Editing Cave

I know my posts have been sparse lately. Some of you probably thought I accidentally mud and taped myself to the basement wall. While I have no doubt that could, and probably will happen, we are still hanging drywall and haven't gotten to the mud and tape stage yet. (FYI, did you know they have self-adhesive mesh tape now instead of the paper tape that attacks you as you try to put in on the drywall? The mesh tape might just save my life!).

The real reason for my lack of posts is that I'm in my editing cave. I'm about half way through my revisions on Branson Falls and hope to finish them in the next couple of days! Then I'll send the ms. off to my crit-partners for comments and more revisions. Ah, it seems like it never ends. At least the query is done though, and I'm still planning to start sending out queries at the end of May.

I'm actually pretty excited to finish, not only because I love having a shiny new manuscript to query, but also because I have many topics I want to blog about including a question that many writers seem confused on: the difference between a preface and a prologue. And because I'm a little bit opinionated (my husband literally laughed out loud when he read that), I'll give my take on prefaces and prologues, as well as why agents hate them, but editors seem to love them.

So, keep checking back because I'll be out of my cave soon! Thanks for reading!!!

Vacation and Revisions

I just got back from visiting my brother and sister and my grandparents in beautiful Florida! And we were there at the perfect time...it wasn't even humid! We were gone for a week and as soon as we got home my dad picked us up from the airport and we started working on the basement...again.

It's been a great learning experience but I think we'll make sure the basement in our next house is finished before we move in. We started hanging drywall today and I don't think I've ever been so excited in my life!!! I also rolled my ankle while I was trying to hook up our trailer so I could take it to Lowe's and exchange a door. Here's a tip: don't try and hook up a trailer by yourself when the trailer is sitting on a slope. I can still hobble along though, so I don't think I broke anything. I should probably go to the doctor and find out, but I have an irrational fear of hospitals and usually won't frequent them unless I think I'm dying.

Since I'm not much help in the basement with my maybe-broken ankle, I decided to read through the Branson Falls edits I got in the mail from Amazing Ashley while I was in Florida. I seriously don't know what I'd do without her. If you don't have someone in your life who will point out all the crap and inconsistencies in your manuscript, you HAVE to find that person. Amazing Ashley reads my manuscripts like an editor or agent and her help is invaluable. I've already told her I'm in debt to her for at least one Corvette, but she's worth A LOT more than that!

I haven't started revisions yet because Amazing Ashley wants to go through her comments with me page-by-page before I start rewriting. Yes, that's right, page-by-page because that's how fantastic Amazing Ashley is. Revisions always kick my butt and I know I have a lot of work still to do on Branson Falls, but for now, I'm hoping I can start to query in a month. I feel really good about the book though and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that an agent will like it as much as my beta-readers do!