Happy May Day! Solidarity Forever! Bread and Roses!

The CEO/Editor at Inkshares has had my draft in hand for a couple weeks and I’m anxiously awaiting feedback. 

In the meantime, I’ve been trying to focus on some other projects. I submitted a story to the new Writing Bloc Anthology (and you can too! The deadline is midnight tonight!) The theme for this one is "Deception" and I wrote a piece that I think is pretty funny.

I submitted a poem to this year’s Travelin’ Appalachian’s Revue Zine. This one is also still open! You can find more info here and submit until June 1. 

I’ve also been throwing some ideas around for my next novel. I’m hesitant to really jump in because I know there will still be changes for Rock of Ages, but I also know that once it gets the  green light, things will move quickly. Now that I know the publishing process takes so long I’d like to have something to start pitching to agents soon after! I’m excited to tell you about the next project once I get going with it. 

Thank you, always, for your support!

This month’s update is a few days late because I wanted to wait until I could say I FINISHED THE REWRITE! 

That’s the second complete rewrite, for those keeping track. This one changed the whole book from first person to third, focused on the quality of prose, and added lots of historical detail. 

I’ve treated the last six months or so as a giant research project for the historical parts, reading, watching films, and interviewing people. The novel now stands at 115,416 words! The last draft was 90-something thousand, and the original manuscript I sent to Inkshares was 54k!

I’m letting the draft stand for a week before I go back and read the whole thing out loud to polish it and send it in. Please send me "take a break" vibes and also "don’t lose your mind while you’re waiting for feedback on this thing you’ve worked your ass off on for half a year" vibes. 

Thank you, as always, for your support!

March 1! 
I’m on chapter 30 of 42, and I am SO EXCITED about Jane’s story. 
While much of Rock of Ages is a contemporary story, there are two other points of view. Cassidy’s mother, Paloma, meets her father in Prague just after the fall of communism. When she has trouble getting pregnant, the two move back to his hometown in West Virginia.

Cassidy’s grandmother, Jane, signs on as a Government Girl  and moves from WV to Washington DC, where she classifies fingerprints for the FBI during WWII. This is the part I’m rewriting now and it is so, so fun. I’ve been nerding out big time with the research, watching old films, reading old books, looking at old comics, listening to old music. I’m kind of obsessed right now with the time period and with the craft of historical fiction writing. It’s all making me feel really close to my grandma, which is bittersweet.

I’ll post the first chapter of Jane’s story on the Inkshares story page after sending this so you can take a look! Let me know what you think. I hope you’re as excited as I am!
I hope by this time next month I’ll be VERY close to finishing this draft.
Thank you, as always, for your support and encouragement!

This sounds awesome, Becca, and that is why I want to work with Inkshares -- the emphasis on coaching/mentoring authors to reach their potential!

February! 

I’m still working on my second developmental rewrite. I’m on chapter 13 of 42 and this draft is much harder. As I’m learning more and more about what it takes to make a book exceptional, I’m working more slowly to try to incorporate what I learn. 

I woke up around 5am for about a week to try to get writing in before the kids woke up, but then my daughter started waking up at 5am. Lately I’ve just been squeezing in writing time wherever I can. 

Inkshares had me read a manuscript of another in-production book an an exercise. I wrote a letter about the idea, characters, theme, conflict, plot, prose, and setting, and soon they will send me the official editor’s letter about those same things. It should be really interesting to see what  I caught and what I missed and then apply that to my own book. It’s not a book I would usually pick at all, but I loved it. Writers, read outside your genre!

I usually ask y’all to send encouragement, but this month...send babysitting!

Thank you, as always, for following along and for all of your support!

Happy New Year! I hope your holidays were wonderful and that your 2019 is off to a good start.

It’s hard for me to write without starting with this-- my Grandma died on the morning of the 19th. My grandma, Kathleen, was a third caretaker for me as a child. I lived with her during highschool. She taught me how to sew, how to crossstitch, and how to drive. Her extensive book collection and daily reading habit influenced my own love of books and I’m sure are part of what led me toward being a writer. I’ve been feeling like I can’t do much writing until I write about her, but I’m not really ready to do so extensively. So I’ve put it on the backburner-- I’m letting it simmer til the right words are ready to come out, and I’m working on other things. 

