Megg Jensen's Blog, page 4

Editing HIDDEN: Step 7 - Finishing the First Edit & Writing the Last Chapter

Yes, you read the title correctly. At the end of the first full editing pass, that's when I write the last chapter. Often, that's when I write the first chapter too. With Hidden, I wrote the first chapter when I hit the halfway point of the book.

The first and last chapters should be a mirror of each other - presenting/solving the main problems. If it sounds simplistic, it is. Doesn't mean it's easy, but it is really is that simple.

On Monday, I wrote the final chapter of Hidden, tying up loose ends that relate to the main plot. Not every loose end. If you're familiar with my work, you know I tend to write series. Hidden is the first in a new series, so of course there are going to be a few mysteries left unanswered (and, yes, I'm making notes of those for the next book).

After completing that chapter (and doing a quick editing pass), I did a search for all of my tk notations. I replaced all of the tk notes with the word or name that actually belonged there. Then I ran spell check. That may have elicited a resounding "DUH!" but you'd be surprised how many times I've sent a doc to editing without running spell check. Not because I don't believe in it, but because I get so excited about someone else reading that I totally forget to do it.

What's next? Well, now I am 30% relieved the first pass is done and 70% scared everyone's going to hate it. I think that's normal. Right? *laughs nervously*

Once those edits come back, I'll start on my second full editing pass.

XoXo,

Megg

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She thought she stopped the evil. She thought she was saf...

She thought she stopped the evil.
She thought she was safe.
Everything she thought was wrong.
Almost four months have passed since Evie Starling learned she was a Tracker and helped defeat a Daevos Clan that was taking others like her, but that wasn't the end of the abductions. As an unknown evil emerges, Evie vows to help solve the mystery of the missing Trackers, regardless of the risk.
With new powers she doesn't understand and can't control, she turns to Alex and Emil, her two soul mates, for help. But her feelings for them both are tearing her apart.
As the world around her is thrown into chaos, Evie is confronted with what could be a destiny-altering truth. Will she accept her history, her memories, and her role in this life, or choose to ignore the echoes of her past?
Purchase Eternal Echoes AmazonBarnes and Noble
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About Angela
Angela Corbett graduated from Westminster College with a double major in communication and sociology. She started working as a reporter for her local newspaper when she was sixteen and won awards for feature, news, and editorial writing. She has also done freelance writing. In addition to writing, she works as a director of communications and marketing. She loves classic cars, traveling, and listening to U2. She lives in Utah with her extremely supportive husband and their five-pound Pomeranian, Pippin, whose following of fangirls could rival Justin Bieber's.
Angela writes under two names. Young Adult and New Adult titles are written as Angela Corbett. Adult titles are written as Destiny Ford.
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East of Eden by Lee Strauss

I'm excited to host my talented friend, Lee Strauss, on the blog today!!!


Super excited to launch my first Women's fiction/New Adult  Contemporary Romance
EAST OF EDEN!!


She has a past. He has a secret.
Katja’s a risk-taking singer-songwriter hoping to make it in the indie music scene in Dresden, Germany. Micah’s a brooding uptown banker on a quest.
There’s an undeniable attraction between them, a gravitational pull they both struggle to resist. Katja knows she mustn’t fall in love with this handsome enigma. There’s something dark lurking beneath the surface. He could be dangerous.
And even if her life isn’t on the line, her heart most definitely is.
Includes MP3 links to original music performed by Canadian Folk artist Kim McMechan.


Pre- orders now available!

itunes | kobo | Barnes & Noble

Lee Strauss writes mixed genre romance for upper YA and adult readers. She also writes light and fun stuff under the name Elle Strauss. To find out more about Lee and her books check out her author facebook page. You can also follow her on twitter @elle_strauss and on Pinterest. To find out about new releases sign up for her newsletter at www.ellestraussbooks.com






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Congrats to the Winners!

I've chosen a name from the contest I ran last week - Vinya (sounds like Vinnia). I can't wait to put it in the manuscript. As for what happens to this character...well, you'll have to read to find out. ;)

Thank you so much to Bobbi K. for suggesting the name!!!!!

The other winner was Lisa B. for the spread the word contest.

All prizes are in the process of being distributed. Thanks so much to everyone who participated!!!!

XoXo,

Megg

Editing HIDDEN: Step 6 - Dealing with Multiple POV

Thanks to everyone who entered my contest this week! I'll contact & announce the winners next week. :)

Before getting down to editing, just a quick notice - my second trilogy, The Swarm Trilogy, is on sale this weekend. Sleepers is FREE, Afterlife is 99 cents, and The Sundering is $2.99. If you don't have them yet, now is a great time to pick them up.




Okay, on to my next editing step.

This is a new step for me! HIDDEN is the first novel I've written in 3rd person with multiple points of view. When I sat down for my first major edit, I realized the second half of the book was out of order! The chapters didn't line up properly with the timeline.

You're probably thinking I pulled out my note cards for this task. Nope. I laid out all of the remaining chapters on the floor and sorted them into the proper order.

