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Writing

When Edits Meet Life

Hello! I’ve been MIA because I’ve been deep in edits. When edits meet life it makes for an interesting adventure. In the past my edits have always been for myself. I’ve written a draft, printed it and revised and tightened. This was done on my schedule, no real deadline. In other words, I could edit at a leisurely pace. No pressure. Ahh, the good old days.

This is my beast of a manuscript.

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So, what was the difference this time? I have an agent and she read my manuscript and had some feedback for me. When the manuscript landed back in my inbox I dove right into the edits. While she didn’t give me a deadline for turning the manuscript back into her (bless her), I knew that there was a clock ticking. Without the edits completed, my submission to editors was on hold. Tick. Tick. Tick. As I worked through the edits I found myself deeper and deeper in the writer’s cave and everything else seemed to fade away. I found myself for nearly 5 weeks living, eating, and breathing those edits. There have been some hot, miserable days recently where my motivation was a big fat zero for most things. But not my edits. You see, the light at the end of this tunnel was the submitting to editors and that light (I admit, sometimes the light was a little dim. LOL) kept me moving forward.

On Sunday afternoon I finished my edits. WooHoo!!!! I was so excited. But, I didn’t get carried away with my celebration because I’m really not done yet. I decided to let my manuscript sit for a week and then I’m going to do one last proofread of it before it goes back to my agent.

Publishing is a long process. And it’s a process that I am enjoying. Heck, the alternative is to give up and never know what could have been. Onward to proofreading!

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Knitting, Pets, Writing

Happy June!

It’s June 1st. Wow! It’s hard to believe we’re half way through 2016. I had a feeling that 2016 was going to be a good year and so far, it is pretty good. At the end of March I signed with an agent to represent my cozy mystery series! Very, very excited about that. I’m currently working on the second book in the series. In fact, over the three day weekend I wrote 10,017 words. That was pretty awesome.

But it hasn’t been all work. I’ve gotten some play in. And I have pictures!

Today was a perfect late spring day to get the dogs outside so I took them to their pen. Susie ran around and rolled several times. Boy, she just body slams the grass. LOL. Meanwhile, Billy stood close to me. I had him on a lead and walked him around several times so he could sniff and get some fresh air. He’s pretty much completely blind so letting him loose in the pen wasn’t a good idea. I think he would have been too disoriented.

Just as I snapped the photo, she turned her head. So typically Susie. 🙂

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When she was ready for her photo to be taken she posed.

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Here’s Billy.

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Billy was ready for his close-up. 🙂

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While I was at a writer’s conference in April I visited a knitting shop with my roommate, fellow author Megan Ryder, and I fell in love with a sample baby blanket and knew it would perfect for a certain little guy. So I bought yarn and a circular knitting needle. And I’ve finally had the time to start the project. Here’s my work in progress.

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In the above picture you can see a glimpse of my new knitting tote. Before we hit the knitting shop we stopped in Michael’s (we needed to get a few things for Megan’s basket for the raffle) and we came across the prettiest totes. I couldn’t resist. Then I found the yarn and then it all came together. My yarn needed a bag!

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I hope you have a great start to June. This month I want to finish the blanket and I have to continue writing the first draft of the second book in my mystery series. What are you up to this month?

Writing

Plotting a little murder.

Dreary day. Sticky notes. Plotting board. Coffee. I spent time over the weekend laying out book two in my cozy mystery series.

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Writing

Revising the plot.

One board, a whole bunch of mini-index cards and a first draft. Let the fun begin, aka revision hell.

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