Blog Migration...

Just a quick post to let y'all know that my blog is migrating to my website. I've had this blogger site up for a loooong time as my official blog, and it's served me well, but I've also been operating my www.kbhoyle.com website for several years, and it's silly to continue to manage both. I will keep this site up and active, so all posts will remain archived and available, but all new posts from this point forward will be on my main website. Thanks for reading! I hope you continue to do so!

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One Year Ago

I've been reflecting today on all that has happened in my writing career since one year ago. A year ago, I had just begun the process of editing The Six for re-release with TWCS. We'd not even begun marketing efforts yet on that book, and I was looking forward to months ahead of editing, marketing, and writing. I'd barely begun work on writing The Enchanted, and terms such as "blog tour" and "swag" were strange and unfamiliar to me. Over the course of the months that followed, I wrote The Enchanted, edited, re-released (or, in the case of book 4, released for the first time), and promoted all four books, including new cover designs for the first three, took part in an official PR tour, travelled to Texas for a writer's festival, and wrote and submitted book 5, The Scroll. 12 months, five books (two from scratch), one trip, over a thousand E-mails, and hours and hours of quality time with my keyboard.  It was a productive year, to say the least.

Looking ahead, while I'm not one for New Year's resolutions per se, there are some goals I'd like to see realized by one year from today. First off, of course I'll continue editing The Scroll and will be completing all the marketing and promotion associated with that. I will also have completed my draft of book 6 by this time next year, and I hope to have started work on the next series of books I want to write. My sales and readership base have undoubtedly broadened since I signed with TWCS, and I'd like to see it broaden significantly more in the year to come. By this time next year, I'd like to have been listed on some bestseller list somewhere-whether it's through TWCS, Amazon, or the New York Times (hey, I'm not picky!), I just want to see it happen! I have a couple more writer's festivals to attend this year, and I'd also like to schedule some speaking engagements on top of those. By this time next year, I'd like to be a known author, and with enough word of mouth, it could happen!

Thanks so much to all of you who read my books and tell others about them. Your support means the world to me. Keep it up! And maybe we'll see a movie made of my books someday...

A Good Day to Finish Book 5

As I told several friends and family members just a couple weeks ago, I needed a Christmas miracle to finish my fifth manuscript. With final exams for my students upon me, three sick children, and planning for upcoming family visits over the Holidays, I didn't see where the time would come from to get the book finished. This was all exacerbated by the fact that with a new baby in the house, my already limited writing time over the fall had shrunk to virtually non-existent, leading me into Christmas break with just under 200 pages complete in the manuscript... My manuscripts usually clock in at around 385 pages in rough draft form. I was having virtual panic attacks trying to think about how, HOW, I was going to finish that book! Well, final exams came and went, my children got better, and family came in from all over the country. We celebrated Christmas (I don't remember much of it), and I picked away at the manuscript, a couple pages here, a couple pages there... fall asleep at laptop, wake up, rinse, repeat... Essentially I ended up in a situation where by the time everything calmed down after Christmas, I faced 5 days until my manuscript was due, and still around 175 (actually turned out to be more like 195) pages left to write. My manuscript was due on January 2nd. To make a long story short (ba dum ching!) I inverted my sleep schedule so I could catch snatches of sleep during the day while my kids were napping, and I stayed up all night, every night, writing. At about 3:30 on the afternoon of January 2nd, I finished! 410 pages, done! I almost cried . . . but I was sitting in Panera, so that would have been awkward. (A special thanks goes out to Maggie Rapier for HOURS of free babysitting!) Now, I could have turned it in then and been on time-as I tend to be a late person and I desperately wanted to be on time-but I just couldn't present it to my editing team full of typos, so I took the next twelve hours, from 3:30pm-3:30am to do a full proofread of the manuscript. So, technically, I finished on January 3rd. The rough draft of The Scroll is complete!

