I was featured in an article that appeared in the Brookline TAB - http://www.wickedlocal.com/brookline/fun/x1838795911

I haven't written anything in weeks. No ... more like over a month.

I fail.

I've just been so damn busy I don't feel like I have five seconds to sit down and figure out what to write. I want to get going on Newer Fic really bad - I have the opening scene in my head, but I have research I need to do on it. Ugh. I'm so uninspired because my brain is crowded lol.

I'm slowly crashing after rushing to get my book out. I feel like I could sleep for a year. My nerves are totally on edge thanks to unrelated stuff, so I'm ready for a nice, long vacation.

Thank you to the person who suggested I friends lock entries with info on plots, characters and so on. I hadn't really considered I should lock those entries, but it makes sense.

So for those of you who lurk and are not on my friends list, certain entries, like those discussing plot lines, character profiles, and anything to do with planning where I've entered info, those entries are now friends only. Add me as a friend, I'll add you back and you can see them. I've been doing this for entries where I post snippets of a chapter or story already.

I'm debating my next projects. I am going to be co-writing for the first time in my life on a fan fiction piece (which has more original character elements to be honest). I've never co-written - I had never co-planned before I met my co-writer - and I never thought that co-writing was something I could do. I never thought I'd be comfortable writing with anyone or find anyone whose style I felt worked with mine. But my co-writer kicks butt, and I've been inspired by my two friends who co-write so seamlessly I don't know how they do it. This project has been termed "Newer Fic" lol.

I'm also going to rest a week or so before jumping back into Brookline University: Sophomore Year. I had started to edit it a little right after I finished the first edit on Freshman Year. I think I only got through one chapter, and I think I'll have to change a few things in it.

Aside from all that, I have a few fan fic pieces I want to work on - I figure it'll be a good distraction from all the editing and original stuff I just got through.

Brookline University: Freshman Year is now available for purchase!

Brookline University is a four-book series that follows the adventures of twin sisters Joy and Libby Morrison, and their best friend Angel Sheridan, as they leave foster care in Seattle to attend college in Brookline, Massachusetts. Dealing with campus life is a whole new world - from rushing sororities to juggling classes and dorm life, to starting new relationships, these three friends will need to rely on each other to navigate their new world.

The book retails for $15 US and is in 6x9 trade paperback. It is not currently available as a PDF download, as Lulu doesn't offer secured PDFs at this time.

Oh, God, I am so tired.

Due to work and a few projects I was working on for other people, I didn't get a chance to sit down and crack open my book until Sunday morning. I had 22 chapters to edit by tonight. I spent all day yesterday in front of the laptop, reading and correcting punctuation, spelling and grammar mistakes. There were enough lol. I was so tired at one point, I read the same paragraph 5 times before I gave up and took a break. This morning I was back at it again, and at 4pm today I finally finished the entire edit. The book is 260 pages in 6x9 format.

I'm really happy with it, and just after midnight tonight it will be open for sale, and of course, I'll post a notice here.

But right now I'm going to have a Diet Pepsi and relax. Well, as much as I can lately lol. My nerves are totally shot.

It's HERE!

Breathe, breathe lol.

It looks FANTASTIC. I feel like such a braggart, but the cover looks amazing, the fonts are all good - the wonky looking PDFs weren't wonky! The entire design and layout of the book is perfect. All I have to do is go through the actual manuscript for spelling/grammar mistakes. I am so relieved I don't have to mess with the covers! All I need to do is proofread, essentially.

So people, mark your calendars - Brookline University: Freshman Year will be available for purchase on Tuesday, April 15, 2008. It will be available in 6x9 format as well as downloadable.

It's my birthday today =)

Since that has nothing to do with writing, I will tell you I have yet to receive the proof copy of Brookline University: Freshman Year. I would lie if I said I was not panicking. The 15th is in 6 days.

I need to have it open for sale that day because it's my sorority magazine deadline which is a really great marketing opportunity. It goes out to every dues paying member. I really hope it comes before Friday - then I can spend some time telling the internet about it before the 15th. I am panicking like you wouldn't believe.

As for the name issue, I've decided to leave it. I am panicking and it's causing me to second guess things that I shouldn't second guess.

I spent the last two days doing more edits, and I finally decided to upload it all and order a copy.

I ended up designing a back cover (very simplistic) myself since I didn't like the fact their cover maker doesn't allow you to customize very much. I am really hoping the front cover turns out - I'm worried about the "Freshman Year" text part. The PDFs look a little wonky, so I'm hoping it prints clearly. If not I'll have to deal with that and redo the front cover slightly, which won't be a huge big deal. I saved various copies of the cover in various stages just in case I needed to edit certain parts and not others.

