I Found My Writing Home

Publishing this post scares me, because the subject is so personal. I'm going ahead with it anyway with the hope that I can get across my meaning. Deep breath.

From my first attempt at writing in second grade, I began my journey making up fantasy stories. Many long-time readers will know that those early plots were largely inspired by Beverly Cleary and her mouse Ralph, resulting in several stories involving rodents.

Even in high school, when I co-wrote an entire novel with a friend, it was a re-telling of a fairy tale (this was waaaay before doing that was cool or commonplace).

The first novel I tried my hand at by myself as an adult: also a fantasy.

So it came as a surprise to me when I began getting ideas for books with a specifically Mormon angle to them. Of course, those ideas turned into the books that got published.

I did two contemporary novels that you could call romance, and I generally do, but I've never been entirely happy with that label. Not because I don't like romance; I absolutely do, as evidenced by THIS and THIS and the fact that we're doing more of Timeless Romance Anthologies and having a ball with it. Not to mention that I went on to do historical LDS novels, and every single one of them has a romantic element.

But those first two books especially had something else in them too, something I couldn't put my finger on, but which made me hesitant to classify them strictly as romances.

So there was Lost Without You, and then At the Water's Edge (although they were written in the opposite order). Then came the four historicals: House on the Hill, At the Journey's End, Spires of Stone, and Tower of Strength. Each of my historicals, with the exception of Spires, which is a romantic comedy in spite of the serious-looking cover, had that same "other" quality.

Then I was told not to write any more historicals. And I wondered what in the world I'd do next. I'd already started researching my next one, and I had to set it aside and find something else to write about.

Enter my childhood friend Chris and her husband's deployment, which in a roundabout way led to me deciding that I had to write about what it's like to be home with a soldier gone and in the line of fire. In categorizing that book, romance never entered my mind, because, well, it's totally not. Band of Sisters is clearly women's fiction.

Some people think romance and women's fiction are the same thing, but they're not. Not even remotely. Women's fiction doesn't have a love story as the primary arc, and it deals with issues and conflicts that wouldn't normally appear in a romance. I loved writing that book, and it even took the Whitney Award in its category that year.

Yet I still thought that one day, I'd return to my fantasy roots and write books for kids. That feeling was strengthened by the fact that here in Utah, we have more successful writers of youth fiction than probably any other state in the nation. Tons of New York Times bestsellers, a Newbery honoree, and more. Youth writers here are rock stars. It's the market and genre that are most respected in these parts, likely because Utah has a lot of kids, families are serious about literacy, and we tend to like clean books, which often means youth fiction. Take this piece in the news, for example. (In case you don't click over: a launch party for Brandon Mull with Tyler Whitesides, Richard Paul Evans, Chad Morris, and Christopher Paolini. NOT KIDDING.)

Then I had a good chunk of my critique group also writing youth fiction, and this one and this one have had significant success with it (young adult and middle grade, respectively) on the national stage.

Yet I also loved mysteries, and I had a bunch of cool ideas for some. I loved romance, and could see myself writing that. I loved historicals, and would be happy doing more. And so on. What on earth should I focus on?!

My publisher couldn't/wouldn't give me direction on what they wanted next besides no more historicals even after I handed over a list of ideas and asked which they'd be most interested in.

I floundered like a boat without a rudder. I had a total and utter writer identity crisis that lasted two and a half miserable years.

The go-to advice for this kind of situation is to write the kind of book you like to read. Problem: I read all kinds of books, and I enjoy just about every genre. So that suggestion was no help.

Then one year for NaNoWriMo, I decided to write something totally wacky and weird and fun to shake myself out of the awful funk I was in. I drafted 50,000 words of a futuristic, science fiction-type young adult story. And it was a lot of fun. But contrary to my hopes going in, the experience didn't make my future writing path any clearer. (And no, that book will never see the light of day.)

Yet I knew I needed a clear path, something to sink my teeth into and identify as my own. I needed a map to plan my writing future.

I ended up deciding to write the sequel to Band of Sisters even though I had no assurance that my publisher would take it. They did (yay!), and Coming Home was released in January.

During the last year or so, a few things happened to cement my writer identity. One was researching and writing Coming Home. Another was being part of The Newport Ladies Book Club series with my novel Paige and the forthcoming Ilana. 

And then during the 2012 LTUE conference, Luisa and I went out to dinner to brainstorm. She knew of my identity crisis and suggested we hash it out over food. I brought along a notebook with ideas that included young adult fantasy, historical, romance, and everything in between. We picked a story with a really cool premise, and by the time we paid our tabs, we had a rough plot sketched out.

In writing that book, which I'll begin major revisions on soon, I finally came to realize that this was the genre I belonged in. It was women's fiction. And women's fiction is my home.

I realized that my first two books were women's fiction in disguise. That was the element I could never quite wrap up tidily in the romance bow. Women's issues popped up in my historicals too.

While I was thrilled to finally latch on to my writer identity, it came with a price. Remember, I live in the land where writers of youth fiction are rock stars and are most respected by colleagues. Even my own daughter recently asked if I could please write a cool book like the fantasy we were reading together, and it broke my heart to say that I'm writing for grown-ups.

