Photo tour week three: Water

Welcome to the third installment of our photo tour! This week: Water - Book Two in the Elemental Series. This will probably be one of the shorter posts since most of the book's major locations were underwater, but hopefully I've caught enough shots to make it entertaining for you.

In the very beginning we are brought on a dawn patrol surf session with Shayna at her favorite break: Surfers' Point

Dawn at the beach is a wondrous, beautiful thing.

 (click the image to see a larger version)

Each of these were taken at Surfers' Point and gives you an idea of the changing moods of our beach.

Later, Shayna chases down a woman, frantically looking for her lost child. Little does Shay realize, the area known as "River Mouth" would be where she spend the majority of her time on her summer break.

River Mouth, where fresh water meets the sea.

And later we would see the beautiful beaches of Emma Wood. Emma has a special place in my heart because that was where my dad taught me how to boogie board and was one of the first places I went surfing with my husband. And if you ever find yourself in this neck of the woods, Emma is one of the nicest spots to watch the sunset.

So many beautiful beaches in our county, I just wish we were lucky enough to get seashells :). Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this installment!

Covers: Before and After

You would be amazed how many people ask me if I am the cover model on my books (well, except for Fire that is!). Every time someone asks me, I blush a little, laugh a little and shake my head vigorously. I definitely don't see the resemblance to any of my models, though I am flattered by the very idea.

So I thought you all might like to see what the evolution of my covers has been. I know it blows my mind every time I think about it. I've been very lucky to work with two awesome cover artists, who have given me actual pieces of artwork for my covers.

For my first cover, Earth, I worked with the amazing Claudia McKinney of Phatpuppy Art. Here is the original picture she started with an what we ended up with:

I never saw what the original picture looked like, Claudia just sent me the finished product, but I gotta say, I am so impressed with what she did.

Then I started working with Stephanie Mooney of Mooney Designs. Like me, she was new to the publishing world and I wanted to give her a chance, and I am so glad I did. Now Stephanie does all of my covers!

The first cover she did for me was Air. With Stephanie I was in on each step, helping pick out the models and the backgrounds. I will say, when Stephanie first sent me the mock-ups, I was a little apprehensive. I had no idea how she was going to make this look as awesome as my cover of Earth, but I shouldn't have worried.

I still have no idea how she did this. Isn't it incredible? (And yes, I picked out a different background than what is in the mock up, in case you're wondering.)

Obviously the next cover was Water. This is probably the most complicated cover of the whole batch and most of my readers' favorite. I can't say I blame them. You'll be amazed at what Stephanie did. And to be honest with you, when she picked out the cover model, told me it was the best for her to work with, I had my doubts. I actually hated the pick of the model, but again, I shouldn't have been worried!

I have NO IDEA how she did that.

Finally we're up to Fire. I love what Stephanie did for this one. Stephanie is a pretty busy girl and hasn't read my books, so when I describe characters to her, she just has to go off of my quick comments in an email. This time she used two male models to make the gorgeous Steven we see on the cover. She didn't send me the two pics, I just happened to see them after I approved the mock up. Dude. Again, flabbergasted. I would have NEVER approved the dude who is the body model, his face is just... well. And the guy who is his face? It's kind of a sexy pic so I would've just move right on by it, not giving it another glance. So glad I'm not the one doing my covers!

So there you have it! Kind of amazing right? It is so much fun for me to watch the evolution of my covers. And I canNOT wait to see what Stephanie comes up with for Spirit.

Upcoming Tour!

I love doing blog tours, as you can probably tell by now. My next book, Fire, wont be out until December but I just can't let Halloween go by without doing something! So, I have teamed up with YA Bound and scheduled a book tour for the month of October! Follow along from October 15th through October 20th to check out reviews, promo posts and giveaways!

Stops will be giving away ebook copies of all three books and I am currently putting together an awesome bag of Halloween treats for one lucky winner!