I used yesterday to take care of all my "that/which/who" issues, today I spell checked and grammar checked. I'm sure I'll catch some in the proof copy. I'm really hoping to get it by next week (doubtful ... ) and then spend a few days reading and fixing things before opening it up to sale. I'm really excited about it.

I've got 44 Facebook fans (thanks!) and I'll be using that, my MySpace, GC and a few other places, as well as emails to promote the book when it's released.

Yesterday was my grandma's 100th birthday, so I'm surprised I got as much work done on this book the last week. We went nuts with a party for her.

I am totally exhausted from all the craziness going on lately. I'm going to take some B vitamins and curl up with a Lisa Jackson book. I just started reading her ... she jumps heads a lot and it's driving me a little crazy. I haven't gotten too into the book yet, which is disappointing. I think I'll try a Karin Slaughter book next. Oh, and I found out my local used bookstore is going out of business unless someone takes it over. I'm really bummed.

If you are a fan of my writing, please add my Facebook Page to your profile!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jennifer-Samson/9761587719

I also want to announce the release of my new personal website:

http://www3.telus.net/tyee

It has some basic info on me, my writing and some links to sites I enjoy. There is more to come, but this is a start.

Edit tally:

17 out of 22 chapters

I'm taking part in the LJ strike, so there won't be any entries or comments from me for 24 hours. In that time I really, really hope to have this edit done. I've found a bunch of mistakes and little things, but overall the first edit I did was pretty good. I did rewrite a little bit of the assault aftermath, included another POV in there and stuff. I think it works pretty well now.

I'm hopeful this will be out April 15th. No ... I WILL have it out then!

Since I no longer have cover woes (well, except the head shot ... ), I've started on the second edit. I've done 4 out of 22 chapters so far.

The last book I published was Sandy Cove 3, and I managed to get it released on April 9 last year, which was my birthday. I sort of wish I could get this book released on my birthday this year, but it all depends how long it takes me to get through the editing, whether I rewrite the assault scene aftermath (again ... ) and how fast my copy gets delivered when I order one.

I want to have it released April 15th for sure, because that's the deadline for my sorority magazine's summer issue - it's released around the time recruitment begins, which is perfect timing as far as this book goes. I'd love to send something in for the People section (which also means writing up the little blurb and sending a book cover photo in).

In related news, I am close to having my website ready. It is freaking hard to write about yourself lol.

Ugh.

I have gotten so little done it's embarrassing. I did mock up a back cover, but there's so much blank space I don't like it. I also don't want a huge font on the back to make less black space lol. I don't really know what to do with it all.

I haven't had a chance to do any editing either. It's been a very long week.

Added Mar 11:

God bless Lulu. I just discovered that if you're doing a plain colour back cover, you can use Lulu's cover wizard. This saves me SO much time. I didn't realize you could use your own cover design for one cover and theirs for the other cover. It makes sense though, because since I do 2-piece covers, I use their cover wizard to do the spine. So I just eliminated the need to design a back cover for my book. This means all I really need to do is go over it and edit again, make sure everything in the text is correct.

I could swear to God I had a foreward written that explained the history and also explained that none of the sororities or fraternities were based on real organizations. But do you think I can find it anywhere in my files? No, of course not, not when I need it lol.

So I got inspired when I was surfing around looking at book covers. I saw one that got me thinking about doing a cover that wasn't black for these books. I just wanted to do something totally different from Sandy Cove even though I like the idea of those covers quite a bit.

So I was messing around in Paint Shop Pro and I'd like to get some opinion on the front cover I've come up with.

( Click here for cover image )

Any opinion you have can be posted here (I allow anonymous comments if you don't have an LJ account) or you can email me if you know my email and don't want to leave your comments here. I'm totally in the designing and testing phase, so any comments will help me figure out what needs work and what already works. If you have any ideas for me, let me know - I'm kind of constricted in terms of having to stick to royalty-free images though.

Thank you!

My Lulu books now have ISBNs!

I don't know if (or when) they'll end up in Ingram's. These are Canadian registered ISBNs - so who knows lol.

But in case anyone is curious:

978-09809-6280-2 (Sandy Cove Book 1)
978-09809-6281-9 (Sandy Cove Book 2)
978-09809-6282-6 (Sandy Cove Book 3)

All are available only through http://stores.lulu.com/jsamson at this time.

I'm hoping to add Brookline University: Freshman Year to that list before April 15th.

So I finally started designing my book cover yesterday.

I was going to work on the back until I realized that I needed a write up lol. So instead I started goofing around with the front. So far I kind of hate it all lol.

My basic idea was a black background. The top 1/3 would have the book title, then a coloured thick line with the subtitle in it (so "Brookline University" and then underneath in the coloured line "Freshman Year"). Then the picture, then under the pic about an inch of black space and my name in that black space.

