Come Closer....yes, it's my First Pass Pages!

Is that not beautiful?  This is the title page of my book, THE FAERIE RING. Go ahead - stare at it - I have been!

I'll tell you, getting my jaw-dropping cover last week, and now, this beautiful title page and the chapter headings - (I had NO idea that they were designing something so lovely and elegant) - it's enough to make a girl a bit verklempt! I am so grateful to my editor, Susan Chang, for making my book so perfect.

Take a look at my chapter headings:

This is my absolutely favorite kind of design embellishment for a book. I can hardly believe it's mine!

Since my book doesn't come out until October, you're probably wondering how I'm seeing all this stuff already. I received my First Pass Pages today! These pictures are from my typeset manuscript. The name, First Pass Pages, is a bit of a misnomer because it's the *last* time that an author has to make any changes to the manuscript.  Hopefully, we caught everything in copy edits and there will only be a few small fixes on this pass.  From here - it's on to ARCs - Advanced Reader Copies - where my book is printed in paperback form for advance review.

So tell me - what do you think?

~Kiki

Blame it on revisions....

Did I mention I was starting my editorial revisions?

It's a busy busy time right now. I've been working on PULSE, my YA contemporary sort of-paranormal WIP in between receiving chapters from my editor with revision suggestions for THE FAERIE RING. I just received another bunch on Friday so I'm going to shift gears and dive back into London 1871. So far, the editorial revision process has been a great learning experience for me. I'm going to be guest blogging over on Ask Daphne, my sparkly agent's blog (Kate Schafer Testerman) next week about the process, so you'll have to check it out.

PULSE, which is a total re-write of something I wrote last spring, is going great and I hope to have my first draft complete by the end of the month, ready to send out to beta readers.

I also just started a class with the fantastic and enthusiastic and incredibly knowledgeable Sarah Aronson over at Writers.com and already after just a week I love being back in class. There's always so much to learn and we have a really great group of writers in there this time.

Plus, a bit of brainstorming with some other 2011 debut authors about publicity, marketing, covers etc. has kept the email box FULL.

So, those are my excuses - how about you? What are you working on?

Surfing into a New Year - Yay!

I always love turning the page on a new year and feeling like you've got a fresh start on all those things you want to do! This year I'm going to be better about blogging. And facebooking. And twittering. And all those social networking things that are fun but are also such a huge time suck that I do them for a while and then stop because I've got a million other things to do.

For those who are curious in the *ahem* crowd I am expecting line edits on THE FAERIE RING any day now and can't wait to dig in! Once I get those wrapped up, I will do a quick revision on the sequel, DARK SHADOWS, and be ready to send that to my editor to read and hopefully buy!

I've also completed revisions on another novel, THE GETHEAS STONE, that is ready to go out on submission in the publishing world and I'm excited to get it out there.

Right now, I'm working on a re-write (yes, re-WRITE, not REVISE - rats!) of a YA contemporary novel with paranormal aspects entitled PULSE, which is going pretty good. I hope to have it complete and ready to go to market by April 1. Which means, I better to get work writing.

What are you working on and what are your plans for this shiny new year??

Did you say Revision?

As many of you know, I've recently received my first editorial revision letter for THE FAERIE RING. Now, I've heard this can be a very traumatic moment for some authors, receiving a sometimes lengthy letter from your editor that details areas of your book that would potentially be improved by revising. Some authors might mistakenly take this as a criticism of their work but I just have to say I love having the opportunity to work with my fantastic editor, Susan Chang, and have experienced, qualified eyes look at my story and make suggestions. What a fantastic gift! And I guess that's a key word there - Susan's approach was just that - here's a suggestion that seems like it might make the story tighter, what do you think? Giving us both a chance to discuss what we like and don't like about certain scenes (and anybody who knows me knows I always like to get my two cents in) and ultimately steer the story in a direction that will make it stronger.

A writing friend asked me to blog about my editorial revisions so I'll try to give a brief summary of my process. Keep in mind this is my first time in the revision process so I'll let you know how it goes as I move along. I envision that I'll have probably three passes before we're done.

Basically, I worked on re-structuring and simplifying the plot, enhancing the characterization and deepening the setting. What's left, you ask? uhhh... well...good point. In re-structuring the plot, there was some cutting and pasting of chapters. It's amazing how easily these chunks of story can be picked up and plunked somewhere else and it actually works better. My story is told from two different Points Of View (POV) and at Susan's suggestion, I did reduce one POV substantially, which gave the story more forward momentum. Of course, after you cut and paste and eliminate chapters you have to go back through and make sure the thread of the plot moves consistently from start to finish, which can be a bit time-consuming, but ultimately satisfying when you've finally got the spine of the story in place.

From there I worked on characterization - increasing the information the Reader learns about each character, providing backstory and description to make them more real. It's fascinating how these people really do become real in your head - you can see them, hear them and for those reading this that aren't writers, the best part is when your character goes off and does something you had no idea they were going to do, and all the author can do is follow them and keep writing - adding those fun twists and turns in the story when even the author says - you did what? :-)

Last I went back, again, and worked on adding setting details. This story is set in London in 1871 and having just been in London it was so much fun to add sights and sounds, smells etc. that evokes these places, hopefully in that era.

So basically that's it. Kind of like brain salad surgery, which totally dates me, I know. I shipped it off to Susan last night so from here I'm going to dive into the sequel to TFR and tie in the changes I just completed, until I hear from her on round two.

What about you? Have you revised before? What process do you use? Any tips?