By way of reward that night, I went to see The Hobbit. With all the illness and busyness, it was something I had had to put off, which just killed me! You see, the book The Hobbit has a very special place in my life and heart. It is one of the first books that I can remember independently reading as a child, and one of the first I remember reading over and over again. I've become something of a collector of copies over the years, and that leads into kind of a fun story in and of itself. You see, fantasy literature has always been important to me, and in particular the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, so when I first met my future husband, Adam, in college, I knew that would have to be a love that we shared. Adam and I had just started getting to know each other, and there was undeniable mutual attraction, but he admitted to me early on that he had never really read a book "just for fun." He grew up on a farm, and the only books he'd ever read were those assigned for school. Well, that simply wasn't acceptable, so I thought a test was in order. The first Lord of the Rings movie had just hit theaters (and of course I'd already seen it), but I invited him to go and see it with me (an unofficial date, as we were still in the early friend stage). He agreed, and when the movie was starting, I remember thinking, "If he likes this movie, we're good to go. If he doesn't, I don't think I can consider dating him." Movie viewed, end credits rolled, and I turned to him and said, "So what did you think?" I can still remember the look on his face when he turned back to me and said, "I LOVED it!" Score! And then he said those sweet words, "I think I need to read that book now." *sigh* It was practically love then and there. But here's the thing, you can't read The Lord of The Rings without first reading The Hobbit, and I told him so. He could have walked away then and there thinking I was a total crazy person, but instead he said, "Okay," and he did it! And then he read The Lord of the Rings! By this time we were dating, of course, and we spent many a long car ride with me reading it aloud to him. Nine months later, he took me out to a WWII France-themed restaurant and gave me a collector's edition of The Hobbit as a gift. Written inside the front cover was a proposal of marriage. I said yes, and it's been a match made in literary heaven ever since. So as a first read, The Hobbit was important to both of us, and also important in starting our lives together. The sad part of this story is that we did NOT get to see The Hobbit together in theaters. Adam went with my brother-in-law and father over break while I was writing, but I fully intend not to let us miss out on going together to either of the next two installments. I may not have gotten to see it on opening night, or with my husband, but I did go with my sister, and it was on January 3rd-Tolkien's birthday. To say that I loved it would be an understatement. I'm one of those people who can appreciate that certain things have to be changed to make a book into a more successful movie, so adding scenes or tweaking things, as long as they don't mess with the essence of Tolkien's material, doesn't bother me in the slightest, especially when it's things we get passing mentions of in the books and never really get to see (such as the Necromancer, or Radagast the Brown). But I digress too much; if I'm not careful I'll write a complete movie review. It was the perfect reward for hours of hard writing, and for years of waiting. And I know it may have been the extreme sleep deprivation acting on me, but I spent most of the movie grinning like an idiot and restraining myself from cheering. *sigh* I love being a nerd.

All in all, I just felt that January 3rd was a good day to finish book 5. I achieved a significant literary accomplishment on Tolkien's birthday, then proceeded to go and see a movie based on a beloved book by same said author, and the movie struck to the core of everything I love about the story. All the day really needed was a pint at the Green Dragon at the end of the night and a few of Gandalf's fireworks.

5 Reasons Why...

Investing in a new book is sometimes a risky business. I know that I typically want to be absolutely certain that I have a good chance of enjoying a new read before I invest money into buying it and time into reading it. As I've had a lot of new visitors to my blog lately (hello!), I thought it might be good to provide a little overview of my books as a way to introduce you to what I write. So here are 5 reasons why you should read The Gateway Chronicles...

1. Unlike anything else out there right now
          I love Young Adult literature, and I love that fantasy has made a sweeping comeback in the young adult world, but it struck me as I perused the YA shelves that the preponderance of fantasy material out there right now is paranormal romance. Not that there is anything wrong with paranormal romance as a sub-genre, but the market seems to be flooded with it at the moment, and for someone like me, who was raised on a diet of more traditional fantasy like Narnia and The Hobbit, paranormal romance isn't quite isn't quite what I want to read. The Gateway Chronicles gives you a modernized fantasy option that contains elements of the paranormal and elements of romance, but without those two things being the main focus of the stories. The Gateway Chronicles is really more fantasy adventure with romance mingled in, and I haven't seen anything else quite like that on the bookshelves as of late. If you crave an updated version of some of your childhood favorites, written with a focus on teenagers rather than children, then The Gateway Chronicles is what you're looking for. 