Here is is the schedule:

October 15:
A World of Mine - Review – Earth/Air
Chocolate Coated Reviews - Review - Earth
Reading with ABC - Review - Earth
Imaginary Reads - Review - Earth
Written By Brittan - Review – Earth
Beesleybuzz – Promo Post

October 16:
Kissed by Ink - Review - Earth
I Am A Reader, Not A Writer - Promo Post
The Book Rogue - Review – Earth/Air/Water
A Reader's Devotion - Review – Earth
Pink Polk a Dot Book Blog - Review - Earth

October 17:
Black Lilies Are Deadly - Review – Earth/Air
Behind A Million And One Pages - Promo Post
Words I Write Crazy - Review – Water
Turning the Pages - Promo Post
Splash of Our Worlds - Review – Earth/Air/Water
Unputdownable Books - Promo Post
A Soul Unsung - Promo Post

October 18:
The Reading Diaries - Review – Earth/Air/Water
The Book Life - Review – Earth/Air/Water
Library of a Book Witch - Promo Post
Books and Swoons - Promo Post
RuteCanhoto - Review – Earth/Air/Water

October 19:
My Chaotic Ramblings - Promo Post
Book Nerd Canada - Review – Air/Water
Ever and Ever Sight - Review – Earth/Air/Water
Step Into Fiction - Review – Earth/Air/Water
Every Free Chance Book Reviews - Review – Earth/Air/Water
Mr. Book Wonder - Promo Post
Books and Coffee with Creamer - Promo Post

October 20:
Lovely Reads - Review – Earth/Air/Water
Michelle Shouts Random - Promo Post
JennReneeRead – Review - Earth
TeenyReader - Review - Earth
Comfort Books - Promo Post

Water Tour

It's about that time again! I wanted this tour to coincide with the release of Water but due to bad planning on my part it's a little late. But onward and upward! The tour starts on Monday, July 23rd and runs through Friday July 27th. Lost of guest posts and reviews of all three books!

Here is the schedule, be sure to follow along for your chances to win nifty

Water Goes Live!

So excited to say those words! The third book in my Elemental Series is finally live and ready to be read!

You can find it on these sites:

Amazon US
Amazon UK
Barnes and Noble
Smashwords

Once Smashwords distributes to iBooks and Kobo and the others, I’ll get those links to you as well.

I really hope you all enjoy this one; it was probably the hardest book for me to rewrite. There were a lot of things wrong with this book and I had to take out over 10,000 words to get it back on track. But I’m pretty happy with it now. I know there are going to be some things in this book that upsets some of my readers, and I’m sorry for that, but I have to write the story based on the characters I created, not what would make my readers the most happy. But hopefully you’ll forgive me and stay on this journey with me.

Also, stayed tuned! Next month A Tale of Many Reviews is hosting a blog tour for Water! Follow along for reviews, interviews and giveaways! I have a lot of new swag that I cannot wait to give away to my readers!

Happy reading everyone!

Kickstarter Campaign for Water!

Being an indie or self-published writer is very much like being a busker on the street trying to entertain the passing masses, hoping to catch people's eye long enough that they'll toss you a coin or two. All the while trying not to flat out beg for money, waving your books in the air, screaming like a crazy person. It's a delicate balancing act, let me tell you.

I absolutely love being a self-published writer. Part of me wishes that I had been one of the first to jump on the bandwagon back in 2010, but I knew my books weren't ready, so it was for the best that I waited. But sometimes it's really hard to be a self-published writer; you have to absorb all upfront costs of production, and sometimes are harder than others to do so. And then there was Kickstarter.

Kickstarter is this amazing website for artists of all medias, to set up campaigns for their fans (new and old) to help them with the cost of their production. Basically it works kinda like a pre-order program for fans. One other draw back as an indie writer is that the big book sellers wont allow us to set up our books for pre-order like the traditionally published writers, and that's fine, it's cool, maybe they will in the future. So, we turn to Kickstarter. 

I have set up ten levels of donation/rewards to help fund the production of Water. It will be a 30 day run, ending the day before Water is published. Your donations will help me with the costs of proofreading, editing, cover art and printing and shipping the paperback copies of the book. In return for your pledges, you'll get stuff! Cool stuff, if I do say so myself. I've listed it all on the campaign page. There is just one catch: I have to, have to!, reach my funding goal of $1,500.00 by the end of the campaign otherwise it counts as a fail and I don't get any of the money pledged. So that means even if people pledged $1,499.00, it would count as a fail and I don't get that money. Simple as that. So if you can't afford to help pledge, don't worry, I totally and completely understand, but you can help by spreading the word about my campaign. Again, it's a delicate balancing act of advertising and enticing versus begging and running people down on the streets. So if other people help, it's not quite so obnoxious.

So here's the link to my Kickstarter page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/939041086/help-me-fund-the-publication-of-my-third-book-wate

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The Evolution of a Cover

Yesterday my new cover for Water, Book Three in the Elemental Series went live on tour for everyone to ooh and aw over with me! But I thought you would all like to see the before and after pictures so you can see just how damn amazing Stephanie Mooney is!

