WIP
Life After Death: The Saga of a Buried WIP Continues
If you’ve been following my writing career, you may remember back in 2009 a WIP called Digging Up Death and many posts like this one where after making the CBA rounds and burying my WIP, I dug it up again and reworked it! Or this one where I got that final rejection and had to bury Digging Up…
Finish the Book
by Kathleen Y Barbo A Procrastinator’s Guide to Getting to THE END and Hitting Send Some people have no trouble writing books. Words flow and contracts arrive almost as frequently as 747s land at LAX. Life is good and so are the royalty checks. Is this your idea of the writing life? Guess what? That’s…
A Lesson in Editing and a Disappearing Trick
I can’t believe it’s been five months since I signed my contract and attempted to cut 35,000 words off my WIP. I’ve painfully and faithfully cut 30,000 words and have the last 5,000 to go. Cutting any WIP down has been a challenge. First, I snipped the obvious. Overused words, expression, those darn passive verbs.…
A Dream Come True: My First Book Cover
It’s a little surreal seeing my name on the cover of a REAL book! I’ve been dreaming about my first sale for years, and while it didn’t happen the way I envisioned it (look for a post on that later) it happened! I’m still in that semi-conscious dream state where it doesn’t seem real. Sure,…
50 Ways to Edit Your WIP
When I signed my first contract and agreed to chop 30,000 plus words off my 55,000 word WIP, I knew what I was getting into. Well, sort of. I knew it would be painful to cut that many words. I knew scenes I loved would have to go and be condensed. I knew it would…
Seasons of Writing and Waiting
In January, I was all set to dive into my WIP. I had just put my daughter in school full time, and I had my days mapped out by the hour. Then “I got the call.” The novella I submitted to Barbour for an anthology the week before was sold! After the shock registered, I…
And Action…Act II
I finally passed the 14,000 word mark and I’m on to Act I in my current WIP which would have been at 64,000 words if I didn’t scrap it and turn my Historical romance into Women’s fiction. Thanks, Susie! At first I was literally paralyzed to write when my romance wasn’t working. I had HALF…
Stuck
I wrote this a week ago thinking it wasn’t done yet. But then decided to post as is, with all it’s imperfections and heart. I’m still a bit stuck, but have landed on solid ground! Why is it just when things start to move, when my life seems headed in the right direction, when I’m…
What Have I Been Up To?
So nice of you to ask… A whole lot of nothing so it seems, but if I break it down, my schedule has been just as crazy as ever. This has been the month of plays and recitals (well, April/May) with my son playing Gideon in his high school play the SAME weekend I scheduled…
Ten Reason Why You Didn't Get Your ACFW Genesis Entry in on Time
This post is in honor of sending in my Genesis entry and not impulsively checking it one more time… If you’re entering, hurry and get yours in! 10. You were too busy doing your taxes. 9. Your critique partners didn’t get your entry back to you in time. 8. You spent all your time looking…