Why didn't I use my note cards when that clearly would have taken up less space? Cliffhangers.

My note cards gave plot basics. However, I wasn't exactly sure which chapters had the biggest cliffhangers and every good writer knows you switch POV right after a huge cliffhanger. It's how we keep readers engaged!

Here's what my floor looked like while I worked on it ... and Tanu approved!!!! (She's looking on curiously in the bottom right corner).



It's back to entering edits into my master document now that the story is actually in order. ;)

Happy editing!!!

XoXo,

Megg

Want to enter contests, win swag, and be told the moment my books go live? Sign up for my newsletter HERE. Thanks!

HIDDEN - Naming Contest!

If you've been with me for a long time, you know I love hosting naming contests. The first contest was for Anathema - and the winner chose the main character's name, Reychel.

I'm running a similar contest again - but I'm throwing a little twist into the mix.

There's a grand prize for the person who wins the naming contest - but I'm also giving away a prize package to one winner who helped spread the word.

CHARACTER NAMING CONTEST GRAND PRIZE:
- $25 Amazon gift card
- Your name in the Acknowledgements of HIDDEN
- A set of bookmarks
- An ecopy of HIDDEN when it releases
- An ecopy of MOTH, a newly released fantasy by Daniel Arenson, to keep you busy until HIDDEN releases

Help Spread the Word Prize:

- $5 Amazon gift card
- A set of bookmarks
- An ecopy of HIDDEN when it releases
- An ecopy of MOTH, a newly released fantasy by Daniel Arenson, to keep you busy until HIDDEN releases

To Enter Character Naming Contest:
 
The character: A woman, age 19, who is selfish and cruel. She's beautiful - blond and curvy. 

Comment below with your picks for the character's name. Only three (3) suggestions per person! If more than one person chooses the same name, and I wind up choosing it, the prize goes to the first person who suggested it.

If you don't have a registered Blogger account, please leave a way for me to contact you!!!!

Remember - I write epic fantasy. A name like Jane isn't likely to make the cut. Jayne, however, might.

I will choose the name I like best by November 12th and notify the winner!

To Enter Spread the Word Contest:

Check out all of the options in the Rafflecopter widget below.  
     

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Cover Reveal: Echoes in the Glass by Cheri Lasota

COVER REVEALECHOES IN THE GLASSBy Cheri Lasota
Releasing December 2013Publisher: Ever-Sea Press
Young Adult Contemporary RomanceFinnian bears the scar of an unspeakable crime. McKenna hides the pain of a terrible betrayal. When all their secrets are laid bare, will the truth rip them apart or forever silence the echoes of the past? Seventeen-year-old Finnian Bell has been on the run for years, but he finally has a chance to rebuild his life while restoring an abandoned lighthouse on the Oregon Coast. McKenna Lucas, the lightkeeper’s daughter, is still reeling from the pain of an event that has shattered her innocence. Fear and bitterness have turned her heart from Finnian, but he is determined not to let her go. The lighthouse harbors dark secrets of its own… When Finnian and McKenna uncover the story of two teens hidden in the tower back in 1934, they discover a shocking connection that bridges time and death.

   

About the Author Cheri Lasota has written poetry and fiction for sixteen years, edited fiction for nine years and recently jumped headlong into design work for enhanced e-books. She has a great love for all things techy, so she finds herself pushing the boundaries of e-book marketing and design at every turn. Her passion for fiction and helping other novelists achieve their goals is without limits.   Her bestselling debut novel, ARTEMIS RISING, is a 2013 Cygnus Awards First Place Winner and a 2012 finalist in the Next Generation Indie Books Awards. Cheri just released her how-to e-book DESIGN AND UPLOAD YOUR EPUB and is currently finishing up her second YA novel, ECHOES IN THE GLASS, set on the Oregon Coast.

  CheriLasota.com | Goodreads | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn  



And now a guest post from author Cheri Lasota on how the cover was created:

Today kicks off a season of events leading up to the release of my forthcoming Contemporary YA novel Echoes in the Glass in December 2013!
I've been dying to reveal the beautiful cover that Graphic Designer Steven Novak and Photographer Krista Weisz collaborated on for me. They brought my vision to life and then some!

How did the cover come about?

An image came to my mind fairly early on in my writing process for this novel. I pictured two figures facing each other, fingers touching. The guy is in present day and the girl is in 1934 and the same lighthouse stands between them, as a bridge to the present and an echo of the past. As you can see, Krista and Steven nailed it. =)

A lighthouse on the Oregon Coast features heavily in this story and the present day and 1934 storylines intertwine in unexpected ways, and it was important to me that the two time periods were represented on the cover. In talking over the possibilities with Krista Weisz, we decided to have her put out a call for models in her local area. The search was long, but in the end, they were worth the wait.

Krista took the models out to a gorgeous location and took a number of pictures in different settings. Many of those I was able to use for promotion pictures, such as the ones you see below. Beautiful, aren't they?!

Editing HIDDEN - Step 5: The First Major Edit

Yesterday I sat down with my manuscript and began editing. Content editing, mainly.

