Happy Easter, everyone! Today, I will be sharing the piece of my writing journey surrounding my most recent children's book, Especially You. 

After the publication of What I Do Know, writing and putting out Especially You was much easier for a lot of reasons. The biggest one? I wasn't afraid of it anymore. I wasn't afraid of putting out such a short piece of writing, and more importantly, I wasn't afraid of illustrating anymore. 

The idea for Especially You came to me in the summer of 2023, as I was finishing up my day's work for the UURC. I was thinking about my son as I logged off my computer, and I was so inspired that I pulled out a blank piece of printer paper that I had beside my desk, and I scribbled down a poem.

Initially, Especially You was going to be about eight pages longer. However, as I worked to create the character - which I named Owlie - it was clear that I needed to cut and rearrange some things and really streamline the message. So, I did. When I first started illustrating, I went back and forth quite a bit between the idea of having my character be a tan bunny, or a gray owl. I ended up going with the owl, and the illustrating process somehow got even easier (though I definitely find owls to be a lot more complicated to draw than bunnies).

Once I had a good idea of what I wanted my character to look like, I began going through and figuring out what I wanted on each page. Then, I created some very rough sketches. Over the next several months, I sat up with my husband late at night, watching movies, listening to MrBallen, or watching my husband play video games as I illustrated after we put our baby to bed. I challenged myself to learn more about using texture in my illustrations, and stuck with a very specific, kid-friendly color scheme. 

Finally, I had colored, textured illustrations for every page in the story. I added text, keeping my font consistent throughout the story. Then, I did another consistency check - I made sure that every version of Owlie that appeared had the consistent details I wanted him to have. I went through the story and worked on backgrounds, so that even the patterns of the sky's appearance were cyclical, and I added shadows to my illustrations. 

In my proofing process, I made minor tweaks to the page sizes several times to get them to look exactly how I wanted to, and I added a darker outline to my main character so he would stand out against his surroundings more clearly. After adjusting my pages so many times, I realized that, when I combined my page files, I forgot a layer, so when I resized, the outlines were off. I went in and fixed that issue, and resubmitted and reproofed my document. I also worked to develop a handful of different descriptions and synopses for the book. ​

After the document was all squared away and ready for release, I started something I hadn't done before. I gathered together a "street team" to push my marketing and spread the word in ways I've never known, or dared, to do. Mandi Lynn's "My Book Launch Planner" was a huge help in figuring out how to spread the word about my new book. 

I wanted to do something special for my street team, and I also wanted to give them all Advance Reader Copies of the book. I printed and bound each of them a hard-cover edition to read and review. I sent them weekly prompts for things to post on their social media about, including their favorite page, their favorite quotes, cover reveal, and even some fun drawing challenges. It was an experience that I loved and will definitely be doing again! 

In addition to utilizing an amazing street team, I designed stickers and book marks, and began reaching out to local libraries and bookstores to inquire about hosting book readings and signings. I am still working to set up events and find fun, new ways to promote my book. As of right now, I'm looking into commissioning someone to make little Owlie stuffed animals to go with the book, and I'm looking to create a coloring book version for kids to have even more interactivity with the story.

I am loving the challenge that comes with every new area I look into. Illustrating this book has continued to inspire me to hone my digital artistry, which I've found incredibly useful in designing the cover and promotional materials for my next book.

Today's post brings us through my most recent published work. I'll post another chapter of my writing journey when my new novel, Bound releases later this year. For now, check back weekly for other things I've learned about writing, publishing, marketing, and more. 

Throughout my childhood, I was fascinated by the idea of writing and illustrating my own books. I'd craft and staple together books of all kinds, and always on the front "cover," usually made of colored construction paper, I would write "WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY" big and bold in crayon or marker or whatever else I could find that makes thick lines and deep impressions. I would parade these works around the house, showing anyone who would look these books that I had made. 

As an adult the idea of writing a book alone was daunting enough, but illustrating added another layer of fear that I wanted desperately to overcome, but I didn't know how. I've written a handful of potential children's books since my introduction into the publishing world, but whenever it came down to actually illustrating them (or finding someone who could illustrate them for me), I just couldn't get myself past that fear. 

Then, something wonderful happened. I had my son. In the first month and a half of his life, I found myself constantly writing things down that I needed to learn about, look up, or do differently. As I suspect many parents do, I had a difficult time transitioning to having this little human to care for despite meticulous planning. More than that, however, I wasn't prepared for how much love I would have for the little guy. I was compelled to write everything down in a way that I could share with him as he grew up, and thus, What I Do Know was born. 