2. Family friendly
          Teenagers, you won't find anything in The Gateway Chronicles that you would be uncomfortable having your parents read over your shoulder. Parents, you won't find anything in my books that I would consider inappropriate for your teenage or middle grade reader. I've had children as young as 8 and 9 read my books, and I keep that age spectrum in mind when I write them.

3. Something for everyone
          While I wrote these books with young adults as my target audience, I've been pleasantly surprised to note that they have appealed to a crossover audience. As I mentioned above, 8 and 9 year-olds have read and enjoyed them, as well as people as old as my grandparents. Neither are these books just for girls. Although my protagonist is a girl, I've had many boys read The Gateway Chronicles and respond very enthusiastically. Some of the best reviews I've gotten have been from adult men. There are plenty of battles and adventure, as well as relational issues and romance, to appeal to any reader.

4. Escape to a new world
          My favorite thing about good fantasy is that it enables you to escape to a new world, and it encourages imaginings about that new world long after you put down the book. I believe The Gateway Chronicles can transport you, and everyone needs an escape from time to time. And not only can you escape into my new world, Alitheia, but you can also grow with it. Each book takes place one year after the last book, so that you start the series with the characters at 13, and end the series with them at 18. I love series where I can watch the characters grow and mature before my eyes, and so I wrote The Gateway Chronicles in that fashion.

5. Be an early part of the experience
        Part of the joy of starting a new series of books is the agony of having to wait for the next installment in the series. And while some people prefer to wait until all the books are out in a series to start reading it, I think the anticipation of waiting for another part of the story makes the whole experience richer. If you start reading The Gateway Chronicles now, you're still getting in on the front half of the experience! Books 1 and 2 are now available, with book 3 coming in August. Book 4 will be out this fall, and then there are still two more books to come after that. I love hearing my students discuss their theories about where the story is going to go next, and sometimes I even incorporate reader feedback into a later book. It's simply fun to be an early part of a book series.

Letting it Go: Thoughts on Editing

Okay, first off, I realize that I am so far overdue for a blog post it isn't even funny! Perhaps I can be forgiven, however, after some insight into the past six-eight weeks. In this span of time, I have wrapped up my blog tour for The Six, edited The Oracle, edited The White Thread, and finished writing the rough draft of book 4, The Enchanted - which I started in January. I have also prepared for and given birth to my third son (three boys, oh my!), and now I have a two-week-old at home along with my three-year-old and my five-year-old. As a teacher, I had to prepare for my maternity leave that would overlap final exam time for my 10th graders and finish teaching as much material as I could get through before the arrival of baby #3.

Can you forgive me for neglecting my blog? (Cue mini violin)

Moving beyond the hectic craziness that was the last 8 weeks, I'm now looking forward to a summer spent editing The Enchanted, working with my publicists to organize interviews and appearances, and writing book 5, as well as kicking off another blog tour for The Oracle and, later in the summer, a third blog tour for The White Thread. All things considered, however, it's actually less work than I've been engaged in this spring, so I think the future is bright!

Out of all this mess of stuff, the most difficult part has been the editing process, and I just wanted to share a few thoughts. Allowing a team of people to come in and rework your manuscript is a difficult thing, and I've actually called it humbling several times over this past spring. I knew that it would be hard to release my books into the hands of others, but I don't think I anticipated just how difficult it would be at times. Working with editors takes trust - a lot of it. I decided from the beginning that I would trust my editing team to make my books better, even if I didn't agree with changes they made and even if I didn't understand all the changes they made, and I'm glad I made this promise to myself. The fact of the matter is, they want me to succeed; they are not out to make my books worse, and I sometimes need to remind myself of that. The most difficult changes to swallow are the stylistic ones. For example, they do not want me to use hardly any creative dialogue tags or ly-adverbs, but I love using them! And when I read my favorite books, I see the pages full of them, as well (probably why I enjoy using them, as writing is an imitative art). However, if I can hold my books in an open palm and allow my editors to use their expertise to fashion my stories into more professional-sounding prose, then I think I've taken an important step. And quite frankly, nine times out of ten, when I go back and read a section they have helped me rework, it really is better. I find that I'm actually looking forward to editing book 4. As it is the first manuscript that was not previously self-published, I think I'll be able to approach it with more of an open mind. Although maybe I've just learned a little more trust and humility, which are things that we all need in life.

