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.

Writing Journey: Lyon's Eleven

Lately when people ask if I'm working on anything, I almost laugh. I have a few too many pots in the fire and rarely know where to begin describing my current projects. (I'd appreciate it if the treadmill of my life slowed down just a tiny bit.)

As an update, a list:

1) Today and tomorrow, I'm at the LDStorymakers Writers Conference, in its 7th year. It's bigger and better than ever, and I'm thrilled to have been part of it since its inception. Saturday night at the Whitney Awards gala, I will be presenting the Lifetime Achievement Award to Gerald N. Lund. (No pressure or anything.)

2) Turns out the final photo shoot for Chocolate Never Faileth, well, wasn't. We had two unanticipated holes (long story). In the middle of my conference prep, I had to make two more recipes. I could have really used a clone this week.

3) On the up side, this last Monday, I got to hang out at Covenant and work on one of their computers to make some of the anecdotes in the book fit properly. That was a ball. The layout for the book is awesome, and the photos turned out great. Basically, the book is going to be gorgeous. Margaret and Christina (the design gals) have gone above and beyond on this one. I LOVE those guys!

4) I have been meaning to finish revisions on that murder mystery for, oh, four months or so now. (Things have been a wee bit busy.) For the sake of accountability, I am going to state here that the book WILL be turned in no later than May 10th. (Now I have to do it or look like an idiot.)

5) OOOOH! IDEA!

If I don't make my personal deadline, I'll have Random.org select ONE commenter from this post to win a copy of one of my books, their choice. If I DO make the deadline, then I get to celebrate with chocolate, and one commenter gets to as well. So one commenter (again, from this post) will get a Utah Truffles chocolate bar. I'll buy two and enjoy the second one. (I'm always amazed at how well bribery works on the inner writer.)

6) The response to Band of Sisters has been phenomenal. Thanks to everyone who has dropped a note about it or written a review! I appreciate every single one so much. Here's the latest review, from the Association for Mormon Letters.

7) One question I'm getting a lot is whether there will be a sequel to Band of Sisters.

Short answer: I hope so. It would take place right after the men come home.

Long answer: Depends on sales. If it does well enough to warrant a sequel, I'll get the green light. (I've already written a couple of scenes for Jessie, and I really want to write the whole thing!) Tell your local Seagull or Deseret Book, whether in person or via e-mail, that you want a sequel so they'll pass on the word. You can even e-mail Covenant directly (info at covenant-lds dot com).

8) As promised, e-book versions of Lost Without You and At the Water's Edge will be available very soon. (Like, when I have time to get them done. Hahahahaa! No, seriously. It'll be soon. After I review the old manuscripts, my husband will do his technological magic and get them available for purchase.)

9) By next year's conference, I plan to have a second edition out of There, Their, They're. In the year since it came out, I've had readers shooting me more questions and topics. I've already amassed nearly 40 new things to address in the next edition. If you have a question that's not currently in the book, please let me know so I can add it to the list!

10) I've got several other really exciting potential projects in the works, but none are confirmed, so I can't talk about them yet. Just getting pumped for the possibilities!

11) And finally, today I'm the guest poster over at Mormon Mommy Blogs. Click over and check it out! (That's the main MMB link; I'm pre-posting this because I won't be online during the conference, so you'll have to find the actual post yourself. Sorry 'bout that.)

See you on the flip side!

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!

Mom Rocked the House, Yo

Friday I had the opportunity to speak at our local junior high, where they've done an annual writers conference for about ten years now. Only students invited to the conference by their English teachers get to attend (and skip out of the first half of their school day).

The conference was in the media center, so I expected 30ish students. The room was packed with kids; I'd guess well over a hundred attended.

I spoke first, using a nifty Power Point that my son helped me design. I gave my dialogue workshop, which I've taught several times to adults. 7th - 9th graders are old enough to grasp something that big, I think.

I had to leave after I spoke, so I didn't get to hear the other two speakers, but I had a ball. The kids were great. They were respectful and fun, eagerly jotting down pages and pages of notes.

After I finished, we had a 10-minute break. That's when a crowd of students surrounded me. I felt like a rock star!