So this is my new cover:

Awesome, right? Just pretty enough while still being a bit creepy, right?

Well this is what it started as:

I know, right?! I have no idea how Stephanie made my cover from that!



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Killing Your Ands

The other day I told you about The Great Editing Lock down and how I managed to cut over 12,000 words. I thought I would take the opportunity to tell you about some of the words I cut.
Specifically: ‘and’.

And is a sneaky little bastard. And wants to be in every sentence you write. And thinks he’s the shit. And needs to get a life.

When you’re writing you of course need to have descriptions about what’s going on in the scenes around your characters. You also have to tell your readers what your characters are doing. But And wants to be all up in the middle of all of that. When you’re in the groove of writing, getting lost in the flow of words, you don’t really notice how often And sneaks in there. Your sentences start stringing along until, before you know it, And has snuck in there two or three times before a new period ever shows up. This is bad.

Now of course, I didn’t notice this right off. Most writers don’t until someone points it out. And thank goodness one of my betas did. I think it was probably one sentence too many and she finally realized some of the sentences were starting to drag on so she started crossing out the Ands, shortening a few sentences, figuring out they were stronger that way. Now, of course she stopped herself because she felt like she was doing it too much so she just made a note of it for me to consider. Boy was she right. Now that it was pointed out to me I couldn’t believe how many And’s had found there burrowing way into my sentences.

So while I was working through the great word killing spree I made sure to focus on And to see how often he showed up unnecessarily. Before I put these edits on the computer I did a search through the whole document for the word “and”. I found that there were 4,064 ands in my book. Now, remember, the book was over 98,000 words, so there are going to be a lot of “ands” but then, after I did the edits I did a new search. Do you know what I found? 3,508 “ands”. Oh yes, that means I cut 556 “ands”.

So there’s your writing advice for the week; go through your work and see where you can trim the fatty ands. Make those sentences stronger boys and girls!

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The Great Editing Lock Down

If you were following me on Twitter, then you know in the beginning of the week I was using the hashtag #greateditinglockdown. I have been working furiously on my upcoming release, Water, the third book in my Elemental Series.

I got the manuscript back from my editor and proofreader and promptly changed a few things in the plot and then sent it off to my beta readers. The thing about this book is that I finished it almost a year ago and I had read it so many times that I got sick of reading it. The other thing about this book? I didn’t sit down and write it straight through like I normally do; I left it and came back to it a couple of times while I was trying to edit Earth and Air. So what does that mean? At some point the damn thing went off the rails and I didn’t notice.

So off to the betas, now my two betas are very similar in some ways and so different in others, which is why they’re a good combo to read my books. For one beta this was her first time being a beta so she was really worried that she didn’t have the right to make corrections to the book so she mostly focused on her reaction to the story and characters. My other beta, the loverly Juanita, has done this twice for me now so she was much more comfortable being a little more analytical and editorial about it. Luckily the first beta really enjoyed the book as a whole, she had a few comments about wishing some stuff happened that didn’t but that’s about it. Juanita on the other hand let me know that the book lost its momentum at some points, though she wasn’t sure what I could cut because everything seemed important.

Well she was half right – the book did lose its momentum but not everything was important. Thanks to that one little comment I was able to take the book back, whip out a red pen and start shredding my book. My editor had the book for a very long time because I told her there was no rush and I knew she had other projects to get to. So this gave me enough time away from the book to be able to read it again and not hate it. Though I did kinda hate it because I finally saw where the book went off the rails.

So began The Great Editing Lock Down. Monday morning I went through each copy of my beta reader’s notes, page by page, agreeing or disagreeing with the suggestions. Then I made my own notes about how to correct the plot and the characters’ decisions. Then I went through the book and re-read the entire thing, word by word, page by page, with my trusty red pen and ripped it apart, hand writing paragraph after paragraph to knit the story back together. Then it was time to put those hard copy edits to the computer.

My book was originally complete at 98,220 words. After I got it back from my betas and went on a word killing spree, even with adding new scenes and paragraphs, I finished again with a new word count of 86,098. If we do the math that means I cut 12,122 words. Oh yeah, you read that right. I’m a very type-A personality and in order to get my books done I had to come up with a formula which is 5,000 words per chapter, 20 chapters per book. Obviously there’s a little give and take on those numbers, but those are my averages. So kids, what does that tell you? Yep, I cut over 2 chapters from my book by the time I was done with The Great Editing Lock Down. The book is still 19 chapters, but the original chapter 17 and 18 became one chapter.

