Guess What?!?

Finding Shemballah, Book 2 in the Chronicles of Nequam, is now available on Amazon! And can I say that it feels soooo good to finally have it out there? Getting it to this point was a little easier than publishing Laryn Rising, mostly because I at least this time I kind of knew what I was doing. (Or, more precisely, I knew which things I couldn't do myself and who would do them for me...)

Now that the book is out and I can relax, I've been looking back over this journey with some bitter-sweet feelings. I admit it, I love Laryn. I wish I were more like her (and no, despite what my mother might say we are nothing alike). Regardless of how exciting it was to finally write 'The End' for book two, it's been hard to say goodbye to these characters. As I've mentioned before, my current project is juvenile fiction and although I'm having a blast writing it, I truly loved the emotional intensity of writing Laryn. With that said, I thought it would be fun to share some of the inside story behind the writing of these two books, so here we go...


Ten Random Facts About Finding Shemballah:
1. I never intended for Laryn's story to take two books.

2. You know the 'Big Decision' Laryn has to make in Laryn Rising? It was never part of the original storyline. When I realized there was no way Laryn and her sisters could assimilate fast enough to get them off the ship according to plan (i.e., without ending up with a giant, doorstop-sized tome), I had to scramble, rethink, and risk ruining everything in order to split the story into two books and make a complete story out of their journey to Nequam. In the end, I think it was the best decision I made.

3. Inventing a new planet is kind of hard. Don't believe me? Stop right now and see how long it takes you to design, AND NAME, three alien species. Go ahead and try it. If you have any success, leave your new creations (with full details) in the comment box because I'd love to see them. Let's just say I have a whole new respect for the writers of Star Wars, lol.

4. Plymouth was originally named Republic (hence the name for the colonial money being 'pubs', which is short for publicans), but then some astute readers pointed out that I had 'Republic' and 'The Federation', which was a bit too Star-Wars-ish. I still like Republic better, and I never did get used to calling the people of Plymouth 'Plymouthans', although that is the accepted name for 'People from Plymouth'. Who knew?

5. Alistair is my favorite character in Finding Shemballah. (Aside from Laryn, of course.)

6. When I realized I could no longer call book two Republic (see fun fact #4) I almost named it Promise Bound. But despite the great reviews I got on that option, it sounded too much like the title of a cheesy romance to me, and every time I considered it Fabio appeared in my head...

7. I have eleven full revisions of Finding Shemballah. Seriously.

8. The first draft was almost 250,000 words long. The final is around 170,000, which means I cut EIGHTY THOUSAND WORDS!!! out of this manuscript. (I hope all my editing clients read this. It might make them feel better, lol.)

9. There is a map for this book, but since I drew it myself it kind of looks like a 5th grader's geography project. Needless to say, it isn't currently included. Unfortunately, I have no idea where to go to find a map drawing person (cartographer?), so until I figure that out this book will remain mapless. This kind of makes me really sad because I LOVE maps! I even have a whole pinterest board dedicated solely to really cool book maps. (Does that make me weird?)

10. The inspiration for this entire series came from laziness. I love historical fiction. I love stories about American colonial life and all the challenges and adventures that went along with leaving the known for the unknown, and I always wanted to write historical fiction. Then I went to college, majored in History, realized how much research a person would have to do to write successful historical fiction, and promptly started trying to figure out a way to write history without all the research. Besides that, the idea of people from the future having to live in a pastoral world kind of captivated me. In the end, however, creating a whole world and all the creatures and places in it wasn't nearly as easy as I thought it would be, and there were days when I was absolutely positive that there wasn't another name, description, or 'fun fact' about Nequam in my head. Period. But in the end, I managed to come up with a story that, to me, illustrates that when push comes to shove human beings are amazingly strong and resilient, and as a society they will nearly always rise to the occasion.

Thank you to everyone who has shared Laryn's story with me, and to all the people who helped me along the way! I appreciate every time my books are reviewed, pinned, shared, tweeted, emailed, or talked about, because without all of that no one would even know they exist. Such is the world of the self-published, but I truly believe that if a book is good enough the world will find it.

People regularly ask me if I'm going to try to get Laryn Rising traditionally published (aka, query an agent, have them sell it to a HUGE publishing house, and ideally rake in the dough with a rare-in-this-day-and-age $100,000 advance). That would be awesome. And if I secured such a deal (even if they didn't give me the life-changing advance) they'd design my book cover, edit my book, proofread my book, print my book, and distribute it to bookstores. Where it would sit on a shelf that millions of readers flocked to with like-minded books.

And therein lies the problem. My book has no genre, and in the publishing world no genre means 'no shelf'. End of story for the first time author (most of the time).

For those of you who have read Laryn Rising and are tempted to disagree with me, let me put it to you this way: it's dystopian, but only for the first three chapters; it primarily takes place on a space ship, but other than that there's nothing scifi about it. (Seriously, hardcore scifi junkie's would tar and feather me if I tried to sell it under that genre. They would be up in arms. They would cry out in reviews that there was no science, no technology, and no alien invaders, and my book would be mud.)

It's the nature of the beast, really, because the whole point of Laryn (and her sisters, and the 500 other Fed girls) going on the ship is to join with a civilization that has no technology. They just use the ship to get them from Earth to Nequam, and let the hired crew do all the sciency stuff. It's almost anti-scifi, if you think of it that way. They grow vegetables, learn how to use paper, tend animals, cook their own food, and about the only technical aspect of their lives are the sliding doors. The ship probably does use 'warp drive' and cool things like that, but my characters certainly aren't aware of it.

