The season of mist trickling through evergreens has arrived…
And I am HERE for it!
I’m torn between grieving the end of summer—knowing it will be an entire year before we return to languorous dreamy days and sunshine—and exalting in the rain, mist, and witchyness of Autumn. I love the change in the season; Fall always seems to carry the sense that something is about to happen. Maybe it’s because for two decades, this season represented the start of another school year.
My husband and I had a marvelous summer, culminating in my twin gettin’ hitched at the top of a mountain. We backpacked into the location with a few other family members, pleasantly surprised (ok, ecstatic!) when the hoards of mosquitos we expected were nowhere to be found. My sister had come prepared with a floor-length bug net as a veil, which got to serve mostly as bridal attire, except for at dusk when the bugs made a not-too-annoying appearance. In the evening, I sat and watched the glowing moon rise over the high mountains, and pictured Lishka and Dominick travelling along the jagged ridgeline.
Lishka Updates
I would love to say I’ve been excessively productive with writing, but alas, the season of summer is one of my downtimes. Winter I hibernate, summer is too busy enjoying the outdoors. I have been making some headway with LISHKA, however.
The last few months have been spent engaging with both my designer and my editor. I’m so very excited to say that after two rounds of concept art, my designer and I aligned on a book cover that perfectly captures the essence of LISHKA. It’s better than I envisioned. I’m running into a slight hiccup trying to engage with the local photographer, who’s art I would love to feature on the cover, but am hoping to get a reply soon. If all else fails, we can pivot to stock, though I really want to use someone local. The Pacific Northwest play such a large part in both this novel and its inspiration that I want this depicted accurately on the cover. Sigh. How many follow-ups is too many?
Editing is humming along nicely. Every interaction I have with my editor just reinforces how lucky I am that I found her. She’s fabulous. She did a proofread mixed with some higher level observations and more detailed sentence critique. My favorite comment was when she questioned a sentence that ends in “yurt on alert,” asking if I really wanted to say this, as it felt very Seussian. Whoops! Also now I cannot read that without hearing the guy on YouTube who raps Dr. Suess. And yes…I did edit this out.
She also left me this long, well-thought out comment explaining that blood is pumped through arteries when leaving the heart, and through veins when returning, asking me to consider how that might affect where a vampire would prefer to feed. Seriously. I was blown away by how critically she engaged with the content!
So, after one round where I more or less accepted her edits and expanded a few areas she suggested, Lishka is happily back with her for a final proofread and that much closer to being ready to lock the content for layout.
My immediate next steps are:
Finalize the content with the editor
Track down a photo for the book cover
Get a scan of the map to the designer, along with all the book interior content
Then I’ll start moving into the logistics, like filing for a copyright and finalizing my ISBNs. I think all that is left there is to land on a price for the book. I’ve asked several friends who buy a lot of books what they would pay for LISHKA, as well as went to my local bookstore to sus out the going rates. I found out that YA is significantly cheaper than adult, which, quite frankly, I found a little annoying as these books can require just as much time and effort as adult books. Regardless, LISHKA is more in that New Adult/Adult category and I will be pricing her as such, bearing in mind that I do want to ensure the book is accessible to people.
It’s all pretty exciting to be winding down (or up, I suppose, depending on how you look at it). I still cannot believe that soon I will finally get to hold the physical copy! Now I really must get my butt in gear editing the next one. My number one fan (my sister) is already angry she has to wait a few months to read the first draft. She may twin-disown me if I make her wait another 15+ years for the finalized second book.