Then there are those packed, celebrity-style launch parties like the one I linked to above. It seems that most writer events for fans tends to lean more toward youth fiction as well. There was one a few years ago that included my friend Janette Rallison (who writes YA), and at the same event was Scott Westerfeld and Stephenie Meyer, among others. Really.

I've had to come to terms with the side of my ego that would like acclaim. The reality is that if I become very successful with women's fiction, it will be with limitations. In some ways, I'd like my youngest to look at me like her hero, but that can't happen if I'm not writing kids' fantasy books. Which I'm not.

Plus, youth fiction has a crossover readership from kids to grandparents, while women's fiction is read almost entirely by, well, adult women. So the numbers are different: simply put, the sales potential for youth fiction is much greater. Unless someone waves a magic wand and I become the next Jodi Piccoult, I won't be getting rich writing women's fiction. (I wouldn't mind becoming the next Kristen Hannah, though... Seriously. Her interview in Writer's Digest pretty much blew my socks off and confirmed my writer identity.)

While I'm not greedy, I am a professional, and I do rely on the money I make through my writing. Making a conscious choice to essentially limit my potential income was hard.

I also had to choose to basically walk away from earning the respect of certain peers who almost look at youth fiction as the one and only true market. Would I like my ego to be stroked a bit? Sure. Could I write youth fiction? Sure. I love the genre, and I've developed  the chops over the gazillion years I've been writing to do it.

But when push comes to shove, I believe that I'm supposed to be writing women's fiction now. When I look at my list of story and research ideas, it's all women's fiction now.

I've wondered why, and why now. Why didn't I figure this out 18 years ago when I first started submitting? There may be several reasons, but I think a major one is the fact that while youth fiction isn't any easier to write than grown-up fiction (they're both hard to do well, and anyone who tells you differently is lying), in order to write good women's fiction, I simply had to be older. I had to experience more, see more of the world, encounter more situations, gain more maturity. On the other side, I've already been an adolescent. As long as I can write well and tap into that part of my brain, I could write youth fiction.

But I couldn't have written good women's fiction at 21, because back then I was barely a woman.

A bit of irony: Turns out that the old piece of advice was right after all. While I do read all kinds of books and love almost all genres, if I had to list my top books of all time, most of them are, yep, women's fiction.

Summer Splash Blog Hop!

BIG FUN is afoot at the Circle K. (Pardon the goofy Bill and Ted's reference.)

Consider this a jump-start to your fall reading list as well as a jump into the excitement for the release of my next book, Paige.

Truly, though. A boatload of writers are participating in a giant blog hop through the end of July. Each blog offers a chance to win prizes like books and other swag.

PLUS: The home blog for the hop will give out lots of GRAND PRIZES that you won't want to miss out on.

Grand Prizes Include: 

• TWO Kindle Fires
• $75 Amazon gift card
• $50 Amazon gift card
• A Kindle cover
• And signed paperbacks of something like TWENTY different novels (including a copy of PAIGE, which will be out right about the time the hop ends!)

To win one of the grand prizes, tweet about the hop.

Each tweet must have two things: (1) a link to the hop AND (2) the #SummerHop hash tag (both are needed to track the tweets to give you credit). Cool side note: The blog hop host blog post already has pre-written tweets, complete with links, for you to use. Copy, paste, and tweet. Easy peasy. (Use the link below to get there, or use the blog hop button in the sidebar.)

SO WHAT IS MY BLOG OFFERING?

I'll randomly select FIVE winners. Each will receive one of the following prizes:

• E-book of Lost Without You: Contemporary inspirational romance. A woman staring at her upcoming 30th birthday and biological clock, a widower with a young daughter, and an ex-boyfriend who decides if he can't have her, no one will.
• E-book of At the Water's Edge: Contemporary inspirational romance. A Finnish woman's decision to change her religion sets a chain of events into motion that change every aspect of her life. Work, family, home, and, possibly, her heart. 
• E-book of The Golden Cup of Kardak: Middle-grade fantasy. If there's any chance of winning the war, two siblings must find their father in the enemy's prison and bring him a magical goblet, a journey fraught with danger and adventures. 
• Paperback of Spires of Stone: Historical romance. A loose re-telling of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing set in 1860s Salt Lake City.
• Paperback of Paige (Get your hands on it before anyone else!) Contemporary women's fiction, part of The Newport Ladies Book Club. A new divorcee and mother of two young boys starts over and must discover who she is as a woman rather than a wife and whether she can ever learn to trust another man again.

HOW TO ENTER HERE

TWO ways to win on my blog:
(1) Spread the word about MY participation in the hop, leaving a link to my blog. Be sure to leave comments each time you tweet or Facebook about it. PLEASE add the links so I can track them. (This is in addition to general tweeting with the #SummerHop tag.)

AND

(2) Answer any or all of the trivia questions below, but NOT in a comment. (EMAIL the answers to me. See details below.)


(1) SPREAD THE WORD
Every day from July 23 through the end of the month, you can get an entry point for linking to THIS post on Facebook or Twitter. (Don't link to my blog's regular URL. Use this post's permalink). Do it every day, and that's NINE potential entries on FB and NINE more on Twitter, for EIGHTEEN total.

