Kristin Albright's Blog, page 3

OC Me Cover Reveal

Happy Monday! I wanted to share the cover design for OC Me. I went back and forth on so many options for this cover. The big thing in YA fiction right now is photo covers and I absolutely love them. However, I felt that if I went with that trend I would risk OC Me being categorized as YA romance. While there is a love story in it, it is first and foremost a coming of age novel. I kind of like the simple lines, what do you think?

Summer sweet summer! An update on my writing projects.

The word of the summer just might be "progress." I am ALMOST done with OC Me. During the month of June I had three new beta readers go over the manuscript. Two of them I've never even met in real life (yup, I'm getting brave!) Due to their awesome feedback, the book has grown several thousand words in length, and become even stronger. My editor has been quick to go over the technical needs of the new scenes, and they are all cleaned up and ready to go!

The next items on my "to do" list are to: formally establish a publishing house/imprint, have the manuscript professionally formatted, and have the cover designed. I am planning on taking care of all of these this month (July 2014). If all goes to plan, OC Me should be available by the end of summer.

In the meantime, a new story idea has popped into my head and will NOT leave me alone. It is another contemporary YA story and I am in full-out research mode right now. My library notifications are going crazy and my pinterest board is full (but it's set to secret so you'll just have to wait!) I am refusing to go much further on the new idea until I take care of finishing up the fantasy series. SO...

What about the fantasy series? Totem and Summit have been on the back burner since earlier this year when I started the push to get OC Me ready for publication. Last weekend I spent a lovely morning sitting along the shore of Lake Michigan with my best friend and her boyfriend, (both avid fantasy readers) discussing a particular character, who will (for now) remain nameless.  I took lots of notes and am looking forward to finally putting my attention back on that series.

To All the Book Moms - Happy Mother's Day!

So this is a post for all the female writers out there - sorry guys, you get to have a Book Father's Day next month ;)  I just wanted to say to all the women who have gestated a story, you are awesome. To all the book moms who have published (the equivalent of giving birth), I salute you. I've had the absolute pleasure of being a mom to two human children and am looking forward to getting my book babies out into the world some day. But for those who have paved the path for me and other writers I want to say thanks! And I want to wish you a Happy Mother's Day! Thank you for nurturing your stories, and believing in them, and sharing them with the world. The world is certainly a better place for it. Happy Mother's Day!

My "research" for OC Me - a young adult novel

I knew I would eventually be asked questions about my book, OC Me. I knew someone would ask why I wrote it or what inspired it. Despite knowing the questions were coming, I was unprepared to answer them. Then a couple of nights ago (on twitter) I got into a conversation with a fellow writer and told her about my books. She asked if I had to do a lot of research to write OC Me. There wasn't a simple answer to the question, so I took the easy way out and told her yes. And that was an honest answer... I did do a lot of research on OCD, but the research wasn't done to write the book; it was done when I was diagnosed.

Like many other people that have OCD, I wasn't born with specific fears or compulsions. I lived more than two decades of my life thinking there was nothing different about me or the way my brain worked. Most people with OCD aren't diagnosed until they are in their teens or early twenties; I was a 23 year old first-year teacher when I found out I had OCD. And it was a hard diagnosis for me to come to terms with. This blog post - is the first time I've "spoken" publicly about having OCD.

I need to take a second to point out that OC Me is not my story - it is in no way a memoir. It is the fictional coming of age story of Amy, a high school girl who struggles with the onset and diagnosis of OCD. I wrote it because I struggled with my own onset and diagnosis of OCD and this was a book I needed to read; I needed a protagonist that I could root on and relate to. When I was first diagnosed, I looked for a novel with OCD as a main theme and at the time, all I found were self-help books. 

In OC Me, Amy really is a regular girl; she could sit next to you in calculus or babysit your neighbor's children. She doesn't check her locker door 14 times before she leaves for class, she doesn't wear gloves to touch door knobs, and she's not upset by a messy room. In other words, you would not see that she has OCD because her anxiety is not visible in the stereotypical ways that movies and tv shows like to illustrate. Perhaps her case of OCD is on the milder side, but it is a scenario that should be understood. With one in every 40 people in the US estimated to have OCD, it is likely that you know multiple people like Amy - like me. 

I wrote the book slowly over the course of several years and went through the process of querying agents and publishing companies. I did have one company that was interested enough to communicate with me about the project, but they closed down during the time period that they were considering my manuscript. The shut-down meant that all potential acquisitions were halted so I never got their final feedback.

Fast forward to the present. With the accessibility of ebooks and the technological advances that have made self-publishing a viable option, I decided that was the route I wanted to pursue.  I have just started going over things with my editor one last time, and am currently researching cover designers. I hope OC Me will be available by the end of the summer (2014). An updated blurb should be available on the book page soon.

So back to the original question... research? Yes, I researched this book as authentically as anyone could. Then, going beyond my own experience, I gave a draft to a friend who is a licensed therapist that works with youth with OCD. Amy's story is not my story, but I drew from my own experience to write hers. I hope it can help readers understand that OCD is a unique experience for each person affected.

So there it is...I guess this post is a good example of what happens when a question can't be answered in 140 characters :) 

Discovering the awesomeness of Google Documents and Track Changes

Maybe I'm a bit behind the technological curve, but I am very excited to be trying out google documents with track changes for one of my current WIP's.  The editing phase of Totem was tolerable, but very time consuming. My beta readers would make changes to my word documents, highlight the change, and send them back to me when they had finished the whole book. Then I would click through three to six different versions of changes trying to remember which commas I had already added, and trying to keep strait which document I had open. If I had been working with just one person at a time, and if we would have had the same version of Word it probably would have been easier. I did try track changes with one reader, but our versions of Word were different (mine is not current) and her comments would show up nowhere near where she intended them to be. So she went back to highlighting the text whenever she made a change.

Anyway, my husband watched over the course of months as I painstakingly typed in all of the edits. He had recently purchased a Chromebook for himself and asked me to try it out as he thought one would make a good replacement for my netbook which is nearing the end of its natural life.

My thoughts on the google doc track changes so far? It's pretty cool! I like that I can "accept" or "decline" an edit at the click of a button and in real time. That means me and my editor can be working on the same document simultaneously and our changes are showing up on each other's screens. Another perk is that I can allow multiple people to be working on the same document - each person can pick a color for their changes to be highlighted in and away we go again, all at once! It's like a party minus the music and snacks. My editor has recently relocated to the UK, so that adds an additional level of "whoa" to the equation for me. 

I have to say that (so far) this is a massive upgrade from the first time I edited this manuscript. Way back in 2010, I had my readers edit printed versions of the manuscript. Ouch! Here's to saving time, money, trees, and frustration. I'm sure I will find things about google docs that are imperfect, but for now I will celebrate and enjoy and edit.

Is anyone else in love with google docs?!? Let me know if there is anything I should know!