Being a writer is all fun and games until someone rips away your pen and replaces it with words like "vector images", "ISBN", "formatting" and "deadlines." The above is my face after getting through a stack of technicalities today. Who knew it could be hell to format page numbers? (Just one of the things I haven't figured out yet.) Thank heaven I have a cover designer (St. Rachel) who has been amazing and a tech-y friend with hair like Sherlock Holmes (Dan Tate) who is saving my life over this thing:
What is "this thing"? Well, I had all of you on Facebook and Instagram guessing earlier this week. This fellow (contrary to popular inquiry) is not a character from Redwall. Oh, how he'd scorn that title. This is Bertram, the Mole Warrior, and his sword "Ruby Elixir" from Cottleston Pie. If you are wondering about why that has to do with anything at all, I am here to tell you that it has a lot to do with the imprint I am founding for publication of my novels:
Ruby Elixir Press
I mentioned to you that I am striking out in a spirit of fierceness and sunshine? Well what better emblem than that of the bravest, most practical and valiant mole in all the world?
And just when Simpian was wishing the Rickets would hurry up and kill them—or better yet: go away--he felt a very small earthquake beneath him. Rolling over, Simpian saw the earth crack open in a furrow. Something very like a cigar-butt peered out at him with a grin and two bright black eyes beneath a paper soldier-hat.
I have long thought that I should like Bertram to be on my side in any fight...and since independent publication is certainly an uphill fight, I thought I should like Ruby Elixir and Bertram on my side forever and always. So. Dan Tate is helping me turn that scrawl into an emblem for my books...rather like Penguin's penguin, or that unicorn or Pegasus or what-have-you on the other books. "Ruby Elixir Press brings you Fly Away Home"...has rather a nice ring to it.
I have been busy planning the Cover Release blog party as well as the Fly Away Home Debut Blog-Hop and I have actual dates for those so go ahead and get out your pens and calenders and write this down:
Cover Release Blog Party
-January 15-17-
Fly Away Home Debut Blog-Hop
-February 14-20-
To clarify anything confusing up there, you will first get to see the cover on January 15, 2014. (This year.) The rest of the three-day blog party will consist of a giveaway, a tag, a chat with my cover-designer, and more fun. You will be able to purchase a copy of Fly Away Home on February 14, 2014. VALENTINE'S DAY, people! So look, even if you don't have a guy of your own, you can buy a copy of Fly Away Home and fall in love with Wade Barnett. Just sayin'. The rest of the debut blog-hop will consist of guest-posts, interviews, and even a giveaway or two. I will be posting where I appear each day during the party, so come here to find your directions for trotting off elsewhere!
Thank you everyone for your delicious support in this venture. My younger sister keeps coming up and jogging my elbow (not unlike Agnes in Despicable Me 2) and saying, "It's just not sinking in that by Valentine's Day your book will be published!!!!!!"
Yeah, darling. I have so many details crammed into my head...I know exactly how movie producers feel when they have committed to a release day. Come hell or high-water, Fly Away Home will be here soon.
Ack. Someone give me chocolate and a paper bag to breath into. Or a neck massage. My ankle is acting out of socket which means I can't even escape to the great outdoors for a walk. Or maybe I can...I'll just look like a limping Bozo.
No wonder Peter Jackson gets fat by the end of filming a trilogy.
Well, darlings, I shall leave you with the back-cover blurb for Fly Away Home to whet your appetites! February 14. Just. Keep. Breathing.
1952 New York City: Callie Harper is a woman set to make it big in the world of journalism. Liberated from all but her buried and troubled past, Callie craves glamor and the satisfaction she knows it will bring. When one of America's most celebrated journalists, Wade Barnett, calls on Callie to help him with a revolutionary project, Callie finds herself co-pilot to a Christian man whose life and ideas of true greatness run noisily counter to hers on every point.
The new friendship sparks, the project soars, and a faint suspicion that she is falling for this uncommon man grows in Callie's heart. When the secrets of Callie's past are exhumed and hung over her head as a threat, she is forced to scrutinize Wade Barnett and betray his dirtiest secrets or see her own spilled.
Here, there is space for only one love, one answer: betray Wade Barnett to save her reputation, or sacrifice everything for the sake of the man she loved and the God she fled. The consequences of either decision will define the rest of her life.Self-preservation has never looked more tempting.
Oh. And if this weren't ulcer-inducing enough, I watched Episode 1 of Sherlock Series 3 (Thanks again, Dan Tate), and Anne Elisabeth Stengl has bumped the winner-announcement date of her Five Glass Slippers contest up to February 1.
Be still, my soul.
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5 comments:
Oh, page numbers! Have you gotten to line-breaking hyphens yet? :)
I love your imprint name! And it's neat that it has such a special meaning for you. And—wait, what? The Five Glass Slippers announcement moved up? Now I've got to do my best to forget that for a month.
So much at once! Don't worry, dear, you will finish on time. Having never published a book on my own I can't say much for page numbers, but I remember Eliabeth having pain over them with Violets Are Blue. Goodness, why do they have to be so tedious?
I'm praying for you, because nothing balms the heart like peace. :)
Hugs,
-Bree
I love your imprint name too. :) Exciting things afoot. You will master the page numbers. They will submit. ;)
This line!"No wonder why Peter Jackson gets fat at the end of a trilogy"
Enough said.
^what Livia said.
And Bertie is adorable! I keep thinking "what ho, what ho, what ho!"...even though this a different Bertie. :) "I SAY!"
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