Pamela Sanderson's Blog, page 12

How Season of Us Came to Be Written, Part 2

Dahlia from my garden.

What I didn’t mention in my previous post was how much I loved working on this project.

I go through cycles of insomnia and normally when I wake up in the middle of the night, I stare at the ceiling unhappily. During the project I would happily get up and start working. I was constantly coming up with ideas I wanted to work into the story.

At the end of May I finished a draft on The Project of Forever 2 and as a reward I decided to finish Season of Us. And to incentivize myself, I hired an editor and got myself on the calendar. Then I recruited my beta readers and gave them a hard date when I would give them a draft.

The 44K draft was a bit of a mess. For example, I knew Shelly was involved in some sort of business but I wasn’t sure what. And I knew she would have a sidekick but changed my mind between friend, sister, sister-in-law and mother-in-law. I took a long weekend to map it all out and make an outline so I knew what I needed to fill in. It took me two months to get it figured out and expand the manuscript to 75K.

This is amazing speed for me. I’m not a fast writer plus I have a fairly demanding day job. I’m also the person most responsible for keeping my household from falling apart. Three cheers for the outline.

Then it was ready for the beta readers.

How Season of Us Came to Be Written, Part 1

Southern Oregon

I wrote Season of Us at the challenge of a friend.

I had been (and still am) working on something I refer to as: The Project of Forever. I also had a separate shorter piece I was working on that became the Project of Forever #2. I was banging my head against the wall with both projects.

So when the challenge came, I was ready to try something new. I’ve always wanted to write contemporary romance. The first novel I ever attempted was romance. Actually, that’s not completely true. I tried to write a book when I was a kid. It was about a girl with horses. (Of course.)

November was coming. I had a vague idea. I knew Zach would be a professional soccer player and Shelly would be someone older and a little more stable. I had a couple of ideas for scenes and I mapped out a couple of key moments.

When November 1st came, I went for it.

The goal for NaNoWriMo is 50K words. My goal was 40K because I decided, “I’m not crazy.” I managed to do 44K and had a beginning, middle and end.

I considered this a success.

Then I put it away and went back to flogging on The Project of Forever.

The October Update

This action cat is Noah. He lives next door.

I’ve been *this* close to an update for weeks now. I don’t understand how a person with such a dull life could be so busy during such a short time. Family. Friends. Fun events. I have posts half-written and photos to share.

We’re getting close. The manuscript is done. I’m in the process of turning it into a book and getting everything else rolling.

I think next weekend it will all come together.

Debut Novel Coming Out SOON!

Because my technical skills match my wine expertise (I know enough to sound like I know what I’m doing, without really knowing what I’m doing) it has taken me all morning to get this far and now I need to be off and doing other things.

This will all be updated soon. Meanwhile, what you need to know is this: my first romance novel: Season of Us will be coming out probably at the beginning of November 2015. I have free copies for review.

If you managed to find me here (yeah, how did you find me?),  contact me at pam at pamelasanderson.com for a review copy. I have sticker/bookmarks, too, if don’t mind sending me a snail mail address. Don’t worry, I will not collect that for any purpose. Once the sticker/bookmark is gone, I will erase your snail mail from all memory.

The book is a contemporary with humor. There’s a dog. The dude is professional soccer player. The heroine is a terrific and talented lady with a tragic past.