(2) ANSWER UP TO 5 TRIVIA QUESTIONS
E-mail me the answers to any of the following trivia questions about me. Each correct answer gives you TWO entries, for a possible total of TEN.

Find every answer with a simple blog search right here. HINT: Each question has a big-time hint in it. Just search this blog for the bolded and italicized words.

IMPORTANT NOTE: 
NO trivia answers in the comments will be accepted, or the answers will be ruined for everyone else. Comments with trivia answers will be deleted. Instead, e-mail your answers to ANNETTE (at) ANNETTE LYON (dot) com with "SUMMER HOP TRIVIA" in the subject line.



NOW FOR THE QUESTIONS:

(1) When I referred to racing stripes in a post, what was I referring to?

(2) If I'm NOT an Anne freak, who or what am I obsessed with?


(3) While blow drying my hair, I got a great idea for the story that became Tower of Strength (the creative juices were really flowing). What annual tradition kept me from working on that book for a week?

(4) In the company of weird, where was I? (A general answer is fine. No specific date or location required.)

(5) When my family decided to attack the grammar fascista, what word pair did my husband brilliantly drive me crazy with? (TIP: The answer to this question is part of Melissa Smith's scavenger hunt, which she's doing for the hop. Find the answer to this question, and you're ahead of the game when you hop over to her place!)



For the list of all of the participating blogs, and for further details about how the hop (and for a chance to win prizes!), head on over to the Summer Splash Blog itself.

Happy hopping!

How Do I Draft & Revise?

I've had several people ask variations on this question, so I figured it was time to answer it.

Every writer is different, and I don't pretend to hold all magical writerly wisdom in my hands. But because every writer is different, I think we can all learn from one another, see what works for one person, and try it out for ourselves.

My drafting and revision method (such as it is) has evolved over the years quite a bit. Here's roughly how it stands today:

I rarely draft chronologically, at least at first. I usually start a novel midway. This is largely because I have a first-chapter curse (wish I were kidding). If I try to start at chapter one, scene one, that section will be inevitably be doomed for the trash can.

It's also because my ideas for books don't START at scene one. I usually get a cool idea for a specific scene that happens in the middle. So I start writing there, back up, jump forward, and somehow link it all together. At some point I do settle into mostly chronological writing, but I always allow myself to jump ahead again if I feel the need.

I'm not a strict outliner, but I'm not a "seat of your pantser," either. I fall somewhere in between. I have to know where I'm starting (although not what the first scene will be), where the story will end up, and several major landmarks along the way.

That's how I can hop ahead: I write out one of those major landmarks early on.

But I can't outline with too much precision, because that takes the fun out of discovering exactly what my characters will say and do. I do generally know that my characters will go from A to B to C, but I'm often surprised at exactly how they get there. (If that makes sense. Writers rarely do.)

I've learned that writing scenes I'm already "on fire" about tends to be best; if I wait until I get there chronologically, some of the fire is gone. Sure, by the time I've written everything that comes before that part, I often have to rewrite bits to make the whole fit together, and there's always bridging from one section to the already written parts, but it works for me.

While in drafting mode, I generally spend a lot of time thinking. When the kids were really little, this was the only way to survive as a writer: to think ahead to what I'd be drafting next, so when I had 45 minutes, I could race to the keyboard and pound out the next part.

I still think ahead even though the kids are older. This kind of creative thinking can be done while I'm falling asleep at night, folding laundry, taking a shower, driving, or whatever else doesn't use much brain power. I call them "brainless moments," where I can be doing one activity that doesn't take much attention or focus while my creative side can wander around and do its thing.

That way, when I'm ready to draft, I can really get to work instead of staring at the screen, fingers over the keys, but getting nothing accomplished. This is especially important for when I do writing marathons, when I set aside several hours or a special day just for writing. If I have a solid list of scenes to come, I won't lose valuable time trying to figure out what comes next.

Usually, but not always, when I first sit down, I'll go over the last part I wrote, making tweaks and fixes on it. That helps get me back into the groove of the story world, which makes continuing the story easier. It also makes answering the question, "How many drafts do you do?" pretty hard to answer. (Some scenes get rewritten a dozen times, others three or four.)

If I feel stuck, or somehow disconnected to the story world, I'll open up some research related to it. That used to mean historical books about temples and whatnot. For Band of Sisters, it was often rereading military wife interviews. With my YA folktale, it's reading a section aloud from The Kalevala.

I tend to write sparingly in my first drafts, so when I go back to look at a scene for the second (or whatever-eth) time, I flesh-out the details: setting, emotions, action, and so forth.

After revising a scene a couple of times, I print it out and take it to critique group. Ideally. There are times I have to crank out something to read, and they, um, get to see it hot off the press in all its ugliness.

When my awesome group is done praising/shredding/otherwise fixing the scene, I take it home. In theory, I make the needed revisions right away.

In reality, I often have a several-inch stack of critique pages before I buckle down for serious revision. I look at everyone's feedback and compare it, since sometimes they don't agree among themselves. I take about 90% of their suggestions. They're that good. But I don't take every single suggestion; it is my story, after all, and a lot of things are subjective. (I don't expect my fellow group members to take 100% of my feedback either.)

