Making a Little More Progress...

 After my last post, I was sick for three weeks.  I was hoping to have my manuscript proofread throughout April, but that didn't happen.  I did have a few days that I was lucid enough to do some editing, but that wasn't until the end of April.

I have made some progress since the beginning of May, but I'm still a long way from where I would like to be.

WRITING PROGRESS:

• I did add a new chapter one to the book introducing the female lead that becomes "The Shepherdess Princess."
• I have an outline of new additions to the story that I will be adding at a later date.  I am reworking the storyline a bit more while keeping with the intended plot.
• There are several chapters I have decided to throw out that no longer help to move the plot along.  I am still in the process of getting rid of them because I take them out as I am proofreading the manuscript.  I do make note of them to be deleted as I progress in the editing process.
• I am about 1/3 of the way done editing the manuscript.  I don't know how many chapters I've gone through because I will be adding 4 or 5 new chapters to the story soon that go near the beginning that will help with character development.
• I have thought up a new ending because the one I currently have is pretty graphic.  I felt like it needed toned down a bit.

Right now, I am just using my writing as a way to vent.  It's just for fun at the moment.

Back in the Saddle Again...

 I have officially finished writing my poem devotional, "Magnify God: 40-Days of Praise."  I do want to publish it at a later date, but have to save up to do so.  I have a personal goal to get it published sometime in 2024.

In my last post, I shared that I had plans to start another writing project.  After seven years, I am officially working to edit:

I finished the third draft of "The Shepherdess Princess" in January 2016, and that is the copy of the manuscript I am now editing with plans to publish sometime after I publish "Magnify God."  "The Shepherdess Princess" is a Christian Historical Romance set in Medieval England, Scotland, and France.

After a few weeks of taking a break between writing projects,  I have finished editing chapter 1 of 32.  The journey continues throughout the month of April...

News on the Writing Front...

 Hey, all!  I got an update for you.  I finished writing "Magnify God: 40 Days of Praise Poem Devotional" the beginning of February.  I am now editing it bit by bit.  I took a couple weeks off from doing anything with the manuscript because I wasn't feeling well.  Today, I started back at it again.  I am almost done editing and proofreading Section One of Eight.

Also, I have an idea for the next project I'm going to work on, but I don't want to share details about it yet.  However, I know people will be excited about it.  I'm just not sure if it's a writing project that I am ready to tackle, yet.

More details to come later...

Lulu Press is no more....

 I just found out a little bit ago that Lulu Press, the self-publisher I published my first two poetry books with, has gone defunct.  It is now listed as Lulu International.  It is still a self-publishing company, but the company I copyrighted my first two poetry books with is no more.  Which means, I will have to publish the books again in the future with a new copyright.  I have retired the books on my account dashboard, cancelled my Lulu account, and am in the process of deleting my Amazon Author's page.

It's a blessing in disguise because I was just thinking about releasing "Fateful Firsts: A Collection of Poetry" and "Second Thoughts: A Collection of Poetry" with another publisher in the future anyway.  The publisher I was looking into for my poetry devotional that is almost complete also publishes standalone poetry books.

However, I wanted to get out the poetry devotional I am working on first.  That takes priority for me!  I'll keep you updated on any new developments....

Approaching the finish line....

 I have been working off and on all year to write a poem devotional called "Magnify God: 40 days of Praise."  It started out originally being just a 30-day devotional idea, but changed my mind when I had more poems & scripture verses chosen for it, and ran out of days to put them on. 

 I didn't originally intend it to be a Lenten devotional either, but it's evolving into one.  For those who don't know, Lent is the forty-days before Easter Sunday that honors the forty days Jesus was being tempted in the wilderness.  People who practice Lent, usually fast for the forty days prior to Easter.

I'm not Jewish, but my church does practice it in some form.  My church congregation doesn't just not eat food for forty days, but may choose to not watch TV, go on Facebook, give up chocolate, or coffee instead of food during the forty day period.  The church also compiles, or gives out a daily devotional to read each day as a way to dig into the Word, and bring us closer to God.

