Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Tweeking a few paragraphs and moving forward

Woohoo, actually managed to get some writing time in on the next in the series of Into This Mind.
I had hoped to add some new lines, however, I ended up spending most of my time on the last few paragraphs.
Ever go in, change a line, then realize that one little change shifted the meaning of both that paragraph and the one before and after? It was that sort of change.
It feels good to visit Jena and her new friends again.

I've been reading Tia's writing blog which has been helping me to recharge and get more motivated to write more.

There's been a number of reasons that I haven't written for over a month. One of them being my dissappointment with my publisher. I finally took my publisher up on their offer to release me from my contract. I've been really upset about this practice they have of putting their authors books for sale only on Lulu. Lulu is a self publish site and anyone can use it. I didn't know when I signed my contract that putting my book on Lulu was their intention and based on the response this received on some of the forums I post on, I gathered it wasn't a typical for a traditional publisher to do

Other things that have been keeping me busy: my basement (I had work done on it.), volunteering (I helped out with Extreme Home Makeover Home Edition when they were in my home town), wrote an article for inlineplanet.com about Chris Howley and his quest to help his friend John Carter (I'll post the link once it's available), and my darling and adorable kittens (to of which are sleeping on my lap.)

Between volunteering and my kittens I'm a pretty happy person in spite of my dissappointment with my first published book.

Since my publisher never actually published my book anywhere other then Lulu, am I still published?

Although people can't order a copy from Lulu (my publisher removed the link),there are still books for sale from the first printing that can be ordered.

2 comments:

Tia Nevitt said...

It sounds like a terrible disappointment. Your experience and others have made me extremely wary of even well-respected small presses.

Sometimes you need to take some time off. I got critique burnout back in January and didn't write anything except blog stuff for weeks. I've come to realize that I need to be careful about who reads my work. The wrong sort of critique can really destroy your sense of creativity.

Lisa said...

Hi Tia,
I agree, you must be careful who you have read and provide feedback.
In the end, make sure you're happy with what you've written so that your confidence isn't shaken.

At this point, I'm even leary of the bigger presses!

The author of "Without A Net" said "There was a ton of hurry up and wait - I found it infuriating - and kind of rude. While I appreciated that one of the "big five" published my book, I didn't like the way they believed we "lesser-known" authors should be grateful just for the chance to be published by them."
She also said that it took 3 years from the final draft to the first publishing!
Sometimes I think I'd rather publish myself going forward. I'm starting to wonder if any of them treat (new) authors nicely!