with even opening the package. It felt unreal that something that I wrote was actually in a book format (granted only I made that possible, but never the less it was actually in my hand and no longer in my head). I sat down with my pen and began reading through, very slowly, each and every word. I found so many errors. Wow! I was embarassed. On the computer, I never even saw them. They didn't show up in spelling and grammar check. (I guess that is why people use editors right?) Although, I have an English degree, so perhaps I should I have caught them all? No, that is what I have taught my students for so long. Have someone else read your paper and they will find errors or make suggestions that you did not find. It is being too close to your text. I knew what they were going to say, so I skimmed it and didn't read it. That is my lesson for the day. Proof read and then have others proof read. When it is next to nearly perfect I will once again try and send it out to agents. In the mean time, I will shop it myself.

Tired of Vampires and Werewolves

Let me start this out by saying that I love vampires and werewolves. I currently watch Trueblood, Teen Wolf, and The Vampire Diaries. I love the series Being Human on Syfy. I have read all the Twilight books and have watched all the movies. But, talk about overkill! What if you are a teenager that hates this stuff? What is out there for you to read? I love the sappy romance novel as an adult that I find with reading chic lit. What exists for girls of that age anymore? Every book I thumb through seems to deal with these supernatural creatures or has some sort of issue that is meant to be a lesson you can carry with you for the rest of your life. When I read, I want there to be an escape. I want to enjoy my characters and maybe feel like I am one of them. I think an author has a job to do to make sure that their characters can relate to these people, but at the same time, if I wanted to read about my own life I would. I like romance, I always have. As I sat down to write You Want to Be Me, I knew where I was going with it. I tried to recapture the emotions that were so overwhelming at that time in my life. Lets be honest, sex was a big part of it. How much can you include and what is too graphic? These are the questions I am searching to answer. What do teenagers want to read and how much is too much? Let me know what you think, maybe some input would help me to establish future characters.

Getting Published

I think that as any writer that tries to get published it is a heart breaking, pain staking, just overall crappy experience. I have read websites and blogs alike and have yet to find one person who seems to have an overall easy experience with it. You must get an agent. You must send each submission in their specific format and head it to a particular person. It seems that maybe the only way to get published is to do self publishing and then that is frowned upon. You must ask yourself, do I really just want to publish or do I want to profit from this? Of course I want to profit from it, just because it is my passion does not mean that I'm crazy. So while I send out my submissions laborously I am also throwing in the towel (so to speak) and I am self publishing on the Kindle and with Createspace. I guess I just have to do it so that maybe I can reap some type of reward for my hard work. So, to all of you that think this might be giving up, I am looking at is as a chance to reach more.