Anyway, I have actually three devotional entries left to input into my manuscript, and seven left to write for a total of ten before I am done.

Maybe next year, "Magnify God" will be the Lenten devotional my church congregation chooses to read.

I have several projects on the back burner that I plan to work on next.  I just have to figure out what one that will be still.  One thing at a time, though!

A July break!

 So much has been going on in my personal life lately that I'm taking a little bit of a break this month with my writing.  Things are just starting to slow down, and I plan to get back to writing next week at the earliest (July 18th-22nd).

The last time I did work on my manuscript, this is that progress report:

In "Magnify God: A Poem of Praise Devotional," I added sections by category, a rough table of contents, and some scripture verses to introduce each section topic.  I still have a couple verses to find for the section topics then I will be adding devotional entries to each day.

There are a couple days that already have devotional entries, but I have a few additions to make before those days are completed that I will work on as I go a day at a time.

I also have an idea for the next book I want to work on after I am done editing "Magnify God."

I'm not even thinking about publishing right now because there is still a lot to do.

First post in almost two years!!!

 I have been keeping myself quite busy during the COVID craziness when it comes to writing.  I have been writing pretty regularly for almost nine months now on various writing projects.  I've only taken time off on the days I am not feeling well.

I have many Bible devotional novels in the works:

• "The Body of Christ and the Church" covers how we are to serve God, and explores our relationship with God as "one of many parts."  Also, it talks about spiritual gifts, and the different jobs in and out of the church that we use to glorify God daily.  How we are to treat each other as we "love one another."

          Progress: I have the verses typed up  I am going to use for it, and several devotional entries.  I am in the editing stages of this novel.  There is still quite a bit to be done.  It is over 21,000 words right now.

• "Magnify God: A Poem of Praise Devotional"  is a devotional filled with verses of praise.  I will interpret the Scriptures I use in poetry form to honor and glorify God.

            Progress: Originally, I had planned on making this book a 31-day devotional, but have since decided to turn it into a 40-day devotional.  I am actively working on this one, and have 4,500 words so far.   

I will share the rest of the devotional novels information as I go along.  Above are the ones that are closest to completion.

I would like to get them out into the world someday, but that is still quite a long way off.

Keep on trucking...

Slowly getting back in the groove!

It's been a rough couple of years, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  For the first time in what seems like ages I sat down to write today.  Mostly, it was just compiling notes I had for a new book I'm going to be writing.  Any books I work on now are just going to be for fun.   I just want to get my thoughts on a page because it's very soothing, and healing for me.

I have been avoiding working on the book I printed my notes up for today because it feels so erratic right now.  Basically, I've been typing or writing in a spiral notebook stuff that pops into my head as I think them.  Now, I want to get those tidbits sorted, and some sort of flow started.  I have a long road ahead still, but God will be with me through it all.

Another thing that has been driving me up the wall lately is I have a whole bunch of new story ideas that have presented themselves to me that I still need to flesh out.  I would rather be working on that then the project I am presently working on.  I am afraid if I stray from the book I am supposed to be working on, then I won't ever get back to it.  It is imperative  for me to finish what I started, though.

Creativity on the Horizon...

After taking a break from writing, I'm going to start back at it again.  I want to start off by editing "The Shepherdess Princess," and then go to work on another story idea I have for a poetry devotional book based on scriptures taken from the Bible.  The poetry devotional will be a short 30 or 31-day pocket devotional I will talk to my pastor, or the church office about printing up copies to hand out to my local church congregation.

I already have the first verse picked out for it, but have yet to write a poem to go along with it.

I don't know when I'll be able to get back into the swing of things because the next couple of months are already filling up with appointments.  It may be April or May before I can take a breather.

Also, my mom is not doing well.  I am waiting for a phone call from my sister to let me know when to come see her one final time.  We hope she will last through the winter because the roads are impassable where she lives right now.

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

It has been quite the year!

I ended up in the hospital on Labor Day, and had to have surgery for an abscess on my caboose.  I have been in the local rehab center since September 10th recovering, and receiving wound care.  I won't go home until I'm completely healed.