When I'm done drafting a book, I'll go through the whole thing from start to finish, looking for anything more that needs fixing or polishing that I haven't hit yet.

Up to this point, I've been working on the manuscript piecemeal, seeing it microscopically, if you will. The full read is the first time I see the book as a whole, where I experience the story arc all at once.

So I look at it macro-scopically, to see the big picture: Does this chapter flow into the next? Does this scene transition well here? Is the pacing good throughout? Does the motivation wash in that scene? Does the conflict carry over from here to there? Do the character arcs work? And so on.

Generally there's not time to take an entire manuscript to critique group a scene or chapter at a time before I want/need to submit it, so when it's fully drafted and revised, I ask for anyone in my group who has time to read over the whole thing. I hope to get at least two readers, and even with their busy schedules, they're pretty darn awesome and always come through for me.

We swap these kinds of favors, so I don't feel too bad asking; I know that I'll be returning the favor by reading someone else's entire manuscript soon.

When I get their edits back, I go through one final revision before submission.

Yeah, except that "final" is a misnomer, because even after acceptance, there's more revision with the help of my editor before we enter the line-edit stage.

That's the "typical" process, but really, there isn't a typical one. Every book has been different.

Remember to enter my blog anniversary giveaway. Nine prizes are up for grabs.

TIP: Right now you have a GREAT chance at winning SIX of them . . . check out the second and third ways of entering.

WNW: Words HS Grads Should Know: #1-10

Several years ago on the LDStorymakers e-mail list, we had a weekly vocabulary word challenge. It consisted of words that aren't necessarily used all the time, but that we should know. The idea was to challenge those on the list to use the week's word somewhere in their writing and then report back.

It was great fun, if short-lived. Not everyone got involved, but I personally got a huge kick out of later seeing a good ten of challenge words show up in Tristi Pinkston's Season of Sacrifice, knowing exactly when she'd penned those scenes and why she'd picked those words.

This was while I wrote Spires of Stone and why you'll find in it quash, auspicious, and a few other challenge words that I've forgotten.

Here's the Word Nerd Wednesday version.

Back in 2007, Houghton Mifflin put out a list of 100 words they thought every high school graduate should know.

I thought it would be fun to look at those words here . . . and maybe challenge my readers to use one of them sometime in conversation or in their writing over the next week. Or not. Or do. Whichever. I'll probably post the other 90 words piecemeal on other WNWs.

For me, some words on the list make perfect sense; they're basic cultural literacy. Others? Hmm, not so much. Some are too obscure (why should a HS grad need to know "plasma" over, oh, several hundred other words?), while others are ridiculously obvious.

Below are the first 10 on the alphabetical list.

Can you use them all properly in a sentence?

ABJURE

The first of many rather negative words on the list.

ABROGATE

Another.

ABSTEMIOUS

Sheesh. This one makes me want chocolate. I will NOT abstain!

ACUMEN

A more positive one. I like this one. I claim acumen.

ANTEBELLUM

I learned this one in 11th grade English from Mrs. Oldroyd.

AUSPICIOUS

Hah! Check it! I wonder if this list was why "auspicious" was a challenge word for us and why I used it in SOS.

BELIE

NOT pronounced "belly," as one high school friend of mine used to think.

BELLICOSE

My teens. Yep, they are. What do you mean, I'm being melodramatic?

BOWDLERIZE

I just like to say this one aloud.

CHICANERY

This one is just oozing with plot possibilities.

Nuggets on the Salt Lake Temple

I love learning more about old temples . . . especially the ones I've researched and written about (cough-cough-Spires of Stone-cough-cough).

This is a shot of me next to an Earth Stone on the Salt Lake Temple.

These were the largest, most expensive,

and most difficult stones to carve. Note how BIG it is!

Recently, two fun bits came to my attention about the Salt Lake Temple. They excited me, and I thought my readers might get a kick out of them too.

The first is an article at Keepapitchinin, a great blog with Mormon history and other nuggets.

"The Mountain of the Lord's House" is a post that goes into some detail about how the granite was quarried for the temple. More, it debunks some long-held myths. (None of which, I might add, I ever used in the book.)

For example, the holes drilled into the stone weren't used to insert dowels of wood. Stories have been passed down that wood was inserted into the holes and soaked in water. Then the expanding wood broke off the stone. Either that, or they'd wait until winter, and the freezing water expanded and did the same thing. Neither is true.

The article goes into great detail about why the holes were drilled along the grain-line of the granite and just how the stones really were broken off. Fascinating stuff, really. I loved learning that the Salt Lake Temple stone wasn't quarried with explosives like other temples' were.

Much of the same tools were used, though, including drilling the holes in the first place . . . and the guy holding the drill having to really, really trust the guy above him who was swinging the sledgehammer inches from his hands.

Back during the temple's construction, City Creek ran through the temple lot, and it was used as a water source by many people and businesses in the area. For decades, City Creek has been redirected underground through pipes. Today, part of it is now above ground again, thanks to the new landscaping surrounding the Conference Center and the new Church History Library.