Reflections on Writing The Six, Part 2

This is my 100th blog post! And there was much rejoicing! Yaaayyy...

Okay, on to what this post is really about.

I promised to finish the story of how The Six came to be, so here goes... I already mentioned how the idea for the series was inspired by my actual camp experiences growing up and by my actual camp friends. But, as I also mentioned, I didn't have a clear concept in college of what the story would be about, although I had the setting and feel laid out. My notes for "Nine Fast Friends" stayed shelved for several years. I finished the other fantasy manuscript I was working on, tried and tried to get a publishing house and/or an agent, failed and failed at that, and graduated college with a healthy cynicism of the publishing industry. Self-publishing was very expensive and not very widespread at this time (2005), and most of the people with whom I discussed the self-publshing option laughed at the idea of it. (I'm not here going to go into the entire self-publishing to traditional publishing road, as that will be the subject matter of a later blog post.) My husband and I moved to Denver to pursue masters degrees, and in Denver I became a part of a writer's guild. I also discovered, after just one month in Denver, that I was expecting our first child. Suddenly the prospect of a master's degree didn't seem so attainable anymore... neither did staying in Denver where we had no friends or family, and very high expenses. My husband and I decided to relocate to Birmingham, Alabama and the move took place just three weeks before our son was born. This is worth mention in the evolution of The Six because when I left Denver, I took with me the friendship of a fellow writer from the writers guild named Ross. Ross and I exchanged manuscripts for several months (this was still my first fantasy manuscript), and he was the first one to tell me that my style is to write for teenagers. I had always said that I just wanted to write for "everyone!" and he pointed out that not only was this impractical, but it wasn't my style. He also told me in all honesty that my manuscript wasn't ready for publication; and he was right!

I really took his comments to heart and spent several months considering what I wanted to do. I didn't have the passion for that first manuscript that I needed to have for it, and after 20-odd rejections and finally the suggestion from Ross that it needed to be reworked entirely, I decided that it would simply be better to start over with something else - something I could work on from scratch and that could be written with teenagers in mind. I was coming up on the summer of 2008 and just finishing up my first year teaching. I knew that the only time I would have to write a book from beginning to end would be the summer time, as teaching is so time consuming, so I began to plan in earnest in the spring. Looking at all my various story notes, I settled on writing a science fiction/fantasy series called Que (pronounced "Cue"). This was probably my most well-fleshed-out idea, and as soon as school was out, I began to write my outline for the story. I was also at this time, however, re-reading one of my favorite books, Pride and Prejudice, and for some reason the name Darcy caught with me so strongly that I couldn't get it out of my head. I don't know where Pennington came from, but it also arrived that night, and I remember it was as though my brain suddenly caught fire. I probably spent 3 hours pacing my bathroom that night talking to myself and formulating the story idea. I knew as soon as the name Darcy Pennington came to me that she belonged in my camp story and that I would not be writing Que after all. In those three hours of pacing and hours lying awake in bed after that, I decided on six characters instead of nine (nine main characters is, after all, far too many to keep adaquate track of), settled on all their names, and conceptualized the story. The notes I took that night became the basis for The Six, but I also knew that it was going to be a series, and I couldn't start writing the series until I knew the end of the story. There were so many other things I wanted to be a part of the story, too - from literary alchemy to color symbolism to number symbolism to name symbolism to homages to my favorite authors and stories - and I figured out the basic structure of it all in about a week. It's really, obviously, too much to go into here, nor do I want to give away all my secrets - or even half of them (what good author does that?) - but it was a whirlwind of activity for me. Once I had the series synopsis set, I wrote my outline for book 1, set a daily writing schedule for myself, and got down to the work of writing, without ever having any real idea of whether or not I could produce a coherent novel in the two months I had left before school started again.

