WIP Day

It's time to talk about my Work In Progress...Transformation. This is just a mock cover for my work. I don't have the rights to this image yet and I'm not using it for profit, but I do plan on getting in contact with the photographer! It's perfect. To see the original, go here.

I also have to give a shout out to Jenni Merritt who designed the cover for me. It's BEAUTIFUL!

It's pretty scary putting this out there, but I think it's the best way for everyone to get a feel for my book without me telling too much of what it's about.

It's YA fiction, though I'm still undecided on the subcategory.

I had about a week to come up with a story idea for NaNoWriMo in November. I had never heard of it until the middle of October and by the time I decided to join up I didn't have much time.

Lucky for me, I keep a dream journal. I went back and read all the dreams I've had within the past six months. Transformation was a result of combining two of those dreams. Granted, the book changed a lot as I wrote. It didn't end up anything like I had originally plotted out, but that's part of the fun. Besides, it's so much better than I had planned.

My first round of editing consisted of going back and reading the whole thing while making notecards of what each chapter was about. There were so many plot wholes it was embarrassing.

My second round was focused on fixing all of those holes. I would catch as many spelling and grammatical errors as I could on my own, but I mainly wanted the story to make sense from beginning to end.

It was at this point that I sent it out to Beta Readers. It was still pretty rough, but I wanted to get an idea of how the story would be accepted before I started hacking away at it. I hope to hear back from each of them within the week, but things usually don't go according to plan.

While I wait for their reviews, I have printed out a hard copy and I've been working on a paper edit. I LOVE the paper edit. It is so much easier to read through the eyes of a reader and not the writer. And even though it's practically bleeding from all the red pen marks in it, it gives me a great deal of satisfaction to cross things out, particularly if it was cringe worthy to begin with.

After the paper edit I will go back and make the changes to my file. Then, I get to go through what my Beta Readers suggested and make any necessary changes there as well.

The final edit will be combing through it, catching any final spelling errors or grammatical changes that are needed. I'm hoping I won't need any more edits, but you never know.

I plan on making a weekly update as to my progress, thoughts, and fears. This is what is going to keep me working. It's difficult to get the courage to work on it every day. There are days that I am in love with it and days that I think it is a big pile of pooh and will never be good enough. But as long as I end on a day that I love it, I will prevail.