Here's the part of the article I thought was beyond cool: they have not only brought up part of the creek again, but they deliberately picked quarry stones to line it that bore marks from the original construction period: you can see man-made chisel marks and holes that are more than a century old.

(I need to take a trip up to Salt Lake just to see this. If and when I do, I'll post pictures!)

Go HERE to read the full article. It's worth the read.

Finally, a friend sent me THIS LINK, which shows a miniature, 3-D replica of the entire Salt Lake Temple, including the interior, down to banisters and chandeliers. It's super cool, and almost like having the chance to walk though the building in an open house-type situation as they do before temples are dedicated. The level of detail is astounding.

Ten Days

Ten. That's all I have left if I'm going to make my self-imposed deadline for getting the murder mystery turned in.

Right now, I'm calling it Trigger Point.

We'll see if they

a) accept the thing and

b) if they keep the title.

To date, the only book they've kept my proposed title for is Band of Sisters. And my husband came up with that title (I stink at them).

Long-time readers might remember that I submitted Spires of Stone with a header description of, "My Salt Lake Temple Book," and that then an evaluator came back saying, "It needs a better title."

Um, YA THINK?!!! That wasn't a title.

After I submit Trigger Point, then I can (I hope!) move on to drafting again. Drafting is where I get my lifeblood. Drafting is when I'm happiest. It's when I'm not losing my mind . . . it's when I'm most ME.

Ten days.

But I don't write on Sundays. So really, nine days.

Scratch that. I also have two field trips between now and then (trying to spend time with the kidlets when I've been so busy). That effectively erases two more working days.

Can I do this in SEVEN? Time will tell.

The book is written. But I have about six inches' worth of critiques to go through, plus about 50 or so pages to revise that never did make it to critique group.

I'm motivated to make my deadline, mostly because I know what's on the other side: FUN.

It boils down to something pretty simple: If I do THIS, then I get to do THAT.

Drafting is my play time. It balances me in a way nothing else can. It's hanging out with people I love (fictional though they may be) and coming away with the rush that only creating something new can provide.

Be sure leave a comment on last Friday's post for a chance to win a prize:

• one of my books if I fail to meet my deadline
• chocolate (for both me and the winner!) if I do make it.

Count on someone winning the chocolate, because I'm seriously motivated. (It's scary what a little bribery can do for one's inner writer.)

Writing Journey: Pronunciation Guides

Up today: Answering a question L. T. Eliot (also known as Lexicon Luvr) posed some time ago:

[Writers creating pronunciation guides for audio recordings] is a new phenomenon to me, and I've only ever heard it mentioned once. How long has that been going on?

I can't speak for other writers and their experiences with their publishers, of course, so what comes below is based on my experience.

For my first five books, Covenant released an audio version on either cassettes or CDs (in one case, both). In each case, the book was abridged.

My first two novels (Lost Without You and At the Water's Edge) are my shortest ones. I had to cut them down to 48,000 words, but since they were each right around 70,000, that wasn't terrible to do. It wasn't fun by any means, but I could cut out descriptions, shorten dialogue, delete actions and tags, take showing portions and make them telling, and the like. Abridging took out a lot of the voice and personality of the book, but the basic story was left intact.

And then . . . well, THEN I had to cut House on the Hill. It clocked in at 102,000 words. Remember, it had to be hacked down to 48,000.

Yeah. Had to cut that puppy by more than half. The final version had entire scenes and subplots stripped out. For example, readers didn't see Abe's father or even know much of Abe's background. There just wasn't time for it.

At the Journey's End was even longer, by more than 10,000 words (I think it was around 114,000 words total). By that point, they were toying with whether they'd still do a cassette version. If not, I'd get to keep an additional 5,000 words because CDs hold more. But the final decision wasn't made early enough, so even though that book is only on CD, I still had to cut it to 48,000.

Spires of Stone was a bit shorter than At the Journey's End, and I got to cut it to 53,000, so it wasn't quite as miserable to cut, but I still hated it.

If memory serves, Spires was also the first book they requested a pronunciation guide for, but what they asked for was relatively minor. I had to clarify any names or terms that might be confusing. I remember writing character personality descriptions, but not much else. That book was released fall of 2007.

In hindsight, had my sister not been the one reading At the Water's Edge (2004), I probably would have needed to submit a guide, because it has Finnish names and words that would totally throw off your average American reader. That's why I requested that Mel read it: she knows Finnish pronunciation as well as I do, so she didn't need a guide.

By the time Tower of Strength came out, a new decision had been made: Covenant heard its customers asking for unabridged books and agreed to do them! (And there was much rejoicing in the land!)

However, there was a consequence to that decision: unabridged books are (obviously) longer. Therefore, they cost more to produce (both in actual CDs as well as in paying for a reader and other costs). Ergo, they couldn't afford to put every book onto audio.

So while they'd have fewer novels on audio, those that got audio versions would all be unabridged.

The result: Tower of Strength (2009) wasn't given audio. I was rather relieved: no butchering of my book! On the other hand, if it had gotten audio, there wouldn't have been a need to butcher it. But cutting it down wouldn't have been as painful, since Tower is my shortest historical.

