Whatever and ever...

Yeah, that was a winning post title. Hmmm...I think I short-circuited my creative brain cell this weekend. Yes, singular. I'm pretty sure I only have one.

So, writing round-up, here we go. This weekend I finished what I hope will be my final proofread of Finding Sanctuary. Like the proofreading process for London Escape, it's seemingly endless. Here's how it goes. I start reading on my Kindle (I prefer my new Kindle Fire for this, since it's so much easier to take notes), the second I spot something I don't like, a goofy sentence, a missing word (gasp!) or a repetitive word or phrase I make a note of it (love Kindles for this feature!) After I've done four or five chapters I then sit down at the computer and work through these notes with my manuscript. I usually end up re-writing a sentence here and there. That's where I run into trouble. See, if I spot one tiny error, I want to start the proofread again. Which means I'll probably give it another skim-reading after I've finished with these notes. It's basically a never ending process. And it still won't be perfect. Frustrating much?

In other writerly news, this week kicks off the beginning of Amazon's breakthrough novel contest. This contest is HUGE. Let me tell you how huge, they only accept the first TEN THOUSAND applicants. Ten thousand. They've recently expanded to include five different awards in five different genres. Last year London Escape was finished just short of the end of January deadline, so it's been on my radar for nearly a year. The prizes are HUGE. Fifty-thousand dollars and a publishing deal. So yeah, I had to enter. Of course, in my head I stand no chance at winning. I've already received enough rejection letters to get used to the idea, but all I can do is try. My weakness is that I don't write "literary" fiction, but that might be okay since I' entered into young adult category  Also, my other weakness is that I don't write what's trendy for YA right now (no dystopian or paranormal.) But you never know, that might be in my favor.

WHATEVER!

We shall see.

OH! And since I made a much-needed trip to the office supply store to stock up on legal pads and pen refills (took me two trips to get the right pen refills for my good pen, ugh!) I'm totally back in business on book three. Which is why I said I short-circuited my one creative brain cell!

Ramble on...

Once again, every time I decide I'm done with this blog I think of something else to talk about. Okay, make that ramble about. Initially I had decided to turn this into my official author blog, with only updates about my writing. Well, you can see from my lack of posting there's nothing new on that front. But, it looks like my second book will finally be coming out sometime in February  Fingers crossed. All I have left to do is some final proofreading and a little re-writing. I'm waiting for my cover art, but after that we should be good to go. In the meantime I suppose I should be working on formatting the interior file for the paperback (which I basically only do for myself, since they don't sell) but that's a nightmare, so I'm putting it off as long as possible.

So that's all the updates on the book. As for the family, we're trying hard to into the swing of things for 2013 after being sick for most of the days after Christmas. 2012 was such a crazy roller coaster of a year. You know, the kind that you desperately want to get off of because you think you're going to puke. We're hoping this year won't be quite so tumultuous. But we'll have to wait and see. We already know this year will have big changes no matter what. In May Matthew will be graduating from Yale, and as of right now the future remains a mystery. This should be exciting, I suppose, but as always it's a little nerve-wracking.

Either way, this year will probably better than the last, so I'll try not to complain too much. (Notice I said try.)