Starting All Over Again

*Sigh*

I regret having to type this post.

I am starting all over again with my MG manuscript, The Family Secret.

I was signed on with a publishing company, but due to unforeseen circumstances I chose to be released from my contract.

They are downsizing from releasing approximately 24 books a year to 6-8. My manuscript was being pushed back to a 2014 release date. Since no work had been done on my manuscript, I chose to be released from my contract. The publishing company allowed all their authors the opportunity to take this option.

It was a tough decision, but one I felt I should take, so now I start all over again with The Family Secret. I have decided to edit it a little more before submitting it to other publishers.

Wish me luck.

A note to my WVWriter friends. I have changed the header on my blog!

It should look familiar to you. It is the covered bridge at Cedar Lakes, WV where the WVWriters annual writer's convention takes place every June. It is located just a few miles from where I live and we took a ride there Sunday for a little rest and relaxation. Go to my other site for more pictures.

Yes!

Last year I did a post titled Just Wondering. It was about the mailbox. In the post I asked if anyone ever received good news in their mailbox, or if they just received rejection letters.

According to most of the comments, people only received rejections in their mailbox. I agreed with them.

Well, I have changed my mind about the lowly mailbox. I now give it a star rating!


I received my signed contract today from 4RV Publishing for my middle grade manuscript titled, Family Secret!

I have been bursting at the seams to announce this for a couple of months. It is now official. I have the contract in my hands.

I am anxious to start the process of turning the manuscript into a book and getting it in the hands of children.

Don't give up. If I can do it, you can do it.

Writing Goals

Have you been keeping your writing goals this year?

If you noticed, I've put on the side bar of my blog what I've done so far in January and February of this year.

I have kept my first goal of sending out at least one story a month to publishers.

Keep your fingers crossed for me. I got an email today asking for the full manuscript of my story The Family Secret. The editor was very interested.

This is a first for me and I am very excited.

So, it's like I've always said, and told myself many times, our stories aren't going to get considered by publishers if they remain on our hard drive and we don't send them out.

So get out your manuscripts from the deep recesses of your computer and submit. What have you got to lose?

This weekend will be a good time to stay in out of the cold and write, another snow storm is on the way.

Editing

You know how I am always writing about the waiting game. Nathan Bransford just did a post titled "Waiting is the Worst Part." It was good to see that someone else hates to wait, too.

I've been busy editing, again!
Seems like that's all I do lately, but I don't mind. I love going through my manuscripts and 'trying' to get it just right.

I think my middle grade is finally ready to go out into the world. I changed the title again. It has went from being "The Family Treasure" to "The Honeysuckle Mystery" to "The Family Secret."

It has been critiqued by my writing group, but it is amazing what you miss when you do a final once over. I thought I'd caught most mistakes, but I've come to the conclusion that you never catch all your mistakes. I hope the publishers understand this, too, and don't throw it to the slush pile for little grammar errors.

I single spaced it and ran it off on the printer, read through it and made changes. I printed it again. This time on the back side of my 'chicken scratched' copy to save on paper. (I used to drive my writer's group crazy when I did that, but now I've found that some of them are doing the same thing).

I read it again and still found errors. How could I have missed these? I had the letter '2' at least twice where I should have spelled it out. Had 'mom' capitalized when it shouldn't have been. Took out a few 'he said' and 'she said' tags, etc., that I could do without. I checked for consistency, in one place the dad had blue eyes and in another place he had dark eyes. I guess he could have had 'dark blue' eyes, but I changed it anyway.

And should I mention the double spaces after sentences? I guess that's what I get for being from the generation that used typewriters. We were always told to double space after a sentence. It is a habit very hard to break. I did the 'find' search for double spaces and I cannot tell you the number of double spaces it found after my sentences. "Oh, my goodness," as Shirley Temple used to say.

I know these type of errors are little things, but I'm amazed I didn't find them earlier.

I think it's time to send it out, my house is suffering. You see, I love writing, but I hate housework. My house looks like a poor abandoned soul that has been neglected and left to gather dust and clutter. It's a good thing we don't have company.

Do these little things drive you crazy when you edit. Do you find things that you think someone else must have typed in your manuscript when you weren't looking?