Sidney Bell's Blog, page 9

A Little Sumthin'-Sumthin'

Want to read tidbits from Bad Judgment? Go here.

From now until the book comes out (Sept 19!), I'm gonna be releasing small bits of conversations and scenes on Facebook as part of Carina Press's Conversation Saturdays. They'll be short, but they'll come from different parts of the novel, not just the first chapter or two, like the official excerpt will, so you won't be re-reading something you may have looked at already.

And the official excerpt will be posted soon, I promise. But...not yet. (Y...

Breaking Up Ain't That Hard to Do

So a few months ago, I realized I had a plot hole in my WIP (that's work-in-progress,in case that's helpful). Just days after finishing the very rough first draft, something wasn't sitting right. Actually, it hadn't been sitting right for a while. I'd been in denial about how big that plot hole was because it meant major reworking, but I was so worn out from getting the draft done that I wasn't ready to deal with it yet.

I made a bunch of notes about maybe-this and maybe-that, banged out a pos...

A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever

So, Brexit happened.

Le sigh.

And in completely unrelated news, I have editing whiplash. This is what I call the extreme mood swings which accompany the very-involved revision process. Namely, this is due to two things--the aw shit moment when you realize that your talented editor has found actual flaws in your baby...erm, book...and the hallelujah feeling that accompanies turning in your oh, so brilliant edits.

Since there are lots of rounds of this, you do start to feel a bit like you're being...

Ta-Da! I have a cover!

I'm just gonna say it: I'm a control freak. And a perfectionist. And a workaholic.

This is probably part of why being a writer suits me--other than setting up some deadlines and saying "this has to happen at some point," my editor and publisher are pretty hands-off, and that means I get to be my own bossypants. And I'm more likely to over-do than procrastinate or under-do, so despite concerns about my psychological health, I tend to get stuff done when and how it needs to be done.

(This does no...

Revision, Bleh-vision

One of these days, I'm going to talk about an interview I did with a very lovely lady who helped me with research on Russian culture for my newest work-in-progress, which is currently on pause while I finish editing Bad Judgment. The post is gonna be amazing. It'll probably win awards, it's gonna be so good. Someone will tell me that they named their baby after me because of it. Or their puppy, which isn't as good, but is still better than nothing.

But that's a post that deserves more time and...

First Drafts. Or, Ode to Post-its

Okay, so I finished the first draft of my current work in progress (WIP, from now on). And boy is it rough. Really rough. Roughity-rough-rough. It is not fit for human eyes, which is why tomorrow I'm gonna get started on the second draft. I bought a red marker and everything. (I also bought some pretty Post-its as a reward. Yes, Post-its are perhaps a weird gift to oneself for a job well done but I am addicted to them, for reasons that will probably not be any clearer by the end of this post....

Mother, Name Thy Offspring

My book has a title! And even better, it's one that someone smarter than me came up with!

No, it probably wasn't her.

Now, you're probably already aware of the title, since I've plastered it all over the site, so you win double cool reader points for bothering to read this post anyway. Hats off to you, devoted reader.

One of these days I'm gonna have a cover too, and then, whoa. It's officially gonna be a book.

Enter Eventual Awesome Blog Post Title Here

I suck at titles. It took me ages to get to a working title for my first book--which I'm not going to mention because it's awful. And which will not, as you may know, be the actual title of the book. The working title came directly from a line of dialogue that Brogan says to Embry, and I thought that it was fairly generic, as titles go, but far better than anything I’d come up with so far, so…done.

But the problem is that my editor and the marketing team were concerned that it sounded more rom...

Mornings: Or, Being Inconsistently Awesome at Life

Because of my day job, it's hard for me to get an uninterrupted stretch of time to write during the week. I work from 8:30 to 5, and by the time I've gotten home and cooked and eaten and caught up with the husband a bit, it's nearly 7 and, to be honest, by that time of night, I don't have the critical thinking skills left to write a grocery list, let alone work on a novel.

So I'm a morning writer, even though the thought of getting up early makes me want to tie someone's shoelaces together whe...