I mentioned on Facebook yesterday that I have a sneaking suspicion that my coolness factor was seriously influenced by the fact that I admitted to personally knowing (and in some cases being good friends with) other writers they love. (Audible gasps waved across the room when I said that yes, I know Jessica Day George, Shannon Hale, J. Scott Savage, and others.)

As a parent, I remember very well what that age was like . . . and how the last thing you want is for a parent to embarrass you in front of your peers.

So even though speaking was a ball, the best part for me was seeing the faces of my son and daughter. They came right up to me afterward as part of that crowd, making sure people knew they belonged to me.

And they beamed. They looked proud.

Boo. Yah.

In other writing-related news:

• BOOK SIGNING TONIGHT, Saturday, April 3 at the Deseret Book in Layton Hills Mall
• Attention, Writers: Precision Editing Group is sponsoring a 4-hour write-a-thon on THURSDAY. Be sure to participate for a chance to win $50 OR a $50 content edit from PEG. (Find the details HERE.)
• I had to leave the conference early to attend a proposal meeting at Covenant about an upcoming project. It went really well. Cross your fingers that it flies, because this one totally cool project!

Friday Writing Journey--Woot!

Today I have nothing profound to say. Instead, I'll just squeal.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Okay, that was fun.

The Triple Book Launch Party

THIS evening, March 12, from 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

At the new Deseret Book just outside of University Mall

(Near the movie theater.)

Julie Bellon, Sarah M. Eden, and I will be there with our brand new books and (we hope!) a good number of attendees.

Door Prizes!

More and more people keep donating door prizes. That's reason enough to come, for sure! The latest addition: Copies H. B. Moore's two newest novels, Abinadi and Alma.

A couple of other quick notes before I return to my massive to-do list:

• I had a phone-in radio interview with Rebecca Cressman today. Soon it'll be sent out as an MP3 file in the Your LDS Neighborhood newsletter. I'll be sure to link over then.
• We discussed at length the charity I'm working with that supports military families, Flat Daddy. I'll post more about the charity soon, but you can see the gist on my website and on the back page of Band of Sisters. I'm hoping we can raise a ton of money to help this great cause.
• In a couple of weeks, Rebecca Cressman will doing a more in-depth interview with me and a military wife who has been through deployment. We'll discuss practical ways others can help a family during a deployment, talk about the Flat Daddy program, and dispel a lot of deployment myths. (Among those myths: deployment is just like being a single mother or having your husband travel a lot. Um, no.) That interview will air on FM 100.3 on Monday, March 29th.
• My good friend Tristi Pinkston has a new book out of her own, a mystery called The Secret Sisters. In conjunction with her release, she is also helping a charity: collecting socks (and donations for socks) for The Road Home homeless shelter. Check out the details here.

Finally, a BIG announcement:

Figured that today's a big day, so why not go for bigger? Behold the title of my forthcoming chocolate cookbook:

Chocolate Never Faileth!

Emphasis and excitement with the exclamation point is part of the title. :)

Hope to see lots and lots of familiar and new faces tonight! I'll post photos later.

Here's Where It Gets Fun

Word has it that Band of Sisters will be shipping to stores on Monday. At what point it reaches shelves is yet to be determined, but we're almost there! Yippee!

The journey for this book began with that magazine article the summer of 2007, so Band of Sisters has been nearly three years in the making. In many ways, this release means more to me than many of my others. I'm not sure why.

Maybe it's because the topic wouldn't be shaken off until I wrote about it. Maybe it's because I felt so invested in the lives of my characters (and had more main characters than in any other book). Or maybe it's because the process simply took so much longer than usual.

Whatever the reason, I'm thrilled that the book is almost here for readers to get their hands on. Yesterday I got feedback from a reader/reviewer who received a PDF copy. I believe she's the first actual reader to see the whole thing (versus my early beta readers, critique group, editor, etc.).

Turns out . . . I made her cry. Yay!

(I'm a sadist!)

Some upcoming Band of Sisters fun:

A week from today (FRIDAY, MARCH 5), I get to be the "I Need Friends Friday" guest over at Sarah M. Eden's blog!


