I've been busy elsewhere

Anenome Jones | Flickr

What a horrible horrible blogger I am! It's been nineteen days since my last post. I'm glad to say I've been decently productive during that time. I've been doing a little reading, a little editing, a little outlining and a whole lot of book cover making. 

Inkpop has dictated most of my time. I've met some really nice people and its fun to read the awesome projects that others have written. I do worry sometimes that I come on a little strong in my comments, since I live to line edit apparently, but all has been so far. I hope. I like to think I've been helpful to someone, at least. 

My favorite project so far is the wonderful, Margaret Loves Mr. Darcy by Brianna Elizabeth. Brianna has a way of writing scenes that makes me painfully envious. MLMD is funny and bittersweet and I enjoy reading it. Brianna has graciously allowed me to help with editing the project and I've also made a cover for it! The project now sits on the Top Five on the website, so as long as it maintains its position, it is heading for the editor's desks at HarperCollins. Good luck, Brianna!

As far as my own projects are concerned, Ghosts of Fallen Leaves has returned to my main publishing focus. I've got the whole project posted on Inkpop on a temporary basis. I'm curious to see how far it gets in the ranking system. Sooner or later, I'm going to have to start promoting it. I plan on starting the editing process again soon. Hopefully it will be ready for publication by the end of the summer. 

Some Say in Ice, the sequel to GOFL, has hit a few rough patches recently. I started writing from my outline and already I can tell it's a bit weak. I realized with a onslaught of dread that nothing actually happens in the book. Sure there are plenty of lovely scenes and the mystery is laid on just as thick, but at the end of the day, nothing is answered and there are barely any new questions. It was basically just a remashing of GOFL, which does me no good. Oh well, the middle books are always the hardest, aren't they? In order to fix its limpness, I've taken some planned parts from the third book and added them into the second. This significantly changes and enhances Nathaniel's role in the book, which is as it should be. He always seems like the most neglected character, which is silly because he's the one with the most to offer. I'm nearing completion of chapter one and I can't wait to move along with this story. 

In the meantime, I am being a bit distracted by another project. I don't want to talk about it too much just yet. The project is a planned trilogy and I'm in the process of outlining the entire thing. I've made it through the first book and find that I quite like it. The characters appeal to me and the plot, while rough at the moment, looks like it's going to be an interesting challenge. The general mood of this project should be much lighter than GOFL, and without the bittersweet fringes of Loch Raven, so we'll see if I'm able to pull it off properly. I won't begin any actual work on the story until I finish outlining the whole thing, which, at the rate I'm going, shouldn't be much longer now...

Very soon, I hope to be adding a book cover section to this blog. I would very much like to start helping authors fulfill their book cover needs. In the meantime, here is a selection of some of my work.