Fiction Friday: [Full of Facts]

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For the first time since the birth of this blog, there will not be any fiction in this week’s Fiction Friday. Not wanting to leave you empty handed, I now present to you…Fact-Filled Friday:

Fact 1: I participated in CampNaNoWriMo this month and…I won! Yay! I left the preset goal of 50,000 words and at 2:30am on July 30th, I’d reached 50,293. Then, I got this:

Fact 2: Despite committing to write a ridiculous amount of words in a ridiculous amount of time, I left New York City to attend a gorgeous wedding (congrats Lauren & Franklin!) in a gorgeous town (Healdsburg, CA). This is definitely not NYC:

Fact 3: I’ve heard back from all of the Beta Readers except for one. The nervousness I had sending my baby—I mean my book—out into the world has been replaced with an overwhelming sense of pride. Not only was the feedback more positive than I’d prepared myself for—because, of course, I’d armored up—but the readers proved to be smart and insightful with their critiques. I’m really excited about jumping back into the book and doing some tweaking. If you guys are reading this: THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

Fact 4: Today is the first day of the Writer’s Digest Conference here in NYC! I am super excited…and nervous. It will be my first writerly step on the road to becoming a published author—aside from writing and editing the book, of course. Nerves or not, I’m ready. Armed with notebook and pen I’ll be diving in head first and wading through the amazing sessions they have lined up. Also, I'll be participating in Pitch Slam which is basically speed dating, but with agents and editors. Stay tuned for posts of what I hope to be an awesome experience at the three day conference. Please wish me luck!

Fact 5: Next week, we will return to our regularly scheduled program…

Book Update: [Beta Readers]

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Whoa, it's been a while since I’ve updated you guys on the progress of my book! For the past several months, I have been mired in carving and shaping the story into something I wouldn’t be embarrassed by. Hacking away at flowery dialogue, adding new scenes and slimming down drawn out passages that would surely put readers to sleep. I’ll post about my editing journey soon, but for now I have something else to share.

I have found my way to a fourth draft and it is officially out in the world! Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration. It’s in the hands of Beta Readers, which for me—the only one to have read the book so far—feels like I've exposed myself to the whole wide world.

Hitting send was both super exciting and super nerve wracking. Exciting because I feel confident about the story and because there are several scenes that I’m extra proud of. Nerve wracking because, well, what if my rose colored glasses are thicker than I thought they were? I guess I’ll find out soon…

In other big news—and why I’m looking forward to getting feedback—I have signed up to attend the 2014 Writer’s Digest Conference in August. I can't wait to meet other writers and learn as much as I can from sessions targeted at helping me to become a better writer. I also signed up for one of the Pitch Slam sessions, where I will have 90 seconds to convince an agent that my book is worth them taking the risk. Yikes! If nothing else, it will be an amazing learning experience.

Well, that’s it for now and I promise to blog about the trials and tribulations of editing soon. Thanks for reading!