Her interviews are always a blast to read, and I was thrilled to be part of the weekly tradition. I'll be sure to link over Friday, but for now, be sure to check out her blog. Sarah's a total riot as a person plus an excellent writer. I was first introduced to her work when her book Seeking Persephone was a Whitney finalist last year. (A much-deserved honor, by the way. I loved that book.)

Her newest novel, Courting Miss Lancaster, is about to be released with Covenant. And here's the really, REALLY cool part:

This book is REGENCY ROMANCE! That's right! It's not "LDS fiction."

It's for readers who love the Regency time period but cringe at national titles with a bunch of smut. Now Covenant is (hooray!) providing clean (well-written!) Regency Romance for their readers. (Can we hear a hallelujah?!)

I adore Sarah's work and can't wait to get my hands on this one!

BOOK LAUNCH PARTY!

And here's the really big, fun news: TWO WEEKS from today (FRIDAY, March 12, from 6-8 pm), I'll be at the new Orem Deseret Book by University Mall for a ginormous launch party.

Best part: I get to share that launch party with two other great novelists with their own brand new books out with Covenant:

Both Sarah M. Eden AND Julie Coulter Bellon!

(I think my coolness meter just went up several notches.)

Seriously, folks . . . this is going to be fun! Be sure to mark your calendars NOW so you don't miss out. We're already rounding up door prizes and making fun plans for that night.

THREE authors, THREE genres, THREE new books! How awesome is THAT?!

I've been squealing ever since the launch party was confirmed yesterday.

And I believe I'll be squealing for the next two weeks.

Please come--and tell your friends to come too! All three of us would LOVE to see you!

When Is Writing Work?

I get this question asked a lot: Do I ever get sick of writing, and/or does it ever become work?

The answer is messy and convoluted . . . pretty much like the writer brain is.

I don't think I've ever gotten sick of writing during the drafting phase. Sure, I've stressed myself out during it, trying to get it done or worrying that the story won't turn out right, or that maybe this is the time I'll fail at writing a whole book.

But as for actually getting sick of writing?

Absolutely not. Drafting and the initial stages of revision are the best part of this gig. Drafting is when you're in the act of creation. It makes me alive inside. I love hanging out with my characters and watching them do their thing. Generally speaking, the happiest seasons I experience are the ones in which I'm regularly drafting. (I think my family prefers me then too.)

Took me awhile to figure that out, though. I'd get into a slump and hate the whole darn writing thing: it had become work.

The slump would generally hit after revising a manuscript headed to press for the three thousandth time and proofing it for the eightieth. A slump hangs around after doing rounds and rounds of book signings and other promotional stuff. Basically it's when you want to torch your new book because you're so close to it that you can't see it objectively anymore and you're sure it's garbage, and it's been months and months since you wrote anything new.

At the darkest, most depressing part of the slump, I'd begin a new project . . . and discover the magic all over again. It happens every time: the sun comes out, I'm energized, and I love what I do, eager to get back to the book as soon as I can.

The slumps are the hard part. While they are filled with "writerly" things, they aren't what I consider writing. They hit after I've crossed the finish line of both drafting and initial revisions. I love revising (at least, at first; I hate it when it's #1,987) because I can take what's already there and make it better and better, like molding clay into the right shape.

It's when you're (or at least I'm) revising and editing it to death and can practically recite the thing in your sleep that you start to hate it, because it's no longer fresh. It's lost the magic for you.

Slumps also hit when you're so swamped with the business side of things that you don't have time for the creative stuff. The inner writer child needs the rush and excitement of creation to keep going, to not wither and die.

I'm withering.

I haven't written anything brand new in about a year. Band of Sisters was submitted October of 2008, and shortly after that, I finished the YA folktale. So this last year, I had revisions and edits for Band of Sisters. Then I worked on revisions for the folktale. I'm currently revising my old murder mystery.

The only new writing I've done (unless you count magazine articles and blog posts, which I don't, because although I enjoy them, they aren't my first love: fiction), is for my upcoming chocolate cookbook. While that was a tasty experience, it still wasn't drafting fiction. (Honestly, my favorite part of doing that book was writing commentaries on the recipes and having fun with the manuscript on the keyboard.)