I finished the 384-page manuscript, somehow, before school began, and that's where I'll let off on the story of how it came to "be." As I said above, the publishing journey is a whole other story. I will say that I tested my manuscript on my students. I kept a binder in my classroom, and my 8th graders, in particular, took to it with a frenzy. I remember many a day where I had to break up arguments over who got to read it, and some students even took to snatching the binder when they walked in the room and stashing it in their desk so as to be able to have "dibs" on it should we end up with any free time in class. This sort of reaction told me that not only had I successfully written a novel, but I had apparently written something that teenagers wanted to read.

I've been careful throughout the writing of the story to preserve the identity of the real camp, although many of the location names and some story aspects are takes on actual places and events. For example, there really is a large boulder at this camp that is covered in gnomes painted on little rocks and stuck in the crevices. The recreation hall at the real camp is named after a college student who passed away - although not at the camp. And there is a story that a student in another week once tried to burn the rec hall down. The very best qualities of my camp friends have found their way into the characters, and I would, of course, never disparage any of them or use any of their real names. The stories have been, in one sense, a set of thank you notes to them and their influences on me.

And now I'm really waxing sentimental. Perhaps some of you wish that I would have given more detail in this account, perhaps some of you far less. Each story in the series has its own history and "fun facts" associated with it, but, again, if I told you all of that, what secrets would I have left?

Reflections on Writing The Six

As I prepare for the TWCS release of book 1 of The Gateway Chronicles: The Six on April 5th, I've begun reflecting on how this book came to be. I'll try not to be too long winded about this, but I thought there certainly might be some interest as a whole new audience of people is being introduced to me on the TWCS website.

The Six was truly a labor of love (not to sound too cliched), and something I wanted to write for years before I actually sat down to do it. The entire story behind The Gateway Chronicles is wrapped up in my past, in 19 consecutive years of attending a week-long summer camp with my family in upper Michigan. While some people might think that one week a year couldn't possibly be enough to make that great of an impression on a person, for an awkward, anti-social child like me, whose family moved several times, and who struggled with depression, it was often the one constant in my year. At camp, I had the same friends every year, and they were the only constant friends I ever had (many of whom I'm still very close with today). Camp never changed, while the outside world did, and that lent a magical quality to my time there. It was as though I was transported to a new world every summer. Combined with the fact that the upper peninsula of Michigan is bone-achingly beautiful, and that for a week every year I was cut off from all technology (as the camp discouraged it), it was also an environment in which my imagination could run wild. My girl friends and I at camp used to make up magical stories about fairies, elves, pirates, and everything else inbetween that existed only at camp, and I think that a part of my young brain always believed that the stories could be true.

Fast forward to college, and I was no longer able to attend family camp. My husband and I married young, and, well, life changes. We were able to attend camp once together when we were dating, and once later after we had our first son, but I knew that it was a chapter of my life that was well and truly over. I know it must sound silly, but I went through a real period of grieving over the loss of something so important to my childhood, and that's when I first began to jot down notes and conceptualize a fantasy story based on my childhood and teen experiences at camp. At first it began as a way to hang on to the memories, but it has become much more of a way to let go.

These notes that I jotted down in college were very scattered and much closer to my actual camp experiences than The Six has turned out to be. For example, there were nine main characters, not six, based on the fact that there were nine of us in the core group of kids my age at camp (six boys, three girls). My working title in this early stage was "Nine Fast Friends," and all the character names were different. I didn't have a clear idea what the story would be beyond that I wanted these nine friends to travel to another world from camp, and I wanted that other world to imitate the camp I knew and loved in as many ways as possible. I also knew that I wanted it to imitate The Chronicles of Narnia in being a clean, family friendly story that dealt with timeless themes and deep concepts, but I also wanted to modernize it to relate to how teenagers today think, talk, and react. These things are not enough with which to write a book, however, and I was, in college, in the midst of finishing a different fantasy manuscript and jumping through the hoops of trying to get that published, so I shelved the camp-based idea and vowed to come back to it someday...

I am breaking my promise not to go too long with this, so I'm going to cut off this blog post here and come back to it with a part 2 later this week. If you're enjoying my story, let me know! I'll address questions as they come up.