I didn't have a 2008 release, so between the small guide for Spires in '07 and no audio for Tower in '09, the first "real" guide I've had to do was for Band of Sisters. (Did you catch that? It's on unabridged audio!)

The pronunciation guide for Band of Sisters was rather involved. I was surprised at how many names and terms they wanted me to explain. I had to include actual pronunciation symbols based on Merriam-Webster's style.

I also had to describe the characters, but this time it wasn't only their personalities. I had to describe their voices. Does Nora have a high or low voice? What about Kim? Does Marianne have a noticeable accent? Does Jessie have a unique tone? What about Brenda? Does she talk fast? And so on.

I had to go reread portions of the book to really listen to my characters talk so I could describe their voices. (That probably sounds bizarre to anyone who isn't a writer, but to me, these women are real, and I can hear their voices in my head. No, I don't need medication.)

Back to the question: How long have the pronunciation guides been going on?

Short answer: somewhere in the ballpark of three or four years, and in that time (at least in my experience) they've become more specific and detailed.

That's a good thing, I think. I don't mind spending a little extra time on a guide since I'm no longer sweating over abridgments. And the guides really benefit everyone. The final product is better, since the actor reading the book knows going in how every person should sound and how to say possibly confusing terms, and the listener has a better experience with the story.

The guide avoids problems like the actor finding out 2/3 of the way through the book that whoops, this character has a southern drawl or this one has a gravelly voice, and this one speaks low for a woman . . . and that they've been reading it wrong the entire time!

Lots 'o Giveaway Winners

I've had two giveaways going on at the same time over here, and today I'm announcing the winners.

FIRST GIVEAWAY:

Rachelle Christensen's OfficeBox/Wrong Number giveaway has two steps. First, the 25 blogs participating each pick a preliminary winner who gets a prize package that includes:

• A ScrapMaBob
• A self-healing cutting mat
• A ribbon box

(That's a retail value of about $48.00.)

The 25 preliminary winners go on to be part of the grand prize drawing for an Original OfficeBox and a copy of Rachelle's new novel, Wrong Number.

The Lyon's Tale preliminary winner of the prize package is (drum roll, please . . .):

THE MOTHERBOARD from Crazyland with her first (required) entry of simply commenting on her favorite item. (It pays to enter!)

SECOND GIVEAWAY:

This one was to encourage readers to spread the word about our super-successful Triple Book Launch (more to come on that in another post). Thanks again to every single person who came and supported us. It was such a great night!

I promised a full set of my four temple novels (House on the Hill, At the Journey's End, Spires of Stone, and Tower of Strength) to the grand prize winner, plus two runner-ups who'd each get a copy of my grammar guide, There, Their, They're: A No-Tears Guide to Grammar from the Word Nerd.

Winners:

The four-book set goes to . . .

Alexis of One Cluttered Brain!

She was bound and determined to win by getting as many entries as she could, even though she's not in Utah and couldn't attend the launch. Thanks for spreading the word, Alexis!

The two people who get copies of There, Their, They're:

1) Krista

AND

2) Elizabeth Morgan

Congratulations to all three!

(Ladies, be sure to e-mail me your snail mail address so I can get your prizes to you!)

Share the Launch Love

It's almost here!

Sarah M. Eden, Julie Coulter Bellon, and I are revving up for Friday's Triple Book Launch Party!

THIS FRIDAY, March 12

6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Deseret Book at University Village

(East of University Mall in Orem)

Get ready for a bunch of great door prizes. (They'll be announced here soon. We've got a bunch of awesome stuff!) Friday will be a ball.

Whether you love Regency Romance, Thrillers with lots of suspense (and a little romance thrown in!), or women's fiction (or know someone who does!), you won't want to miss this event.

But WAIT! There's more for YOU.

We want to spread the word about the launch as far and as wide as possible.

Welcome to the "Share the Launch Love" drawing!

The more YOU do to spread the word, the better your chances of winning. (I'm totally not above bribery.)

THE PRIZES:

An entire FOUR-BOOK set of my temple books: House on the Hill, At the Journey's End, Spires of Stone, and Tower of Strength.

(That's a value of over $60.00!)

TWO runners-up will get a copy of my grammar book, There, Their, They're: A No-Tears Guide to Grammar from the Word Nerd.

HOW TO ENTER: SPREAD THE LAUNCH PARTY LOVE!

Be sure to leave a comment FOR EACH SEPARATE THING YOU DO so I have a fighting chance of keeping track of the entries.

-TWO ENTRIES: Put the Triple Book Launch Party button on your side bar. (The image is at the top over on my sidebar. Just copy and paste it to your blog). You must also LINK the button to the event's Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=338177993233&ref=mf

HOW-TO UPDATE: For Blogger users, simply copy the image and add it to a picture gadget. There's a spot in the dialog box where you can add a URL to link the picture to. Copy and paste the FB link above, then save.

-THREE ENTRIES: Blog about the launch party, including date, time, location, and name all three authors involved, including links to all three authors (author websites or blogs).

-TWO ENTRIES: First you must do the blog post (above). In that post, include all three book covers featured at the launch. (Courting Miss Lancaster, Dangerous Connections, and Band of Sisters).

