Celebration of Rochester-Area Authors

I am honored to be included in the 2nd Annual Celebration of Rochester-Area Authors sponsored by the Friends of the Rochester Public Library. On July 18th from 5 to 8, I will be surrounded by individuals that share my passion for writing. It's not every day that you meet others in this profession. Most days, it is a very lonely existence, besides hanging out with the characters in your book. Fortunately, authors tend to like their fictional friends so spending time with them is hardly punishment.

As part of this glorious event, I have been asked to answer some interview questions for various publications. The answers to the questions should just roll right off my tongue, but I'm kind of struggling with what to write as part of the preliminary conversation. What is my background? How and why did I decide to start writing? Do I consider myself an area author? This last question is the toughest. When someone asks me what I "do," I still immediately say I stay home with the kids even though the kids are all school-age now. When the kids are in school, my job is to write. I want to entertain people with my stories. I want to earn a living doing what I love. To keep that dream alive, I best get busy!

Rewriting - wait and ponder

While the rest of my reviewers for book #3 are finishing up their comments, I wait and ponder. I do this because I need to compare their comments to the rest so that I get a clear picture of what I really want to do in the end. When I first receive feedback, I oftentimes want to immediately start making changes. That's bad. What one person doesn't like might possibly be another person's favorite part. Most of the time, however, the review comments are aligned. They are asking similar questions. They all want to know more about a specific character. So here's what I'm forcing myself to do: wait and ponder. I won't make any changes until all voices are heard. The ideas are floating around in my head or written down on paper, but they must stay there--at least for now. Patience is a virtue. I have no reason to hurry, no reason to rush this out to readers. This book just might be the best one yet!

Notification of change

I created a whole page of items to change to notify readers that Sincerely, sad dad is now Justice for Julia. Like everything else in life, it will take time. I'm quickly realizing that I need the print version of the book to show up on Amazon before making most of my changes - it makes the most sense to go to each site only once. As for really promoting the title, I can't think of how I'll do that before the Celebration of Rochester-Area Authors on July 18th. That event is the perfect occasion to display the updated copy, and to promote the upcoming third book in the series. In order to promote the new book though, I'll have to select a cover and a title. That is sooooo hard! I'll need to really put some thought into this next one. Third time's a charm, right?!