Musings From a Very Busy Me

Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men... My intentions regarding my writing were excellent when I began book 4, but it has quickly become clear to me that there is no way I can keep up the pace I set for myself on a daily basis with the business of life as a full time wife, mother, and teacher to contend with as well (not to mention being pregnant). I also feel the compulsive need to re-read everything I wrote the previous time I sat down to write when I sit down to write some more, and that leads to ongoing revisions and whatnot. That IS important to how I'm structured to write a story, but it definitely eats into my writing time. Anyhow, I'm still confident that I can complete this draft by the manuscript deadline, but I've had to conclude that I can't do it by writing a consistent 3-5 pages every day. What I CAN do is write in spurts, and that's what I've been doing. A little bit here, a lot bit there, and whole days at a time where I write nothing at all. I'm curious to see how this draft turns out since this is so out of the ordinary for how I usually write. I'm trying to stick to my outline and ring composition chart, but the more I feel rushed, the more I tend to deviate from my outline, causing my ring composition chart to need to be revised. What I really need is a writing retreat - a whole weekend where I can get away from everything and sit by myself in a hotel room or something and just let the story flow. This is highly unlikely to happen, however, as my hubs has to work every Saturday, and paying for a babysitter for that length of time makes me shudder. Someway, somehow, I will pull this all together! As to where I'm at, I hit page 63 tonight and got to send the Six back to Alitheia. I'm writing all the meetings and greetings of the characters with the Alitheian characters and trying to make it interesting without being redundant, yet familiar for my readers who will be looking for certain consistent elements. It's all a great adventure for me, writing this story, and as usual I'm trying to follow the advice that a best selling author once told me: "Write what you want to read." I am and I do. I just hope that translates into something that you all want to read, too!

Upcoming Changes

As of Tuesday night (January 31, 2012) there will be a few changes made to my blog, and I wanted to let you all know about them ahead of time. I will be deleting my book cover images and links to Amazon (as well as deleting the books themselves from Amazon and Kindle). This is because everything is soon going to transfer to the care and control of my publisher, TWCS Publishing House. As soon as TWCS posts my first book to their website, I can and will go ahead and post the new cover to the blog. The hardworking editors at TWCS are in the process of doing an excellent clean-up of my first three books, and as each of them come up for re-release, I will keep you posted. Nothing about the story is changing, but those of you who elect to purchase and read the TWCS versions will notice a definite professional polish to them that I simply didn't have the resources to achieve as an independent author. I'm really excited about the changes that are happening and I hope you are too! If you have any questions, comment or shoot me an e-mail: kbhoyle@yahoo.com.

Writing Schedule

I sat down tonight and created a calendar for all the editing and writing that I need to complete over the next several months. I'll share the release dates as they get closer, but let's just say that I'm going to be VERY busy this spring and summer! I have my third baby arriving in May, and when this child is older, I should have some good stories to tell him or her about the time that I was pregnant. Anyhow, I am starting to write book 4 tomorrow, and I'm starting to feel really, really thankful that I put so much time and effort into my note-taking this fall. I *should* be able dive right in with minimal headache, although I do still need to bang out a rudimentary outline of JUST book 4 and put together my ring composition chart but... I'm not going to think about that right now. As long as I can get started tomorrow and at least write a page, I'll feel good. I think I set myself a doable schedule, starting slow this first week, and then shooting for 35 pages a week. I'll keep y'all posted as to how it goes!

I'm Official!

I know that I promised a character bio on Tellius, and I will make good on that, I've just gotten a bit swamped early this week with activities and so I am a little behind. I will do my best to get that done tomorrow night! I did HAVE to blog about what happened today, though! Today I signed a publishing contract with The Writer's Coffee Shop Publishing House (TWCS) for the first three books of The Gateway Chronicles and the remaining three in the series. So that means that I am now no longer an indie author, but an official, contracted author! Huzzah! Follow the link below to read about TWCS, and I'll keep the blog updated as I have news about the new releases of the books. (They are still available on Amazon and Kindle, but will go unavailable for a time as TWCS gets ready to re-release them).

http://www.thewriterscoffeeshop.com/publishinghouse/

Book Signing

Well, tonight was a very fun night! I had a book signing sandwiched in-between socials for the Logic and Rhetoric students at my school, and a lot of people showed up! I sold clean out of The White Thread within 45 minutes (something I truly did not expect) and sold several additional copies of my previous two books as well. After the signing, I had a question and answer session with about twenty of the students who stayed for the social, and it was quite fun to listen to some of their theories and speculations and to get to answer some questions about my books. And then I came home and got to sit down and order fifty more copies in for people who still want to buy them! It was a good night. Tomorrow I get to have a conversation with a professional in the business to discuss some options for my books, so I'm looking forward to that as well. I'm going to continue focusing on marketing and sales up through Christmas here, and then hopefully begin work on book 4.