And it's not fantasy either. There's no magic. No other-worldly creatures. No fantastical elements at all, other than the idea of space travel and inter-galactic colonization which really fit much more neatly into the scifi category anyway. (Although, if inquiring minds want to know, once they get to Nequam it's a whole new deal - and genre. Nequam is a different world with it's own creatures and-- well, I'd hate to give too much away before Laryn actually gets there...)

Technically, Laryn Rising would be considered speculative fiction, ie, not fantasy, not sci-fi, but out-of-reality in some other vague sort of way. (Consequently, this is also where vampires and werewolves belonged until Twilight). But when was the last time you walked into a bookstore and said to yourself, "Hmmm, I think I'll go check out the Speculative Fiction shelf today,"?

That's what I thought. And that's what the traditional publishers thought as well, which means that more than likely even if they read my book and loved it (which of course they would), they would hand it back to me (with great sorrow in their eyes) and say, "Although this is the most astounding work of fiction any of us here at [insert name of giant publishing house] have ever seen, we regret to inform you that there is no shelf for you. You are unmarketable."

And this, Dear Reader, is why I have chosen to self-publish. Although there is always an exception to the rule, let's face it - the odds are stacked against me on this one, and I have decided that rather than spend the next decade of my life querying every publishing house in the world with the vague hope of becoming 'The Exception', I will accept my place as 'The Rule' and write something else next. Something that has a shelf.

A big shelf, that millions of people flock to, and that publishers like [insert name from above] love to fill.

With that said, since Book Two in this current series finishes Laryn's story, the project I've decided to work on next is juvenile fiction of the very, very, very fantastical sort. And I am so excited, because I have come up with the coolest story ever - and my kids each get a starring role. It's already titled The Gift of the Cornesh, and it involves large, silver eggs that hatch out mythical, magical creatures to the rare and very lucky person who finds them. For a glimpse of pieces of what this world looks like, go here and check out my pinterest board for this next adventure. I've only just gotten started on it, but I'm already in love with the world of Kylandria and all the amazing things that are possible there.

Any thoughts on this latest decision? I'd love some feedback...

About Book Two...

This has been a common source of questions lately. And although there are those who want to know what happens to Laryn in that book, and what happens to her sisters, and what Nequam/Plymouth is like, mostly I'm just getting a lot of 'WHEN WILL IT BE OUT!!!!'

This is a great question, and I love any and every person who cares enough about Laryn (Book One,Laryn Rising) to ask it. And, for those of you wanting to know, it shouldn't be long. My final draft (ie, everything in it is set, and only punctuation and other proofreading-type changes will be made) has already been proofread, and it's now awaiting another run-through. When I'm done with that I'll have two other sets of proofreaderish eyes go over it, and any ensuing changes will be made.

Meanwhile, my cover artist has been enlisted, and she says she'll start working on it later this week. Maybe. She's pretty amazing, so I have high hopes that she'll be able to come up with something that feel/looks right in no time, and from there all I'll have to do is get the book formatted for e-book publication. I use the term 'I' loosely here, because we all know that my sister Laura will actually do all the formatting. I'll just be there for moral support. After all, it's the least I can do since she works for free, right?

All of this makes the projected launch date of Book Two March-ish. I'm shooting for March 1st, so we'll see how that goes. As for the title of Book Two, I'm 95% settled on Finding Shemballah. Should that change, I'll be posting the final title before I publish - and I'll probably be looking for feedback as well, since I like getting as much input on these things as possible.

In other news, my good author-friend Val-Rae (check her books out here) is currently helping me get Laryn Rising ready for printing! I am super excited about that, since it was not something I was going to be able to do myself. I mean, if I were on an island and the only way off was to figure it out, I could probably have done it eventually - but I'd have been sick of coconuts and very tan by the time it was accomplished.

Can't wait to put Book Two out there! And thanks so much to everyone for all the great feedback on Laryn Rising. It really is the best part of this whole process:)

In Which I Contemplate Taking Up Pictography

Thanks to my new method for revising and my amazing new proofreader, I have passed another milestone when it come to Book Two in my Chronicles of Nequam series.

I am now ready to read the whole blasted thing out loud.

I kind of hate this part, but unfortunately, I think it's way too valuable a step for me to skip. (After all, I need to see how the characters' lines will sound when they make a major motion picture out of it, right? Hey, it could happen...) For those of you who have never written, then rewritten, and rewritten, and rewritten, think of it this way:

Imagine a book. A good book. Even a book that you really really love. Now, imagine that you are stranded in a cell with that book - and nothing else. So you read it. Then you read it again. And again, and again. Somewhere in here you take to carving pictographs on the wall with your fingernails, because the sight of the book makes you feel just a little bit crazy. Then you read it again - out loud.

Essentially, this is the basic process for revising a book.

I will say that the task isn't nearly as daunting as I first thought it would be. When I decided to read Laryn Rising out loud I looked at some books on cd and figured it would take about thirteen hours. I think it took more like fifteen, but still that's really only the equivalent of sitting at a desk for two regular work days. It took me more than two sittings, of course, because of irritating things like work, and laundry, and children who want to eat Every. Single. Day. (Wouldn't it be awesome if humans were more like pythons and only required a meal every five to fourteen days? I fantasize about such things...) (And please note that I do love my children. And I do feed them. Most of the time. If there were just more hours in a day!)

Book Two is about 20,000 words longer than Laryn Rising, which means it will take me longer to get through, but I'm trying to feel geared up for the challenge. It would probably be easier to face if I hadn't JUST finished going through it, but it's either work on Book Two or start trying to format Laryn Rising for printing. Since we know how I feel about anything involving the word 'formatting' (see previous post) we can safely assume that at this point I'm still hoping the Formatting Fairy will visit my house one night and do it for me.

I admit it's unlikely, but as miracles have been known to happen I will continue to put that off for now. After all, it's only fair to give the Formatting Fairy as much time as possible to get to my project, right?