Here are the covers, just to make things really easy for you:

-ONE TO FIVE ENTRIES: Tweet the event. (Include a link to your tweet in your comment.) Receive an additional entry each time you tweet the launch (maximum once a day) between now and Friday. (Leave a comment each time, with a link for each tweet.)

-ONE ENTRY: Mention the launch party in your Facebook status or news feed. (Include a link in your comment.)

-ONE ENTRY: Follow The Lyon's Tale. (If you're already a follower, just say so in a comment; an immediate entry!)

-ONE ENTRY: Follow me on Twitter.

-ONE ENTRY: Become my fan on Facebook (use the nifty Facebook fan badge in the sidebar).

-ONE ENTRY: Follow Sarah M. Eden's blog.

-ONE ENTRY: Follow Julie Bellon on Twitter.

-ONE TO THREE ENTRIES: Link back to THIS POST (not just my blog; use the permalink) and share it via Facebook, Twitter, on in a blog post (the same blog post as above works!).

(It would also be awesome if readers would invite their Wasatch Front-living friends to attend. If they're on Facebook, go to the event page and click on "share." I have no idea how to track invitations like that, but we'd sure appreciate it!)

Drawing ENDS Friday, March 12 at 4:00 pm Mountain Time.

Winners will be announced after the launch (and, quite possibly, a long nap).

***TOTAL POSSIBLE ENTRIES: TWENTY-ONE!***

Ready . . . go!

(Hope to see you Friday!)

Writing Journey: Why Does It Take So Long?

I'm not talking about the eight years of writing, submissions, and rejections I went through before landing my first novel contract, although that did take forever.

(Granted, I was publishing articles during those eight years, so I wasn't a complete failure . . . I just felt like one.)

Today's topic is a reader question I got from Chas Hathaway some time ago:

Why is it exactly that it takes so long (2 yrs I've heard is average) for a book to get from submission to publication? Is it editing? Do they just have a lot of books to work with at the same time?

The really short answer is this: There are a lot of steps in the publishing pipeline, and each just takes time.

Now for the long answer . . . and this is assuming that a writer either already has a literary agent (getting one takes its own good time and has its own challenges) or doesn't need one, such as with the LDS market, which is so small that they don't use agents. (A literary agent would starve if trying to make a living in this market. It just isn't big enough for that, because all the money agents ever get is commissions on author royalties.)

We'll start with submission and then go into the actual pipeline:

Jane Writer (or her agent) submits to a publisher. This is usually not a full manuscript, but a query letter (which has the purpose of piquing the editor's interest) and some sample chapters.

The editor gets dozens of these submission packages on a regular basis and reads them when there are breaks between other publishing deadlines for books that are already under contract. Jane's submission might not even be looked at for a couple of weeks. Or months.

Eventually, the editor gets to the submission and if he or she decides the submission shows promise, contacts Jane Writer and requests either a partial (often the first 50 pages) or a full (the entire manuscript).

Again with the waiting game. With my publisher, if you reach this stage (having a full requested), two or three copies of the manuscript are made and given out to evaluators, along with a massive (seriously, like 15-page) form for them to fill out analyzing all kind of areas of the work.

When all of the evaluations are returned (so you're waiting on other people and whenever they decide to get to it), the editor reviews them. By this point, you can easily have seen three or more months pass since the original submission.

If you're one of the publisher's regular writers, your submission jumps to the front of the line and gets read first (which can still mean 3 months), but if you're new, you go to the back of the line and have to wait longer (I used to wait 8 or 9 months).

If the evaluations are positive enough, the editor reads the manuscript and decides whether to champion the book based on evals, the quality of the writing AND (here's the rub) on the overall marketability of the work.

That last one is the area that took me 8 years to figure out. I got really awesome rejection letters and even a phone call once from a managing editor with things like, "Your work is a cut above what we usually see" and, "We debated long and hard on this book, even with the president of the company," and the like, but the bottom line was that the stories weren't marketable enough for the audience I was writing for.

This is a business, and no matter how much they LOVE a piece, if they don't think they can sell enough copies to make a profit, they usually pass.

If the editor deems the manuscript worthy, it moves on to the committee: all the big wig decision-makers. This includes the company's head honchos, the marketing department, the managing editor, and more. My publisher's committee has a marathon meeting once a week. (You don't want to know what day it is for Covenant. It's a nightmare knowing it's committee day when you're waiting for an answer.)

Before my acceptance, I made it to committee many, many times, but didn't make it past that because of the marketability thing until an editor contacted me and basically said she knew I had the chops and that I'd be "an asset to the company" if we could just knock me over the line. She clued me in to the market, and my next submission was picked up. Yay!

Back to time lines: Jane Writer's book is accepted. She may have already spent 6-9 months, but she's still got a lot ahead of her:

1) First she does any rewrites needed based on the evaluations, the editor's feelings, etc.

2) Then there's the content edit, where plot holes get sewn up, character motivations are fixed, the plot arc is smoothed out. Basically, any big-picture issues are fixed. This can take 2-3 months. Or less. Or more.