Today the activity director asked me what I want for Christmas in the event that I am still here.  I replied that I want to be home for Christmas.  I have a lot of friends and family anxious for me to get home, and I am too.  If I am home by Christmas, someone else will get the gift I picked out.

The only reason I am not already completely healed is because we were under quarantine for several weeks, and I was confined to my room for the duration.

I have a couple months worth of appointments I had to cancel while I have been recovering.  I'm looking forward to be able to get them arranged when I get home.

Update November 28, 2018:

I was discharged yesterday, and glad to be home.  I'm taking things slow, and adjusting to being back.

Faith-Based Book Topics in Progress!

I can't seem to stick to one manuscript these days.  I have so many ideas flowing all at once, but they all center around God.  I start one writing project, get a new idea, flesh it out, and have been getting immersed in another topic of interest.

Ideas for novels based on:

• Faith-definition, and my Biblical interpretation of it.
• Trusting God-What the Bible shows me about it, and how God is trustworthy.
• The Holy Spirit-God's connection to His children, and the personalization of the Spirit.

I've recently been given a challenge from a friend at church to write about God's love specifically.  God's love, however, shines through all that I am working on.  Another interest book idea started last year, and put on the back-burner-

• From Beginning to End-How God's Word is lived from Genesis to Revelation.

I've been working on the book about the Holy Spirit mostly lately.  I started a manuscript file on my USB device for it when I first started the project 6 months ago, but most of my notes are in a spiral notebook at this stage, and Bible verses to be spliced in later.  I want to figure out the order, and do some editing/rewriting before I go back to adding it to my computer.


I also have an idea for a book of faith-based short stories that I have written out 4-5 stories so far.

A Change!

So the faith book I started writing, I am now redoing.  I felt like I was taking too many quotes from the book I was using during my faith journey.  I have started writing my own, with my own words and several Bible references.  I called it "Untitled Faith Book #1" for now.  I am keeping the other manuscript on file in reserve because there are things that I wrote in response to another book quote that I may still use in my new one without using any direct quotes from "Believing God" by Beth Moore.


I have several new book ideas I'm going to be fleshing out when I'm done.  They are all a sort of hodgepodge at the moment.  I'm used to working on stories that I outline ahead of time.  This "flying by the seat of my pants" thing is uncomfortable for me, and makes me feel so disorganized.


I deleted the four posts I had on my faith blog pertaining to the book I was writing.  Wish me luck on this new endeavor!

Several New Developments!

I am no longer editing The Shepherdess Princess to get it prepared to send off to an agent.  I will get back to it someday, but it won't be the novel that will get picked up right away.  I am starting work on another project now that will be the one I send off once it's spruced up.  The new novel is called A Personal Journey Through Faith.  I have been sharing some of the chapters in my other blog.  It consists of my Believing God posts, but that will be changed around in the novel itself. 


Some Other Changes...


The Shepherdess Princess is no longer going to be a six-novel historical romance series.  I have narrowed it down to two because I realized the other four novels I planned on was just retelling the original story from different character viewpoints.  The duology will now only be made up of The Shepherdess Princess, and Noble Beginnings.  Those are the only two novels in the series that could stand on their own without being redundant.


I have a file on my computer just for my story ideas.  That list consisted mainly of sci-fi/fantasy type novels along with several romance novels I thought up.  The entire list consisted of fifteen books....It is now down to seven books.  Aside from The Shepherdess Princess and Noble Beginnings, the other five books are faith based. 

Two New Poems!!

I just finished adding to The Trifecta: A Collection of Poetry two new poems.  The first one I'm going to share I started writing on February 17th, and didn't finish until last night.  The second one I wrote on St. Patrick's Day, 2017.  Both are the first poems I have written in almost two years!!!  Here they are:

The Master’s Plan

There is a time for believing,

And a time for receiving

God’s love

Raining down on you from above.

The Master’s plan is not for me to understand.

I know there is safety in the palm of His hands.

