Thursday, May 19, 2011

Date for Next Book Release

I'll admit it. I went through a writing lull after I released Misfit. I had other things on my mind, and it took me a long time to convince myself to sit down and write anything. However, a couple weeks ago that beautiful being that is inspiration struck me with her arrow, and I've had a hard time stopping myself from writing since.

So on my birthday, June 28th, I will release my next book Witches in the Holy City. I chose that date, because I figured it would be good to have a deadline to have it finished by since I'm not at the mercy of an agent of publishing company. That gives me a little over a month to finish the book and do the final editing, which I am more than confident I can achieve. Mostly because last year I wrote a book with these characters, and after rewriting and editing it about a zillion times I still wasn't satisfied with the final product. It was just too "blah" for my taste. I loved the character I created, but there was too much focus on the romance between the two main characters, and while I do enjoy a good (please take note on the emphasis of that word) romance, I don't like it when that's the main plot. I realized this book was too much like a lot of the crappy paranormal teen romances I was reading, and that made me very ashamed of myself.

After letting it rest for a while, and focusing on Misfit, I decided not to let these characters remain unshared (not including my mom, who is very mad that I'm re-writing this book). One day the idea for a new plot line just clicked, and I started writing so fast that I didn't even stop to correct my misspellings as I went, which is something I always do, because I can't stand seeing that little red line underneath a misspelled word. The next thing I knew, I had a good chunk of the book written, and what wasn't written was already in my mind and waiting to be typed.

This book takes place in a college setting, and when I had the original draft I wasn't sure if it should be thrown into the YA category or not. I felt like because it's college, it shouldn't, but the content of the first manuscript seemed a little too YA-ish. Or maybe that's just my own personal criticism. Plus, the narrator is nineteen, and that's technically an adult, but most people think of anyone under 21 as a "young" adult. I think for genre labeling college is sort of a grey area, but I finally decided to just go ahead and not put a YA label on it. So even though my "target" audience (I hate that phrase, because I feel like a "target audience" should be anyone who wants to read the book) is college-age people, I think anyone over the age of 14 could enjoy this book.

So once the cover for the book is finished I'll put up another post dedicated to the book with a synopsis. And thus ends another long post from Shawn.

2 comments:

  1. Hi there! I'm so happy to read this post because I just finished reading Misfit, literally, just earlier today, and there were so many loose ends that I was really hoping for a sequel. However, I'm not sure Witches in the Holy City is exactly a sequel or not but I will be anxiously awaiting the synopsis! If you're interested in my review, it will be posting June 7th @ iliveinafictionalworld.blogspot.com. (I also run the YA Blogosphere).

    Thanks!

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  2. YAY! Thanks, Elaine! I look forward to reading your thoughts on Misfit. Witches in the Holy City is the start of another series for adults, but I'm really hoping to have the sequel to Misfit out in July. or at least no later than August.

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