Finally… A title for Katherine’s story! Now onto Tommy’s title and covers for all! Oh and the writing… there is that.

While writing Katherine’s Story (still untitled) I decided I needed to bake some bread–the old-fashioned kind with yeast and sponges and rising dough that has to rest and breathe and get snuggly under a blanket before going into the oven. I used to bake a lot more but haven’t baked from scratch in a long time. And I am RUSTY!

As you can see from the beautiful photo of the finished product, the bread looks gorgeous. But in fact, the middle of it is dense and mealy. Yuck. Either my oven runs to hot or… well, something, I don’t know…

#‎amrevising‬ ‪#‎amwriting‬ ‪#‎charactersuptomischief‬ ‪#‎katherinesstory‬‪ #‎violetpendergrass‬ ‪#‎needatitle‬ 

Any ideas? The etching below was done by Henri Boutet, circa 1890…The wording is a very rough translation of the French that accompanies the picture. Funny sense of humor.

To celebrate Halloween and reading at the same time, I am offering you the chance to win these wonderful tales from past and present!  Edith Wharton’s Ghost Stories, A collection of ghosty tales from 1800-1849, Stephen King’s Joyland and a collection of vintage Halloween postcards! All you have to do to be entered is to either show up at my book talk on Monday at Shaler North Hills Library or comment about the best costume you ever wore and share the post! I’ll draw the winner on October 23, 2015.

I am part of the Meet the Author series at this wonderful library! It’s where I went for story time as a small child, did research in high school and now spend time writing when I wait for my daughter at her Act One Theater School practices! Love this place and I would love to see you there! Great conversation and cool Halloweeny giveaway for you avid readers!

 

 

As I rewrite Katherine’s story now that she is center stage in her very own book, I’ve found that most of it is done! But, I’m title-less for now. Because this book will now be book 3 in The Letter Series (The Garden Promise–Jeanie’s story–will be book 5 now) I think I should stay with the 3-word The ____ ____ pattern of the first two books. Will readers be confused if I stray from that? So much of success in writing stems from branding and making it easy for readers to recognize a book in a series, a book they want to read. Lots to consider…

I’ve re-sorted the chapter notecards according to each character’s story and done the same with the hardcopy of the document as it stands right now… Next: on to creating three different computer files so that I can rewrite each book! Shouldn’t take too long. Most of it is written–just need to redo so that it all works across the books and within each book. 
Problems:
Book titles for each of the new books. I think I’ll keep Jeanie’s book as “The Garden Promise” and come up with new titles for Katherine’s book and Tommy’s book. For now, the 1905 thread will go into only Jeanie’s story because she is the bridge between both kids in these stories. And as of now I’m thinking her story should be last in this series of 3… Or not… Is it better to show Jeanie’s story first and then break out into Katherine’s and Tommy’s? So much to consider, but I’m so excited to have made this decision. One 800 page book would have been too unwieldy and not marketable. Each of these will be around 300 pages once I’m done… Since pulling each character’s story out of the big one and into his own book I feel like making each tale correct and compelling is doable.