I wrote and illustrated What I Do Know with permanent marker on plain white printer paper, and I actually wrote and illustrated at the same time, drawing and writing new pieces as I went. When I was about halfway finished with the first draft, I showed it to my husband, who was so moved. I felt like I was doing something good, creating something not only so special that I could share with my baby boy, but something I could share with other parents out there who have been through the same experience. So, I kept at it. 

When I finished my first draft, I scanned the pages I'd drawn and imported them into Procreate, the digital art platform that I use (and love) for my book-related art projects. Using Procreate, I brought those permanent marker sketches to life, adding color and texture and even more meaning as I went. I also went through and erased most of my hand-written text so the book could have a more consistent and professional look.

Now, I have to tell you here that there are some things I know now that would have made this process a lot easier, and my book look a lot better. For example, I did not know that you can add text to your images through Procreate (I know, what a newb, right?). The amount of time I would have saved if I'd just played around with my program a little bit more still comes to mind when I think about my process for this book. All the digital aspects of this book's illustrations were done either using a round-tipped stylus or my finger, which also took quite a bit of time and left me frustrated more often than not. I also hadn't realized that there's actually a recommended number of fonts to use within a book, and I definitely exceeded that number. 

Despite the things I didn't know when creating this book and putting it out, I was able to get the text added, illustrations completed and adjusted, book proofed, and finally, published. As far as marketing goes, I increased the amount of social media posts I did, including announcements and cover reveals, and even got to do a little bit of in-person marketing when I presented at a conference for work the week after What I Do Know was released, when I ran into some people I worked with when I was teaching, who asked me if I was still writing books. 

What I Do Know, my first illustrated and published children's book, is dear to my heart for so many reasons. I'm grateful I can share a sliver of my experience with other parents and their kids. I'm thrilled that I get to share it with my own kid as well, who pulls this book off the shelf to flip through all the time. I'm also incredibly grateful that this book helped get me past yet another of my fears and allow me to learn amazing things along the way. 

Next week's post will catch me up to the present, and my current projects. Check back next week for chapter 7, where I'll write about my experience in writing, illustrating, publishing and marketing my second children's book, Especially You.​

Hello all! Happy Saturday, and happy St. Patrick's day tomorrow! To those of you who are new to these posts, welcome. If this post interests you, you can scroll down for more. To those who have come back for the next chapter, welcome back! 

So far, we've covered my debut novel and the two other books I published in that series, as well as a poetry and short story compilation I put out as those books were in the works. Today, I'll cover two books that I wrote simultaneously that helped me get out of that series comfort zone. 

Since my debut novel released in 2017, I have worked hard to release at least one book every year. 2021 is the first (and so far, the only) year that I didn't reach that goal, but I was still plenty busy! Between September of 2019 and March of 2021, I worked on drafting a realistic fiction romantic comedy style novel that is still yet to be released. (More to come on this book in the future). By the beginning of March 2021, I had finished the very rough draft for that novel. When I finished it, I was pumped! I immediately got to work on writing Clairvoyance, based on a dream I'd had earlier that year, that I had talked about at length with my husband on one of our long weekend drives. The words seemed to fly from my fingertips, and I made a habit of writing for at least thirty minutes every. single. day. Those thirty minute times that I squeezed in after work would often turn into forty-five minutes or even an hour as I was just in my zone. 

Within a month, I had finished my first draft.

Then, I started in on the multi-faceted editing process, which was pretty similar to what I did with Emerald Shadow. I read, re-wrote, cut and added things, line edited, sent out for beta reading, edited again, and proofread. 

This book was different than the others I had published previously, for a few reasons.

Clairvoyance was the first novel that I published outside the Azure Light collection, and the first light science fiction piece I have written. In this story, I explored the adventure of a girl who can read minds. I wrote about her complicated family dynamics (and those of others in the story). I wrote about my character's imprisonment, and the corruption of those who had captured her. This story had a much different feel than that of my other novels. 

This was the first time I created the art for my cover. This was not as easy as I thought it would be. I had been looking to get into digital art, and finally had the means to do so. I really thought about the concepts I wanted to portray with my cover and used different textures and drew out my character in her jumpsuit to do so. Although I went with a fairly simple design, this process was a springboard for me to learn more about digital art, graphic design, and what it takes to make a professional looking book cover, all of which are ever evolving lessons for me as I continue to practice and improve. 