The Holy Spirit, He gives as a guide

To all believers worldwide.

Why waste the time I have

With living a life that is drab?

God renews me day by day,

And waits on me to show me the way.

All I have to do is ask,

And in His love I will bask.

I know He wants to bless me more

Than He has ever done in my life before.

A Cross to Bear

There is One person who never gives up

When things get tough.

Jesus is more than enough,

And has also had it rough.

He never wallowed in despair

Too long because he cares

For all who live a life of sin,

And the Father adopts all who believe in Him.

I too have a cross to bear,

But my load I can share

With the One who gave his life,

So I could one day be his wife.

He has been through it all,

And is waiting for my long-distance call

To ask God for His help

When I want to yelp!

The situation is not as bad

When I have my Heavenly Dad

To help me through

Because we are stuck together like glue.

He is worthy of my trust

When I feel like things are bust.

I dwell on the past

While He’s trying to prepare me for a love that lasts.

I keep fighting when I need to give in

Because God is supposed to win.

Faith and trust turns me into us.

God is enough! 

I hope you enjoyed them.  As for other writing, I have new ideas brewing about how I can bulk up The Shepherdess Princess before it is ready to send off to more agents.  I have a couple of months before the next grant application I have to work on comes around, so I think I may have to start filling my time with working on my novel some more.  Stay tuned!

I have been having some health problems lately, so that's been taking up a lot of my time the last couple of weeks,  I still have another week full of appointments to sort some things out.

I thought I should update my readers before 2016 ends...

My writing has gone by the wayside where The Shepherdess Princess is concerned.  I want to revise it some more before I send it off to the final three possible agents on my list.  I have been wanting to go back to working on my manuscript, but other stuff takes priority first.

I am still writing, of sorts...

I'm looking for grants for a family friend to start a homeless shelter in my hometown.  The grant applications I've applied for on her behalf have been misses, so I'm still searching for grants coming out in 2017. She hasn't raised any money towards opening the shelter through grant funds yet, but there is a donation jar that she put out at her place of business for anybody who wants to donate to the shelter project.

I have one potential grant application to turn in come July 2017 that could give her all the funding she needs to open up.  It is so far off that in the meantime I will be looking for grant applications due earlier in the year.  February or March is the earliest I'm pushing for because that will give me all the time I need to get all the additional paperwork that gets included in the grant applications attachments.

Not much new has been going on since my last update.  I can't believe Christmas is just a few days away, and the year is ending so soon.

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year to all!

Finally, a Blog Update...

It's been a long time since I updated my readers on this blog because I've had no news to share.  I'm still searching for a literary agent for my book.  I'm still waiting to hear back from several of them that I contacted three months ago.
I was able to bulk up my manuscript for "The Shepherdess Princess" some since I started contacting possible agents.  I'm hoping the new pages, which is very close to the publishing standards for a novel, will help me get an agent very soon.  I noted the changes to the last ten query letters I sent out three months ago, and have yet to hear back from four of the ten agents.
Over the last couple weeks, my priorities have shifted.  I am helping an owner of a local thrift store, and a friend of the family for several years, get a grant so she could open up a homeless shelter in my hometown.  She already has a possible location for the shelter, the neighbors are excited at the prospect of having it there, and she's going to use part of the space to expand her business.  She gets so many item donations from people she knows that she has had to turn back some donations in the past, so she has the inventory already for the expansion.  I should have the grant application sent off this week for her.
She is going to be compensating me for the work I've been doing, but we haven't discussed how much she is going to pay me for it.  I offered to volunteer my services since she doesn't make a lot of money because she gives so much back to the community, but she wouldn't hear of it.

A New Update! (Finally!)

I can't believe the last time I posted a blog entry was last November.  I'm still searching for a literary agent.  I've contacted 30 agents total so far, and have had no takers.  I still have about 20 more to contact on a list I compiled when I began the search.  All of the agents I have heard back from think the novel is good, but it's not what they are interested in themselves.  They do encourage me to keep searching because they know someone else might love it enough to represent it.  A few of them have even said they wouldn't mind seeing it on the shelf of a bookstore someday, but, again, they had too many clients already and weren't taking any new authors at the moment.