I'm glad I can recognize the problem. After enough years of the cycle, I know that what I'm feeling isn't that I hate writing, but rather that it's been too long since I drafted a new novel. I'm particularly glad that I know what the real issue is because I have so many other pots in the fire right now that, unfortunately, it'll still be a spell before I get to draft full force on anything new.

But that new book is dangling out in front of me like a carrot. Or a chocolate bar.

And I can't wait to eat it up.

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.)

Writing Journey: Idea Seedlings

One of the most common questions writers get is how they come up with their ideas, so I thought I'd mention a few of mine. I've chronicled many of them throughout my WJ series, but here's a couple that are a bit different:

Band of Sisters, which will be out in March (as if I haven't blathered about that one enough lately!), came about in a very different way than my typical book ideas do. (Then again, do I have a typical way?)

I've talked a bit about it before, how I first wrote an article about women whose husbands were deployed. That article was inspired by a close friend going through that very experience, and I interviewed her and several of her friends for the piece.

I was able to use only a tiny percentage of what they gave me for the article, and that killed me. Their stories and feelings kept nagging at me, as if I had to do more with them to do them justice. And then I realized that there could be an entire book there. So I wrote a novel about five women who become friends through their husbands' deployment.

While I call it my "deployment novel," the women of my critique group get on my case for it, because really, the book is more than that. The book really is about women, their personal issues, their interactions, their friendships, their strengths. And yes, it's about deployment, too.

None of the women in the book are representative of any of five I interviewed (truly, it's FICTION!), but the types of feelings and thoughts I gave them in are true to what the women expressed in their interviews, and I did get a few lines from them (such as the basic but oh-so-true concept that rest of us "just don't GET it!" and that if they heard one more woman say they "understand" because their husband "travels a lot," they'd scream).

The murder mystery I wrote several years ago and am now reworking was sparked by a conversation I had with my police officer brother. There had been a report of a rape in a parking lot at a store in the town I lived in at the time. As a woman who shopped there, I expressed concern over it. He shrugged and said, "Don't worry about it. It's probably a false report."

I was stunned. How could he be so callous?

Oh, but he wasn't callous at all. He explained. Apparently, the vast majority of rape charges are false accusations. In Utah, they tend to fall into three categories:

1) The "victim" is ticked off at her boyfriend (for breaking up or whatever) and wants revenge, so she lays a charge of rape to get back at him. Even if the charge is dropped, it remains on his record and can affect his life later, such as for career background checks.

2) The girl is clueless enough to not know what "rape" means, and while something happened, and maybe she didn't like it or approve of it, whatever happened was not rape. (This one is ridiculously common, apparently, even in today's world.) I gave up trying to keep a straight face when my brother told me some of the things girls had accused their boyfriends or dates of that they assumed were rape. I wanted to go up to those girls, take them aside, and explain to them some basic biology.

3) And here's the Utah-Mormon one: A girl and boy consensually cross the line, and the girl freaks out. She doesn't want anyone to know what she did and is afraid of confessing to her parents or her bishop, so she claims it was rape (all HIS fault) so she's not the one in trouble.

Three common false charges. At that point in his career, my brother had yet to see a rape charge that hadn't turned out, upon investigation, to land into one of the those three categories: fake. (That was a long time ago, though. I should ask him if he's seen a real one yet.)

This whole thing frankly ticked him off, because he knew that women really are victims of rape, and that not only are they generally terrified of stepping forward, but when they do, they are often not taken seriously because of the deluge of fake charges out there.

If the women tempted to make fake charges would just keep their mouths shut, the real victims would be heard and the real perpetrators could be locked up.

I found the concept both horrifying and fascinating, but I wasn't convinced. That is, until about two weeks later, when the newspaper reported that the woman from the parking lot who'd laid the rape charge had made it up.

My jaw hung open. My brother had called it: another fake rape charge.

Most of the women in my neighborhood heard the news with relief: they could shop there again without fear. My brain went a different direction, of course: this is something I could write about. It was the seedling that sparked the idea for the murder mystery.

Later, as I watched an episode of John Doe, someone said a line (I don't even remember the episode's plot or who said it) that make my head come up, and the pieces snapped into place.