Clairvoyance was also the first book that my husband didn't read before I published it. In fact, I usually read bits and pieces to him that I'm excited about as I write, or at least talk about the story nonstop. When I had him read Emerald Shadow, I ordered him a proof copy prior to publishing, and he helped me comb through it with a red pen. For Clairvoyance, I wanted to see what he thought once the book was completed. When I ordered my author copies, he picked his copy and read it as if it were any other book he might have purchased at the book store. I sat awake at night for about a week as he read, and I couldn't wait until I got his feedback. His keen eye caught a handful of errors that were missed throughout the editing process, so I was able to get those fixed thanks to KDP's flexible file uploading and republishing.

As difficult as it was waiting for feedback, doing it this way was so helpful to me, because I was able to get a different perspective from him than I normally do. It took a level of bias out of the process, which was hugely helpful. When he was finished, we had long discussions about the things that had worked for the story, just like we do with other books we read together. He, and others who have read my work, still tell me that Clairvoyance is my most polished, most cohesive piece yet. This is what we want as writers, right? To have someone be able to tell the growth that we've made? For me, this is a huge deal. 

Now, as far as marketing goes (both leading up to release day and after), I didn't do much that was new. I talked a lot more about my books - especially this one - leading up to release and after it was out in the world, and I think this was hugely helpful for me to gain the confidence necessary to say, "I'm an author." This was also helpful for me, because it gave me the space to develop my "elevator speech" regarding my books. I had to learn how to summarize the story and entice potential readers in the span of a sentence or two. 

Later, I would do more marketing for Clairvoyance when I released its hardcover version, but that's a later step in the journey. 

Next week, we'll explore how I wrote, edited, and published my first children's book, What I Do Know, and what I learned from that process. Hope to see you then! 

To all those who are new here, welcome! I am working through my publishing process for each of my published works and recounting some of the things I have learned along the way. I hope you find these posts useful. To everyone who is returning for this new chapter, welcome back! Let's dig in!

My debut novel, Azure Light, took me over five years to write. Aside from that first book, its sequel, Emerald Shadow, took me the longest to write. I immediately started drafting this sequel the moment I finished writing Azure Light, and I continued writing and re-writing this story from different angles for over three years. I think I re-wrote my first chapter alone at least nine times. 

I took this novel to a class I was taking in my final semester of college in 2018, long before its first draft was completed. In this class, everything I wrote for this novel was put under a microscope - by my professor, and by my peers. That was hard to take, but I learned SO MUCH from it. In this class, I learned how to write a cover letter for a publisher, and a synopsis for a publisher, which is very different and far more detailed than a cover synopsis. I had no idea! It never occurred to me that publishers want to know everything that happens in your story, and that spoilers were actually a good thing.

I also learned so much more about world building in the most unexpected ways. My story was put to the test because the majority of the other people in my class were readers and writers of nonfiction and realistic fiction. Fantasy was something not many of them were fond of.

So, I had to really dig deep and tap into my descriptions. Show them what the world was like, rather than expecting them to imagine it on their own. Sounds easy, right? Sounds like common sense. But for me, someone who has been reading a wide range of genres my entire life, someone who could build an entire world and play an entire cast of characters by myself growing up, this was a major challenge! I saw what I wanted everyone else to see when I wrote, but it took extra focus and extra work pulling myself out of my story to really see if what I was putting on the page was actually what I thought I was putting there. This is still something I'm working on, and this is the reason my work goes through so many layers and types of editing. 

When I finished drafting the story and started in on my first whole-book developmental edit, I ended up re-writing it yet again, this time pushing myself to write chapters from different character's perspectives in order to show everything that was going on in the story at one time. This really brought the story to life for me, where before I felt it fell flat.

Then, I realized something else - my story was inconsistent. I had items that I had created or mentioned in the first story that I thought, "I'll definitely remember to bring this back up in the sequel" that I completely left out! I had scenes where a character was holding something one moment and then the item was gone the next. I also realized inconsistencies with the characters, and some things they were doing in the story that were out of character. This was not because it was intentionally written that way to further the plot or give depth to the character, but because I simply wasn't thinking about those things when I wrote those parts of the story. 

Discovering these inconsistencies prompted me to do two big things:

First, the discovery prompted me to push my deadline. I had never done that before, but I ended up totally reworking my launch checklist and the deadline I set for myself, because there were a lot of holes that needed to be addressed. 

