Author:
Kacey Vanderkarr
Release
date: April 1st, 2014
Genre:
Young Adult, Fantasy
Sometimes you find home, sometimes
it comes looking for you.
Callie knows a lot more about pain
than she does about family. She’s never belonged, at least, not until she falls
through a portal into her true home. The beautiful faerie city of Eirensae
doesn’t come free. Callie must find her amulet and bind herself to the city,
and most importantly, avoid the Fallen fae who seek her life. Seems like a
small price to pay for the family she’s always wanted.
Then she meets cynical and gorgeous
Rowan, who reads the darkness of her past in her eyes. He becomes Callie’s
part-time protector and full-time pain in the ass. He has secrets of his own
for Callie to unravel. What they don’t know is that the future of Eirensae lies
with them, and the once peaceful city is about to become a battleground for
power.
Guest Post:
For my guest post today, I decided
to dig into my archives and revisit one of my favorite blog posts I’ve ever
written from June 6, 2011. If you’ve ever edited a manuscript, you’ve been
right where I was 3 years ago.
Enjoy!
Recently I’ve been editing my first
manuscript and have discovered that it’s truly a PROCESS! It’s sort of like
withdrawal from a really addictive drug. Here you have your manuscript, something
you’ve spent hours, days, weeks, months (and maybe even years) methodically
tapping out on your computer. You’ve missed sleep, you’ve skipped family
gatherings, you’ve called in sick to work. Your characters have consumed your
free time, your friends all know them by name and consider them real people,
you dream about them.
You eat, sleep, breathe your story.
Finally, the day you’ve been
waiting for arrives! Sighing to yourself at your accomplishment, you type those
final words onto the screen. Grinning, you watch the cursor blink on and off.
You imagine it’s clapping for you. You blink yourself back to reality and look
around your house, realizing that you’ve neglected a few things. Your husband
no longer wears underwear, the lawn is a jungle, and your child is eating out
of the cat dish.
Still grinning, you turn back to
the manuscript. The cursor is still clapping for you.
You open a new tab. You go to
Google.
You type: Publish my manuscript.
You peruse the results and manage
to stumble across a website designed for idiots who think they know about
getting published. You stalk the forums, you post what you think a query is.
You get your words shredded and handed back to you in a doggie bag. Your
realize 125,000 words doesn’t fit into your genre.
You cry.
You open your manuscript again. Now
the cursor isn’t clapping! It’s mocking you!! “Ha! Hahaha…” it says.
You curse and scream. You beg and
plead for exceptions. You go back to the forums and search for them.
You find none.
Sighing to yourself, you address
your manuscript. It’s a twelve-step process, this editing thing. There are few
exceptions, you realize, and luck isn’t on your side.
Step 1: Elation
Congratulations, if you’ve went
through the above story, you’ve already been here! You wrote a
story-book-novel-manuscript-thingie. Woohoo!! I’m SO happy for you.
Step 2: The Search for Knowledge
Chances are, you’ve been here too.
Good ol’ Google. It’ll tell you anything you want to know.
Step 3: Fear
I have to do what?!?! I
have to cut how much? What do you mean agents don’t like dreams? What?? But I
like first person!
Step 4: Denial
This is where the frantic search
begins. But Stephenie Meyer’s novel was longer than 100,000 words. I can be
the next Stephenie Meyer!!! (No. No you can’t.)
Step 5: Passion
You get down to work. You reread
your manuscript. You fall in love with your characters all over again. You
determine that you MUST sell their story to the world. Yes!! Yes! Yes! It will
happen.
Step 6: Unceremonious Hacking
Back story? Gone.
Extra character? Cut. Chapter 14? Nixed. You hack entire sections
at a time. You cut out parts you used to love. You cry every time you hit the
delete key. You go through seventy-two boxes of Kleenex.
Step 7: Cautious Cutting
You’ve already completed Step 6,
Unceremonious Hacking. Finally, you think, I’ve cut my story down to
bare bones. I’ve sliced and diced it to within an inch of its life. You
open the tools, you click ‘Word Count.’ You squeeze your eyes shut, afraid of
the number. Despite yourself, you finally open one eye and peek. Startled, the
other one flies open. WHAT DO YOU MEAN I’VE ONLY CUT 10,000 WORDS!!!
Once again, you stare at the damn
cursor. It blinks, mocking your very existence.
You go back through your
manuscript. You combine words into contractions. You debate removing every
“the.” You buy stock in Kleenex.
Slowly, the word count diminishes.
You breathe a sigh of relief when it reaches the 100,000 word mark.
Ah, finally.
Step 8: More Research
By now, your manuscript has reached
your genre’s word limit. You feel pretty good about yourself. You do a little
more research about editing. You find tips and techniques (wish you would’ve
known about those before, huh?) Once again, the manuscript opens.
Step 9: Agonizing Alterations
The cursor blinks at you. You
debate throwing your computer out the car window going 105mph. You curse the
cursor, and its mother, and its illegitimate brother Bob.
You take up biking to get out your
anger. You lose ten pounds.
You go over your manuscript with a
fine tooth comb. You do a line-by-line edit. You read every word and wonder if
it could be better. You wear through the pages of a Thesaurus. You debate
deleting the entire thing and starting over. You wonder why the hell you ever
thought it was a good idea to write a book in the first place.
You get through it.
Step 10: The Beta
Finally, with your manuscript
sparkling like a new penny, you find a critique partner. With fluttering heart
and sweaty palms, you hit ‘send’ on the email, rushing your manuscript straight
to them. You wait three days for them to respond. The email starts with, You
have no plot.
Step 11: Binge Drinking
You drown yourself in alcohol and
swear if you ever, ever see your manuscript again, you will kill something.
You swear off electronics. You stop shaving. You reach the lowest low of your
life. You debate a career in rocket science. Anything but writing.
For two weeks, you ignore your
manuscript. You try to forget that horrid little mocking line, you banish all
thoughts that relate to writing, publishing, agents, books, and words. You
banish words. You refuse to speak.
Step 12: The Revival
Someone, probably your mother
(because she loves you), breaks you out of your funk by telling you that you
stink. You shower. While lathering, a really awesome plot idea works its way
into your brain. You try to force it out, but it’s insistent. It wiggles and
squirms and dances. It pounds against your skull. It prods you with a rusty
poker.
You open your computer.
You open a blank page.
You start to type.
You begin a CIP: Cheating in
Progress. You write to your hearts content. These characters are so much
better! They’ll never let me down! You write for twenty days straight
before you accidentally open your ‘old’ manuscript. You read a scene, and then
two.
Before you know it, you’ve devoured
a hundred pages and wasted an hour. The cursor waves. Hello my friend!
Grinning, you start over at Step 1.
This post originally appeared on www.kaceyvanderkarr.com.
About
the Author:
Kacey
Vanderkarr is a young adult author. She dabbles in fantasy, romance, and
sci-fi, complete with faeries, alternate realities, and the occasional plasma
gun. She’s known to be annoyingly optimistic and listen to music at the highest
decibel. When she’s not writing, she coaches winterguard and works as a
sonographer. Kacey lives in Michigan, with her husband, son, crazy cats, and
two bearded dragons.
Official Website: http://www.kaceyvanderkarr.com
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Giveaway
Prize: 5 USD
Amazon Gift Card
Hope you enjoyed your time visiting with the Irresistible Reads Book Tour with Kacey Vanderkarr today!
Write on,
Kim
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