What if . . .

And right then, I knew where the story was going to go.

I won't delve into much more, because that would ruin it. But I will say that for those who have read Lost Without You, it features the same characters a decade later. Angela (who was 8 in that book) is now a high school senior. Her father, Greg, who was a patrol officer in that book, is now a detective. A serial killer has worked his way from Colorado to Utah. Angela's best friend is murdered, and Greg's on the case. And yes, the three false rape scenarios play a big role in the story.

I've found plot, character, and other ideas from all kinds of places, including an advice column in a newspaper, a radio talk show, a random article in a book, a dream (unfortunately, none as lucrative as ones about sparkling vampires), locations I've visited, a painting, and more, like that conversation with my brother paired with a random line from a TV show.

I never know where my next idea will come from. And that's half the fun: keeping my eyes and ears open and always thinking, "What if?" I love the moment with the idea crystallizes, comes into focus, and I see the bigger picture.

I'm in the the thinking stage for another project right now. I can't wait for the "aha" moment to get here so I can attack the keyboard and uncover the rest of it.

Writing Journey: TwHistory Side Project

One of the cool benefits of being a writer is the people you get to know and the opportunities you run into as a result.

Those opportunities could be things that advance your career and bring in money (such as a new freelance gig), but more often than not, they simply enhance your life in some way. Many times they're ways of offering service with the skills you have.

An example there is with my doctor. He's known our family for over fifteen years, and he's literally followed my entire career. Whenever I went in for prenatal appointments or a child's shots, and he'd ask about my latest submission, and I'd tell him about my latest rejection or current work in progress. He knows the entire story and what I'm working on next.

He's also the head of the Friends of the Library, so when we moved closer to him, he asked if I'd be willing to judge the adult category of the library's annual Scary Story Contest they hold each Halloween. I've now judged it for seven years running, and I can't imagine that changing any time soon. I love being able to help out.

Several months ago I had the chance to embark on a very different kind of side project. It's the brain child of Matthew Buckley, author of of Whitney Award finalist Chickens Don't Have Armpits. He has this knack of taking technology and turning it on its head, and using it in unique ways.

One of his last projects got national and international attention. Matthew (also known as Marion Jensen) and his buddy Tom Caswell decided to use Twitter in a brand new way: take history and make it fun, palatable, and understandable. Best of all, they could make it feel like it's happening right now. They took journals of soldiers who had fought in the Battle of Gettysburg, broke down the events into the 140-characters that "tweets" require, and recreated the battle in real time.

People who followed the battle via Twitter watched it during the same days the battle actually occurred, read about what the soldiers ate for breakfast, how they were wounded (when they were wounded) and so forth. If a soldier suddenly stopped tweeting, it probably meant he really had died on that day in history.

Marion and Tom were invited to speak at UNESCO in Barcelona about their project. You can read a bit about that HERE and HERE and see their slides HERE. They call their concept of tweeting history in real time "TwHistory."

They're doing it again, this time preparing to tweet the original Mormon Pioneer Trek, which began on April 5 and went through July 24, 1847 ending with Brigham Young's famous statement, "This is the right place. Drive on."

And that's where I (and many others) come in. Matthew Buckley asked several writer friends if they'd be willing to help go through the journals of pioneers he'd already found who were in the original traveling party and write up the tweets ahead of time. He would take care of putting them all together and posting them in real time on the right days and hours.

So in my free (hahaha!) time, I'm Heber C. Kimball, condensing his journals down to 4 or so 140-character tweets per traveling day. All of us are trying to maintain the voice and even the words, as much as possible, of the original writers. And it's all for the upcoming TwHistory trek that will begin this April.

Again, I imagine that when it goes live, the project will get national (and, quite possibly, international) attention. They have plans to Tweet other major historical events as well.

TwHistory could potentially be a great tool for teaching history to students and an amazing experience for any twitterers willing to follow and watch history as if they're getting a peek in time as it unfolds.

If the concept of TwHistory is going to keep going, they needs funds. Right now, it's entirely a volunteer effort, and while that's great, there are costs that just aren't covered. If you're willing to donate even a little to help the cause and/or learn more, visit the TwHistory Kickstart page.