3) Next is the actual line edit. This is where an editor takes a red pen and goes through the whole thing word by word, line by line. The point is to polish and clean up anything that might be clunky. Fix any incorrect punctuation or grammar. Smooth out awkward dialogue and sentences. Basically, make the writer shine. This can take several weeks or an entire month.

4) The author goes over the edit and approves or rejects every mark made. This normally takes at least a couple of weeks.

5) The editor reviews the author's changes. If needed, they discuss and talk about anything they disagree with to work out compromises. Depending on schedules, factor in a good week or two.

6) Corrections are then inputted into the file. Mark down a week or so, possibly more, depending on what else is in the pipeline and what other books get precedence.

7) Sometimes a second line edit is done, time permitting. I've even had a third done before. Repeat all the steps (and time) the other one(s) required.

8) Proofers go over the book to look for mistakes. They look for the obvious (spelling and punctuation) but also elements like plot consistency. (Did David's eyes change color? Oops, the author accidentally created an 8-day week. Wait, wasn't it raining a second ago? Now it's sunny.) Add a few of weeks for the proofers to do their job.

9) The author proofs the file. Often at this stage, I find mistakes that someone along the line has INSERTED into the text accidentally. I usually get a week or so to proof.

10) Changes are inputted into the file. (Days, a week, or more, depending on how many other files the worker has to get done.)

11) The file is set to the typesetter, where the book is formatted to look as it will in an actual book, instead of the way it does in a Word document (headers, page numbers, text the size of the book, chapter headings, title page, etc.). Typesetting can take half a month easily, and that's assuming there are no other books in the queue.

12) Proofers go through the typeset book, because typesetting can introduce NEW problems (like several lines of hyphenated words in a row which looks stupid, or a single word on a page, or whatever). Depending on how many proofers get it, add a couple of weeks.

13) The author gets to proof the final typeset version (commonly called the galleys). If you're lucky, you'll get more than a week to do this. At this stage, I'm always amazed that we still catch typos and other errors, no matter how many eyeballs have already been over it.

14) The final changes are inputted into the file. Again, this can take a week, depending on the schedule over at the publisher and how busy the disk-changer is.

15) During this time, the design department has been working on the cover, and you'll get to see it soon.

16) The marketing and PR departments have been working on ad placement, etc.

17) When the cover and the galleys are corrected and complete, the book is (yay!) sent to the printer. The printer is usually in another country, so this isn't like going to Kinko's where you get your order back overnight. Instead, books are often printed in Canada or China and then shipped back.

If your books are being printed in China like many picture books are, you may have to wait for the books to be shipped back by boat. I had a friend who published a picture book that was printed in China, and on the way back, the BOAT SANK. You never know what will delay your book's release!

Bottom line: the printing process alone can take a couple of months.

18) When the books are printed, they're sent to the warehouse. From there, orders to bookstores are filled and shipped. Depending on how close the bookstore is to the warehouse, this could take days to weeks.

Add all those numbers up (rough estimates, since you never know exactly how much ping-ponging is going to happen and how many edits you'll get):

Submission to acceptance: 3+ months

Revisions: 2+ months

Content Editing: 1-2 months

Line Editing: 1-2 months

First Round of Proofs: 1-2 months

Typesetting: 1-2 weeks

Final Proofing: 2 weeks

Printing: 2+ months

Warehousing & Shipping: 1 month

Those numbers add up to about 15 months. And that's assuming you get to move smoothly from one step to another. Sometimes you don't, because the pipelines gets bogged down with other projects being bumped up or having a crisis, so you were supposed to get your edit next week but don't for three weeks . . .

Plus, keep in mind that they're publishing maybe three dozen books a year, keeping that many balls in the air, all at different stages of development.

So does the one-or two-year schedule make a little more sense now? I've been lucky in that most of my books have had a turnaround of slightly under a year, but my last two were more like a year and a half.

One reason for the longer delay on my more recent books is that the month a book is released is a big decision. A lot of things factor into it. The publisher looks months and months into the future, filling slots in here and there with care. They make every decision carefully.

Spires of Stone, for example, came out September 2007. Covenant had four historical novels they wanted to release around the same time. But putting them all out the same month would have been shooting all of us in the foot: if historical fans are going to buy ONE book in a month, they'd have to pick between four of us, and three would lose. (And so would Covenant.)

The best thing to do would be to spread us out just a bit, in a way that would minimize competition and maximize potential sales.

If memory serves, they ended up doing two of those books in September and two in October, and they purposely pitted books against one another that they felt were as different from each other as possible.

As a result, Spires was released the same month as H. B. Moore's Land of Inheritance. My book had a more female, romancey audience, and hers had more readers that enjoyed grand, epic-type books. Plus, she had more male readers. We also have very different tones and styles, not to mention totally different time periods.

But (again, if memory serves), Jennie Hansen had a historical coming out too. They released it in October, because, like mine, her book was set in the 1800s. Had we shared a release date, we would have been in direct competition with one another, so they separated us. Wise move, methinks.

Other issues can help determine a release date, such as whether a book might be a good gift book for Mother's Day, in which case you might get an April or May release.

And if they think a particular book will get a lot of Christmas gift sales, it'll likely come out in September or October.

(Cough**cough** chocolate cookbook **cough**cough.)