I have been doing some editing to The Shepherdess Princess because it is still a little shorter than the publishing companies recommend.  I was planning to add more to my manuscript file on Microsoft Word today, but I forgot my notebook at home so I will have to wait to do that later.


I haven't written anything new in months.  I don't think it's writers block.  I've been sick twice with the flu, and twice with a really bad head cold over the last couples months.  Then, I had allergies to complicate matters.  The important thing is I'm feeling well enough to pick up a pen again, and I hope to work on one of my writing projects this weekend.

National Novel Writing Month!

It's November again, so that means NaNoWriMo has started for those authors trying to write a 50,000 word, or more, novel in 30 days.  I've participated in the past, but I'm not doing it this year because I can't use the same novel for two consecutive years.  I would have to start a new novel from scratch to participate.  That's doable for me because I have so many new story ideas to choose from, but I have been writing up a storm in the sequel to The Shepherdess Princess.  I don't want to lose the momentum because I have had writer's block for several months prior to my breakthrough.




At the rate I've been writing over the last few weeks, I could have the sequel completed by the end of the month.  That would be something because I don't have a literary agent for the first book, yet.




I would like to try the traditional publishing route this time around, but I am contemplating self-publishing The Shepherdess Princess straight to Kindle as a back-up plan.  I know someone who is growing impatient, and wants it to be published so he could read it.

A New Poem & Agent Update

I finally have some new stuff to share here.  I wrote a new poem last weekend for the first time in two years.  I had just found out that a friend's dad had passed away in the beginning of October, and this is what popped into my head.  Here it is:

A Heavenly Reunion
(In Memory of Traci & Vincent Guillot)

I showed up in Heaven today,
And not even God would stand in my way
When it comes to seeing you again:
The daughter I loved until the end.

“Living the past four years without you has been hard on me,
But that doesn’t matter now that you’re here with a heart full of glee.
Only our love for each other shines through
To the loved ones still missing me and you.”

“Dad, I’m so glad to see
We don’t have to be
Separated from each other anymore
By a gulf between two distant shores.”

“I’m glad to be here, too.
Where the colors are so vibrant and new.
Let’s walk hand in hand
As you give me a tour of the Promised Land.”
Then the two strolled
Together down a street made of the purest gold.

Agent Update


I completed my second round of queries to possible agents.  I've received five rejections, and have five more yet to hear from.  That makes 15 rejections out of 20 total.  I'm not letting it get me down.  Each agent has said the same thing: "It's not a right fit for them, but good luck finding an agent."  One even said it "sounded like a good book, but they had a full client list and wasn't taking on any new authors" with the standard "good luck" in closing.


I keep a positive outlook by thinking:


Stephen King was rejected 100 times before he sold Carrie.


John Grisham was rejected 25 times before he sold A Time to Kill.


If they could persevere, so can I!

Still Looking for an Agent...

I have heard back from the first 10 agents I sent my novel to, and they weren't interested, but wished me well in my search.  None of the prospects thought my novel was bad, but just wasn't what they were looking for in a new project.  In the next week, I'll be continuing down my list by contacting the next 10.  I want to spend some time over the next couple days double-checking my list to see if some of them might not be taking on new clients right now.  Everybody on my list was accepting new clients at the time I compiled it, but a lot can change in three months.


I hope everybody is having a good summer.  I can't believe tomorrow is September 1st.  I don't feel like I've accomplished much over the summer, but I am starting to get into a writing mode again.  I've been making slow progress on the next book in the series, but I'll be sitting down to actually write more once I got my next 10 possible agents contacted.


Today is the last day for the Summer Reading Program at my local library.  I won a basket a couple of weeks ago that contained Sun Tzu's Art of War, and Thomas Paine's Common Sense and other Selected Works.  The basket also included a new book bag that I'm using to pick items up at the library.  I've read over 100 books since the Program started in June.