On my last post, bookish facts about me, I dropped the news that I’m writing a book.  I wanted to dedicate a post just for this news so that I could give you all a little detail about the background of the book and how far along I am with it.

The Background:

After I wrote a short story in 6th grade, I realized how much I liked writing and was inspired to write a “book series” of my own – The Brainwash Capers (don’t ask).  Long story short, a few of the characters stuck and developed as I continued writing short stories with them during my high school years.  As I’ve recently gotten back into writing, the characters were begging me for a full-length book of their own, and as I looked through the short stories I’d written with them, one stood out and sparked an idea for a novel.

Start of Writing:

I started wanting to write this book around the middle of January, after I’d read through a few of my short stories and the idea came soon after – right around Valentine’s Day.  The story was supposed to kick off with the anti-Valentine’s story I’d written, but it sort of spiraled into something else.  I’m not complaining though.

Once I’d finally gotten a start on the book, I had most of it planned out.  What was going to happen at what point and certain scenes that would take place, but if you’re a writer, you’ll understand me when I say that my children (the characters) had their own way of taking the reigns of what was going on.  Some events that ended up happening were not planned in the least, but it’s those parts that I think are the best (and I kind of enjoyed writing them the most).

Where I am now:

As of now I am just about finished with the first draft of the book.  I’m pretty proud of how much I’d gotten done considering I was taking three graduate courses until just a week ago (oh, and let’s not foget the day job).  Now that I have four months off from school, I’m planning to have this book done before the fall semester starts up.

I did get side-tracked when I researched the best places to self-publish, played with book cover ideas, figured out my pen-name, etc.  Most of that is figured out at this point and I’m good to finish writing the story’s first draft.

What’s to come:

Obviously a lot of rewriting and editing.  Then I have a few co-workers who are going to read it through (after the edits) and see if it’s pretty solid.  Once that is finished, or maybe while they’re reading it, I’m thinking of having a book-cover contest/poll because I’m terrible at making decisions (though I do think I know which one is my favorite).

I’ve also considered a giveaway or giving some early copies to a few book bloggers to read it for an honest review, becuase although I trust my co-workers, I know I can really trust the book blogging community to give me some good and honest reviews (and help spread the word if they like it).  But none of that has been completely decided yet.  I mean, I should probably finish writing the book first.

Also, I will soon be launching a personal website that will have information about the book and will stand as my author/professional writing website.  It will link back to this site and vice versa.

But don’t worry, I’ll let you lovlies know when that site is up and running.

It’ll be soon.