I love editing as much as I hate it.

It's amazing to take a rough draft and sculpt it into something publishable. At the same time, the amount of work that goes into revising a first draft is HUGE. For me, it is the longest, hardest, most painful part of the entire process from first idea to hitting the publish button.

Since I began HIDDEN more than a year ago, it's changed drastically. I need to almost completely rewrite the entire first act.

This does not make Megg happy. It makes Megg very grouchy.

For the foreseeable future, I'll be buried in those pages with a red pen and a purple highlighter. I'll be cursing and crying, and I'll likely quit a million times. Then I'll transfer to my computer with the damaged and beaten manuscript in my hands. Slowly I'll make all of those changes. I'll rewrite the ugly passages. I'll fill in the missing pieces.

And when I'm done, that's when HIDDEN will fly through the internet to my first editor.

How long will all of this take? I don't know. I worked for nine hours yesterday. I may slip in even more today and tomorrow. I could be done by Friday. It may not be until the week after. I just don't know. I'll work my butt off until it's done.

If you want specifics, here's what I'm looking for in my manuscript in this pass:

Any/all grammatical errors
Repeated words/phrases
Correct character names/spelling
Awkward sentences/phrases
Proper timeline
Chapters in the correct order
Story flow
Continuity
...pretty much anything that isn't perfect must be ripped to shreds

Wish me luck!

XoXo,

Megg

Want to enter contests, win swag, and be told the moment my books go live? Sign up for my newsletter HERE. Thanks!

Editing HIDDEN: Step 4 - Pacing

"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." - W. Somerset Maugham

After assuring myself that every chapter has a reason to be there (and if it didn't, deciding whether to scrap it or combine it with another), my next step is to check the pacing of my novel.

There are a lot of theories on pacing and more books and websites on the topic than you can ever read.

Some people swear by Save the Cat by Snyder. Others love Screenwriting Tricks for Authors by Sokoloff. Or you could go with a simple beat sheet calculator.

Me? I'm a HUGE fan of Martha Alderson. Her book, The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of Story Structure Any Writer Can Master, was one of the game changers in my writing life. I first began watching her videos on You Tube, which you should totally check out later. I bought her book on Kindle when it came out and I've referred to it a zillion times. While I love paper books as much as the next person, my Kindle app is far better because I would have destroyed a paper copy by now.

Because I have so much respect for Ms. Alderson and her methods, I'm not going to go into great detail. You should read her book or watch her videos. But, I will show you what I've done with my note cards for this pacing step...and you can find similar graphs on the web (but nothing quite as spectacular as hers) here.


By laying out my note cards in this way, I can easily segment Acts One through Three. I know where my midpoint and crisis fall. I can tell if I have too much in the middle or too much at the end. Basically, this one task tells me everything I need to know about the pacing of my book.

Next step? I'm diving into my first major line edit. Wish me luck!!!!

XoXo,

Megg

Want to enter contests, win swag, and be told the moment my books go live? Sign up for my newsletter HERE. Thanks!

Editing HIDDEN: Step 4 - Declaring WARS

Now that I have all of my note cards labeled, it's time to declare WARS.

W - Want
A - Action
R - Resolution
S -  Surprise

I'll be analyzing the chapter description on each note card to make sure it aligns with my WARS strategy.

Everyone in publishing says to keep your stories tight. Leave out the extraneous junk, right? The WARS strategy, coupled with the note cards, helps you do this.

W - Want: Your character should want something in each chapter. Have a goal in mind to propel them forward. That's much preferred to reading about George,
Courtesy of Microsoft Office Clipartsitting in a blue armchair, contemplating a squirrel. Unless, of course, your plot has something to do with the zombie apocalypse and an infected squirrel, which just happens to be George's focus of study.

A - Action: Once you know what your character wants in the chapter, take some action! George slips into his super-secret infectious disease lab hidden in his basement. There, he constructs a trap, designed to capture the squirrel while minimizing risk to himself.

R - Resolution: Resolve your character's want. George sneaks outside, sets an acorn in the trap, waits...and...SUCCESS! George has trapped the infected squirrel and he can now begin studying the virus.

S - Surprise: Don't let your reader relax. Everyone loves a good page-turner. End each chapter with some kind of lead-in to the next. It doesn't have to be a complete shocker or cliffhanger each chapter, but give your reader a reason to keep reading. You know what's coming, right? Poor George, despite all of his precautions, he gets bit by the zombie squirrel.

This is a critical step in the editing process. Not just because you want to make sure your chapters have proper internal structure, but also because this will affect everything coming up next.

What happens if you declare WARS on a chapter and you can't identify all four aspects? Look at what came before, or what comes next. Sometimes you can combine chapters and sometimes you need to rethink the chapter completely.

Once you've successfully completed these steps for each chapter, you'll find you have a solid base for the next step in my editing process.

XoXo,

Megg

Want to enter contests, win swag, and be told the moment my books go live? Sign up for my newsletter HERE. Thanks!