Going Strong!

I find myself woefully behind on my blogging, for which I sincerely apologize. The effort of completing early marketing efforts on The White Thread and monitoring early sales has consumed that part of my brain that is available for my writing endeavors (ie. that part which is not taken up with being a wife, mother, housekeeper, and full-time teacher). I am happy to report, however, that my sales are going strong, and last I checked I had two five-star reviews up on Amazon for the print edition (which you should check out if you're new to me or my writing). I'm getting fabulous reviews from those people who have already read my third installment of The Gateway Chronicles, and I have a book release party/signing scheduled and coming up soon (for info, visit the group fan page for The Gateway Chronicles on facebook). All things considered, the past couple weeks have been a whirlwind, and I'm doing all I can the keep the momentum strong for the Christmas season. I am constantly being told, "This should be a movie!" or, "WHEN is this going to be a movie?" I usually laugh and say, rather tongue-in-cheek, "Well, that depends on YOU!" In all reality, though, that is the truth. As a lowly independent author, the success or failure of this series rests largely on the shoulders of those of my fans that are willing to spread the word, write me reviews on Amazon, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, Good Reads, and wherever else my books can be ordered, buy my books for others as Christmas or birthday presents, and place copies in school and public libraries. (Some of you are already doing so many of these things, and for that I genuinely thank you!). For my part, I promise to keep writing, through this series and beyond, and to keep scheduling book signings, to keep blogging (hopefully more frequently than I have as of late), and to keep being active on Twitter and facebook. Thanks again to all of you who have enthusiastically helped me, and if you're new to me, click on one of the book icons on the right to read about my books and what my readers think of them. Bye for now! (To follow me on Twitter, search for @kbhoyle1).

Print Edition on Amazon

Just a quick note to let you all know that the print edition is now up on Amazon! I changed the hyperlink on the right to direct you to Amazon instead of my e-store for those of you who enjoy benefiting from free super saver shipping on purchases over $25. It may take a few more days for the book cover image to load to Amazon, but the book itself is there. Don't forget, The Gateway Chronicles make great Christmas presents for avid readers, young adult readers, and even reluctant readers (I've had many testimonials to that effect). If anybody would like to look into getting a signed copy for somebody, contact me directly at kbhoyle@yahoo.com.

Update on the Print Edition

So, frustration of frustrations, I received my final proof copy today to discover that createspace did, indeed, shrink all the text down instead of trimming the extra white space around the outside. Again, I submitted the exact same size document as I always have, and it has never been a problem before, but this time it was. I spoke with customer service just now and they are sending my query on to technical support. They will hopefully just go ahead and fix it for me, as they've always done before, but they might require me to submit another document (which would really be frustrating, as I can't send any other sort of document than what I've been sending all along). Anyhow, it's going to take several days, probably, for me to hear back from them, and then I won't be able to okay it for purchase until I approve another proof. This was really not meant to take this long, so I apologize to all of you that are waiting for it. I'll stay on top of it and get it done as quickly as possible!

Progress Update

The GOOD news is that I have finished my final revisions and submitted everything to createspace for review. I have also set up my Kindle edition and that is in the process of publishing. The bad news is that for some reason createspace has gotten back to me stating that the interior file I submitted is too large and they have, basically, made it fit. So I CAN order my proof, but I need to check it really carefully to make sure that everything looks okay. This is very puzzling for me because I submitted the exact same interior file size and in the exact same manner as I always have, so I don't know why I would get that message from them now. (For example, I didn't get this message on the first file review for this book, and I literally took the same file I submitted and made revisions to it and submitted it again.) So, anyhow, my excitement at being finished is somewhat dampened by this. I've ordered the proof, but it will take a few days to get here. If, for some reason, it doesn't look as though it fits, I will have to figure out what changed between last time and this time, and that could take some time. If everything looks good, I will okay it for publication. It's a bit frustrating.