One of the three protagonists in Rock of Ages is inspired by my Grandma, and I’m sure when I start working on that storyline again, it will be tough. I’m working on Cassidy, the modern 20-something, right now, and I just got to the part where she’s visiting her grandma in a care home. It’s intense, but I hope my experience visiting my grandma in the days before she died, and my love for her, will show. I read the most recent version of the prologue out loud to her and it was some of the most aware and awake she was during our visit. I’m so glad she got to hear it, and so sad she won’t get to read the whole thing. 

On a happier note, I’ve created a year-long reading challenge for writers. Take a look and let me know if you plan to try it!

And on a much happier note, though Rock of Ages is still deep in the editing process, as of today I am officially a published author! It’s publication day for the Writing Bloc Anthology, ESCAPE! We started out as a little support group and soon decided we would be much more than that. We put out a call for submissions, engaged in an extensive peer editing process, and utilized our varied talents to take on design, marketing, and distribution! We made a real book with 20 great stories in it! 

My story, "Aspirant," is about an aspiring nun at a Zen monastery (based on Deer Park in Escondido). She’s there trying to escape a past of sexual trauma but at a young adult retreat develops a crush on an attendee. She has to decide whether to remain at the monastery or pursue her promising new love interest.

The whole anthology is only $2.99 today but will go up to $5.99 tomorrow! Please consider ordering it and supporting independent authors and publishing! I’m so excited to hear what you think about my story!

I’m wishing you all a very happy New Year. I hope it is everything you want it to be.

 Happy December!
I’m still working on the prologue. I’ve now tried approaching it from three different character’s points of view and added period-appropriate dialogue and description. I’m dialing back the flowery language from the version I have posted to make the poetic bits more emotionally impactful. We’re getting there, I think.

In the meantime, I have exciting news! The Writing Bloc short story anthology, 
ESCAPE!, is available for pre-order NOW! I have a sneak peek of my story, "Aspirant," about a young aspiring nun at a Zen monastary, up on my blog! The whole anthology is only $2.99 until January 1, when it will increase to $5.99. You’ll get the book delivered to your device of choice automatically on January 1 and will have something to hold you over until Rock of Ages is ready! I’m really proud of my story and of all the hard work the cooperative has put into making this collection happen.  

I’ll keep chugging along with this rewrite and I’ll keep updating you! Please keep sending the encouraging words! :)

Thank you so much for your support, as always! 

Happy November!

I’m on to the next draft of Rock of Ages, and it’s more big changes, including a switch from first to third person. This will help me add more descriptive detail without worrying if it’s detail my narrator would have noticed or not.

I’ve sent a couple versions of the prologue back and forth with the editor, and it’s improving each time. When he’s happy with it, I’ll move on to the rest of the book. It’s important with this draft that I slooooow down and work carefully, so don’t expect the "I wrote a million words in three weeks" updates with this one. Instead, you can look forward to quality, quality writing that goes deep. I’ve posted the current version of the prologue for you all to read! I hope you like it. 

https://www.inkshares.com/books/rock-of-ages/book_segments/prologue-molly-1769

Thank you so much for your support as I create what I hope will be something really magical.

Becca

It’s October! I waited a couple days to send this update because THE REVISED DRAFT OF ROCK OF AGES IS IN!

I’ve been working incredibly hard for the last three months. Not only have I rewritten over 91,000 words almost from scratch but I’ve read several relevant books to work on my own style, taken the Margaret Atwood Masterclass on Writing, taken a course on the business of being an author, and taken lots of steps to build my platform leading up to the release of the book. I’ve begun blogging on a weekly basis and contributing regularly to the Writing Bloc website and have had several guest posts published as well. I’m committed to making Rock of Ages as successful as it can be!

There will be more rounds of changes to be made. The good news is that each round should get a little easier! This was the big one.

Thank you, as always, for following along on this journey and for all your support and encouragement!

If you’d prefer weekly updates that include links to blog posts and events, be sure to subscribe to my email list at http://eepurl.com/dBsQdP

 Happy September!

I just got back from a ten day trip to West Virginia, which was in many ways a fact-finding mission for the edit of Rock of Ages. I took pictures of details-- patterns of shelf lining and rugs, interviewed family members, and spent time at the local historical society looking at old papers and photos.

I’m 45,000 words into the rewrite now, and I’m particularly excited about the part of the novel that follows a woman who moves from WV to Washington DC in the 1940s to become a "government girl" and classify fingerprints for the FBI. I found lots of amazing sources on our trip, including internal newsletters from the Bureau, and I’m having so much fun incorporating some of the details into the book. 

I’ll keep you updated as I move along with this process. I can’t wait for you to read it!