Second, I went back and re-read my first book. Have you ever gone back and re-read your written works once you were published and well out of the editing phases? Let me tell you, it was shocking. Even in just a few short years, my writing skills had grown exponentially, as had my attention to detail and my editing strengths. Still, reading the first book was also enlightening, because it brought up a lot of details I had forgotten over time. So, with several colored markers and a giant poster board, I started writing everything down. I made note of every character trait I wanted to address, every device I wanted to incorporate in the sequel, every setting descriptor that I could transfer and build upon. 

With this new tool (which I would much later learn is called a style sheet), I went back yet again to do a major re-write. I hired a model (Thank you, Alex!) for the cover, and got everything ready to go, formatting and all. Then, I decided to do my final line editing and copy editing on paper (I usually do these final edits on a printed copy - it helps me keep better track of things). Rather than printing everything out again, though, I ordered my proofing copy and edited that. That was so much more convenient! I loved going through the book with a colored pen and marking everything up, and then it was much easier to put those edits back into my computer, because the book was already bound, and therefore I wouldn't have to shuffle through, mix up, or lose pages. 

​There is one more huge new thing I learned in the process of putting ​Emerald Shadow out into the world: Book trailers, related artwork, countdowns, announcements, and reveals are crucial tools to marketing. I made my first book trailer. It was awful quality, but I did it, and I learned a lot from it. I did my first cover reveal and posted on social media regarding my book, and I got a little more traction for this second novel than I had for any of my other books up to this point. 

Everything in that last paragraph is always work in progress for me, even still. With each book, I grow a little more confident. I learn a little bit more about the process, and about my process. That's all I'll write for now. Check back next Saturday for the things I learned from Clairvoyance and other works I wrote around the same time. 

See you next week! ​

In 2018, I took a course on novella writing. In this class, I would need to write an entire novella, start to finish. I spent the first week of class stressing out about what I was even going to write about. At this point, I was well into the drafting of my second novel, ​Emerald Shadow, and that was pretty much all I could think about. 

One night, I was walking with my husband and talking about all the ideas I'd been able to come up with. Now, he's amazing. He questions me, and he's not afraid to poke at my ideas to see if they hold. One idea I had came from a dream I'd had a few nights earlier, as I had stayed up way too late working on my manuscript, and that flow followed me into my dreams. I was inspired to look at a character from Azure Light, Rohvoc, who actually isn't really in the story at all, but who drives the plot and motivates the main character to chase after the light as an alternative to marrying him. 

I remember telling my husband about the direction I wanted to go. I told him about how I had portrayed this character as a bad guy in that first novel, but that he wasn't really a bad guy; he was just someone going through a rough patch in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wanted to write his story, and incorporate some of the things I'd mentioned him doing in the first book, but from his perspective. My husband and I batted around ideas for that entire walk, through the night, and into the next morning. And my goodness, I was so excited to tell the story. 

I wrote this novella in three weeks: 45 minutes a day, twice a week. This experience was the first time I actually mapped out my story on paper before hand, and drew out the power struggles and pains that my character would face. It was the first time that I looked closely at complicated family dynamics, abuse, and the character defining moments that come along with these challenges. It was the first time that I described an injury that wouldn't heal properly, and the first time I dared to write out someone's death. This was also the first time I wrote from a male perspective, with a totally different voice and worldview.

It was different, and a little scary, and so much fun! I felt like I was able to let go of some of the fear I had about people I knew reading my writing and judging me for the things I had to say. 

Of course, this story went through several versions as I finished my class and took it further. I planned out the cover more meticulously, and dressed the model (Thank you, Noah!) up in clothing that matched the time in the story. I paid attention to the details. This is also the first time I incorporated graphics to display some of the journal entries Rohvoc makes throughout his story, and although the graphics were fairly simple ones, they were an extra aesthetic layer that I hadn't tried yet. 

Were there things I would have done differently? Yes. Were there things I still needed to learn? Oh, absolutely! But in writing this book, I connected with a character on deeper levels, in ways that I hadn't felt confident enough to explore in my first novel. I considered more deeply what drives a character, what makes them who they are. My cover design was simple. Yes, I know I just said that I paid more attention to the details and was intentional with my cover photo, and I was. But there are lot of things I still didn't know about cover design. 

Writing this story also awoke in me the realization that I had SO MUCH WORK to do for my next novel. I had so many things that I needed to keep track of for consistency's sake. I started a list that would guide me through the remainder of my writing and revision process for Emerald Shadow.  But we'll get into that next time. Thanks for reading, and as always, tell your story!