Pictures...

My nieces apparently think I need a new image. According to my sister, they think that the picture on the back of my books makes me look like an old school marm and not someone capable of writing a passionate romance in a fantasy/adventure novel. It's the same picture I use for this blog.

The problem is that I am not photogenic at all. The picture I use as my blog photo is a fluke in that it is the best picture that has ever been taken of me since I was nineteen except for one photo when I was pregnant with my son.

This is the picture that was taken when I was nineteen. The thing about this picture is that my hair was done professionally, my makeup was done by Charles of the Ritz and I'm wearing false eyelashes. It's a nice picture, but it's not me!

I'm thinking that since you really can't tell a book by its cover, maybe I should just leave well enough alone and stick with the picture I have. If I look like an old school marm, then the book will be a pleasant surprise. What do you think?

Every month, I write a note to two women I don't know and have never met. It's part of the Visiting Teaching program at our church. Writing to someone you don't know who never responds regardless of what you write is difficult. I usually pray about it. Today I wrote about a woman I knew several years ago who wrote a novel. She loved writing and she was a good writer and I expected that she would have some success with her manuscript. She belonged to a writer's group in a distant city and made the long drive once a month for their meetings. Finally, she asked the group's coordinator to read her manuscript and give her an honest opinion.

The coordinator told her it was a good book, but that her characters were too two-dimensional. My friend didn't know what that meant, but she didn't ask either. She put the book in a drawer and, to my knowledge, never did anything more with it.

Some years later, I looked up "two dimensional characters" in a Google search. It means that a character has no history, no back story. Main characters and recurring characters need to have a back story--everyone comes from somewhere.

The difference between success and failure isn't necessarily a lack of talent. This woman had a lot of talent, but one bump in the road and she put the manuscript away. Persistence and determination are necessary to accomplish anything in this life. Very few people are gifted with instant success. Success is achieved by studying, hard work, making mistakes and learning from them, and picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and trying again.

Thomas Alva Edison made 10,000 light bulbs before he actually created one that worked. He was asked once if he didn't feel all those earlier light bulbs were a waste of time. He answered in so many words, "No, because I found 10,000 ways NOT to make a light bulb." His persistence and determination were extraordinary.

Hand in hand with persistence and determination is gratitude for every little success achieved. Little successes lead to bigger successes. Whatever you believe, thanking our Father in Heaven for our many blessings is a good thing to cultivate--not only with Heavenly Father, but also with our family members. An "Attitude of Gratitude" can change lives for the better, improve marriages and other relationships. Persistence, determination, and gratitude are the essential components to success in almost any endeavor. And then sometimes, it's just dumb luck!

PS - Don't forget to write a review on Amazon.com with 'AUG' at the beginning to win a free RIPTIDE book, (the new version) autographed if you want! See below!

Proofing has to be the most difficult part of writing--I don't care what it is! I sent the proof book to Jim and we both re-read RIPTIDE from beginning to end. He made some suggestions and I did some rewrites which I emailed to him for editing and then I made whatever corrections he suggested. So the whole book was edited one last time, the changes were edited and then the corrections were edited. So you would think I could upload the book and it would be perfect, right? Well, not necessarily so.

When I uploaded TIDES, the formatting was exactly the same, page for page. For whatever reason, RIPTIDE shifted the text adding a line or two (or more) at the bottom of each page. This meant I had to go in and change the Table of Contents page numbers because the later chapters were off by as many as four pages! Well, I did that, uploaded again, and proofed through the virtual previewer. Everything looked fine. So, I approved it.

Well, I'm not too old to learn a lesson! I have since read the entire book again, found several examples of words that were hyphenated in the original text because they were at the end of a line and somehow ended up in the middle of a line. I found a few other things I decided to change while I was at it--nothing major. I've uploaded again. I feel badly about this because the people who have already purchased the book didn't get as good a version as this newer version. There's no major differences, but still...

When Jim and I finish editing TSUNAMI, we're both going to read the proof book, but then if there are any changes made, I'm going to order another proof book and reread the whole thing again before putting the book "out there." This is very time consuming and because I wrote the passages and have read these same passages several times, I still get caught up in the story, but I can't 'see' it as if it were the first time--which is the best way to proof anything. However, readers deserve for a book to be the best that it can possibly be, so I promise that next time, I'm not going to rush it and skip a vital step! All I can say now is that I'm sorry! I'll tell you one thing: I have more compassion for the books I read by other authors because I now realize how difficult it is to catch every single error!!!

PS!

If I know you and you want a chance to win a free book of RIPTIDE, please use a name I won't recognize. I want this to be fair to everyone. Thank you!

RIPTIDE is now available as both the book and the Kindle download!

If you have read TIDES - Book One and if you have not written a review on Amazon.com, I would like to tempt you to write a review for TIDES. I will give a free copy of the book RIPTIDE (autographed, if you'd like) to the best review posted in the month of August. Please type "AUG" at the beginning of your review so that I will know you are responding to this particular post. If the "AUG" is not there, I'll pass by that particular review. Then, over Labor Day weekend, I will post the winner right here on my blog. Then you will need to contact me with your mailing address and I will send RIPTIDE to you! My email address is on my profile page.

Please note: I am not looking for the longest review or the most grammatically correct review--I'm more interested in your sincerity and enthusiasm about my book, TIDES - Book One.

I hope you have a great day!

RIPTIDE is uploaded as a Kindle book--it's in the process of being reviewed. If it passes, it should be available tomorrow or Saturday!