The other big change in the book was fixing the characters’ behavior and decisions. Now that I’m published and have readers following the series and making reviews, I got a little hung up on reader reaction. I wanted to please you guys, or at least a lot of you guys. But that’s not fair to me, to the characters or to the story. Yeah, I’ve read plenty of books where I am mentally screaming at the characters but that doesn’t mean I don’t like the book any less, or even that I like the characters any less. At the very least the story and characters drew out an emotional response from me. And that’s very good. If writers start getting into the habit of people pleasing, for the sake of people pleasing and at the risk of hurting their book, then they aren’t really writing; they’re pandering. I don’t want to pander. After going into that place in the book and letting my characters be themselves I think I came out with something much stronger, cathartic and real. I know some of you may be disappointed, but hopefully you’ll forgive me and will still enjoy the book.

So, after spending nearly 18 hours a day for two days locked in my office with red ink smeared on my hands, I was able to come out with a nearly brand new book. I was exhausted. My body ached all over and my eyes were swollen, but it was worth it. At least, I hope it way. Luckily both my betas and my editor were willing to re-read the book after having so recently read it. I’m praying they agree with me and come back with good news: that I got it right this time.

Lesson of the day? Make sure you have different personalities reading your stuff with a critical eye. Make sure your betas know if they worry about hurting your feelings while they review your book, they risk hurting your work which would hurt a whole helluva lot more than being honest with you.

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What I’m Working On Right Now

I’ve been neglecting my blog this month, so obviously I’m not working on that, lol! But I’m trying to make an effort to keep it up and going and maybe offer something kinda, sorta interesting for you guys. Anyway, my apologies for there being nothing new for a few weeks.

As many of you know, I finished the fourth or fifth round of edits on the third book in my Elemental Series, Water. You start to lose count if you edit as much as I do. My editor and proofreader, Cassie, already had her hands on it and then I attacked it again after having enough time away from it to see it through fresh eyes. And then I turned it over to my beta readers. I have two readers for this book and so far I’ve gotten it back from one of them already. She had some awesome insight into a particular part of the book (can’t give any spoilers!) that I hadn’t even thought about, but might give the story just a little more meat. But all in all she said she loved it (yes, she had some serious criticisms of things that bugged her and if she’d hated it, she’d’ve told me, trust me) so I’m very excited about that. Now I just need to get it back from my other beta reader and see what her reaction was.

Luckily my two beta readers are totally different types of people. Yes, they have things in common (obviously they have similar reading tastes), but styles, personalities, life views vary widely between these two awesome ladies. This is important because if they were totally alike in too many ways I wouldn’t have a decent range of reaction to the book. If they both enjoy the book then I’m gold after one last round of edits. So! Fingers crossed people!

Speaking of Water I am working on the cover as we speak, or rather, Stephanie Mooney is working on it. I am so excited about this cover. Stephanie already sent me the first mock ups last week and I was just blown away. When I do the cover reveal I’ll post the original picture of the model Stephanie started with just so you can see Stephanie’s magical abilities. This cover is a little darker and creepier than my last two but I think it’s going to be amazing. I am just so freaking excited!

Outside of the Elemental Series I am brainstorming ideas for my next, brand new project. I am going to try my hand at an Adult Urban Fantasy series. If you’ve been following my blog and read any of my flash fiction pieces posted here then you already have some idea of what I’m going to be working on. I’m excited to start this project after working on the Elemental Series for the last four years. Yes, there is one more book in the Elemental Series I need to complete, but I really needed a break after finishing the first draft of Fire. In this new world all of the Supernatural Creatures and Races are out in the open, living in quasi-harmony with the human community. It’ll be a nice change of pace not having my characters always worrying about keeping their abilities secret and hidden. I don’t want to give anymore away than that, but I hope you guys will forgive me for taking a break from YA for a little bit.

And of course I’m always thinking of a dozen other ideas of stories I want to write. Being a writer means never having a quiet moment in your mind. There’s a corner of my brain that wants to write a dystopian story, no, not zombies, just dystopian. Another part of my brain wants to write something set in a different time, maybe WWII era, or Elizabethan England. There are just so many stories out there and if I could write them all at the same time, I would, but I might go mad with so many voices in my head.

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