Regardless of what happens there, the Kindle edition should be ready within the day, so that's something to look forward to. Here's hoping that everything is okay with the proof copy!

Productivity... or Lack Thereof

I know that I am way overdue for an update on my progress, and for that I apologize. Just chalk it up to the productivity problems I have been having for the past month. Let's just say that I am trying my hardest to get The White Thread out as soon as possible. I have been, however, severely hampered by exhaustion ever since school started up for the year (it's difficult to get revision work done when every time you sit down to work on it, you fall asleep!). I have a great teaching schedule at work this year, I'm just... tired. I'm recovering now from a bout with the flu, too, which hasn't helped things. Once I started to feel a little better this afternoon, I got about an hour's worth of work done, so that's good, and I'm going to try and hammer out the rest of the fact-checking and revisions starting this weekend and into next week. I think it's going to be very difficult to have book 3 done by Sept. 30th, but if I can't make that deadline, it will be finished in early October, THAT I can promise!

The Hunger Games

I find myself in the curious position of having arrived home from work only to discover that I left everything I needed to work on at work, and so I have an hour or so of luxury this afternoon to work on other things. Okay, perhaps not luxury (as I can hear my children awaking as we speak), but I can probably blog with a cartoon on in the background.

I was searching for something new to read in the wake of finished writing The White Thread to hold me over until I get the edited draft back. I found what I was looking for in The Hunger Games trilogy. First of all, I have to rescind my previous blogged comments about hating books written in the first person present tense. I still think that it is an awkward tense, but I now think that if it's done well, as it is in The Hunger Games, then it can be very effective. I enjoyed these books so much that I didn't even notice the tense anymore after a while. I read the complete trilogy in three and a half days, a process which involved me walking around my house with my nose in the book, neglecting my household chores, and throwing food at my children as though they were dogs (just kidding). Because I don't want to give away any spoilers, I won't go into any details of the series, but I would recommend it for readers age 16 and up. I might have to revisit reading I Am Number Four.

My manuscript of The White Thread, by the way, is with my second outside editor. My first editor finished it very quickly and expressed that she loved it, so that was very encouraging! I'm hoping to get all the editing and revising done by the end of the month.

First Revision

Well, I finished my first revision of The White Thread earlier this week, and I felt this amazing sense of relief! Ahhh... finished with the most laborious stage of the operation. The draft is with my friend Beth getting its first outside edit, and I can't wait to hear what she thinks of it. As with the previous two books, she'll be the first person to read it all the way through other than your's truly. I still feel as though I should be working on my book every night, though, so I've been getting this strange sense of unrest every night and am craving a good story to read. It really is good for me to have the story off my hands for a few weeks because I have a lot of other work to complete before the school year starts... which is really soon! Anyhow, this is just a very quick update. I'll try to write something more clever later in the week.

Draft 1, Complete!

I tried as hard as a could to complete my first draft of The White Thread by Sunday morning, but I had to call it quits at 5:30 in the morning when my thumb joints had swollen so badly I could hardly move them and I was so fuzzy-brained that every word was a challenge to get out. Still, I went to bed feeling as though I was basically finished, as I was half-way through the last chapter. I finished officially, however, late last night (or early this morning) and it feels quite good to be done! So, 51 days of writing has left me with a draft that is 407 pages long. I have much editing and revising to do, however, so this number will remain fluid, and I'm going to try and trim it down to 400 pages if possible. Trimming the length doesn't always have to mean getting rid of a lot of content, either. I tend to be wordy and redundant in my rough drafts, so cutting out overused words and phrases can sometimes gain me back whole pages.

I had planned on beginning my first read through this afternoon, but as soon as I sat down to write this blog post, I could hear my two year old stirring from his nap. Do toddlers have an internal radar that alerts them whenever Mommy wants to get something done? Quick! She's about to be productive... make a ruckus! Oh well. I could probably use a day off anyhow.