I have two fonts I'm considering, and I think I might end up blending the two. One is called Collegiate and the other is called University. Collegiate looks like this - http://www.free-fonts.com/font/collegiate.html (top left and those that resemble it lol) and University looks like this - http://www.free-fonts.com/font/university.html (top right one). So far, the design I kind of liked best used Collegiate for the title and subtitle (in white on black and white on blue respectively) and University for my name.

I have no picture at the moment, so I can't finish designing and get any idea of if it's something I like. I hate designing book covers. I actually like my Sandy Cove ones except I wish the pictures were better quality (I only have a point and shoot 5.1MP digital). I am considering some pics from the free stock agency. it's just finding something that goes. I don't want the covers to look just like the Sandy Cove ones, but they kind of do lol.

So I have a question for everyone - what book covers do you like and why? Comment and show me links to some books where you like the covers - do the covers fit the subject matter of the novel in any way? Or are they symbolic? What draws you to them? What colours do you prefer in book covers?

Just any opinions on book covers at all would be great help.

So I have edited Brookline University down to about 125,000 words. That's 3 stories that didn't make the cut. Nothing really happened in them that affected any plot in the future or in the current novel. I'll probably do what I did with Sandy Cove - I offered the edited out stories for free on my site (speaking of which ... I am working on getting a site up again).

I also put it into the 6x9 template, adjusted the margins, fixed the headers and footers and text size. All that's left is a few more edits for content, spelling, grammar, punctuation etc. Now I really have to think about a cover.

I have been surfing through pictures at the stock xchng website. They offer free images for your use in all kinds of projects. I haven't found the perfect picture yet, but there are a lot of college related ones I could use. I think I could design the back cover - I'm just doing it all black with a text description of the book. Maybe a headshot. Still thinking about that lol.

At any rate, I got a lot done today, which I'm very happy about. It's just small things with the book now as far as in between the covers goes lol. The cover itself is a big thing. I hate doing the covers when I have no idea what I want to do.

How long should a chapter be, word count wise?

I am having issue with dividing up the Brookline University stories into chapters. Originally each story was about 5000 words long or so. If it was much over that, I broke it into two parts. But someone told me that the average chapter is 2000 words. With a 145,000 story, you can do the math and figure out just how many chapters it would end up.

Do 5000-6000 word chapters bother you? Are they too long?

What is too short?

Well, I am doing a fantastic job editing Brookline U, if I do say so myself. Each day for the last 2 weeks I've edited. Some days (where there as a lot of cut and paste and not so much rewriting lol) I managed to do over 20,000 words in a day. I have about 29,000 words left to edit - about three stories worth.

The next step after that is letting it sit for a few days so I get it out of my head. Then I'll work on formatting it to the 6x9" format. Once that's done, I'll go over it with a fine toothed comb for final editing. It's getting to the point where I have to worry about a cover.

I wish I could use photography of actual people, but that's just not possible. So it'll have to be something generic - picture of something college campusy looking - and that's about it. I found a stock photography site where the photographs are free to use as long as the photographer okays it. There's some great photos there for OTHER books I have lol. I'm keeping my eye out for something. I also have to find out when Chris is back, because he said he had a lot of campus shots from back east I might be able to use. Designing the cover is going to suck the most.

But once that is done, it's pretty much time to publish. I want to order myself a copy first and go over a hard copy before I publish even if it delays things by a few weeks.

I've already decided to do just a plain black back - I'm toying with the idea of a small headshot on the back. Yay? Nay? Make your voice heard lol.

I don't think I've mentioned this, but I'm basically working on my Novel in 90 by editing Brookline University. By "editing" I mean "re-writing the entire thing," so I think it counts (Artemis, look! I put the comma inside the quotation marks).

I am keeping track of my word count and so far I should have 12,500 words to date, and I have 35,921. It sounds like a lot, but Novel in 90 equals writing 67,500 words in 90 days. Brookline University Freshman Year is about 140,000 words roughly, which equals 1555 words per day if I want to finish the novel in 90 days. Using that timetable I should be at 26,444 words, so I am ahead of the game. I have actually re-written 49,159 words so far, but I'm not counting the words I re-wrote previous to January 1st for my Novel in 90 count lol.

So I'm on pace for sure to get this rewrite done by the beginning of April.

After that I'll have to go over it for spelling, grammar, syntax etc, then go over it for character, continuity, plot etc. After that, it's formatting it to 6x9 and getting the PDF squared away. Then the cover needs to be done and the book is ready for sale. My early goal is to have it out by July.

The cover is a big thing. I am afraid I'll fall back to my old style and just do what I did for Sandy Cove. I want the book to have a different look, but still be clean and simple looking. I also want cover art that I like. The Sandy Cove pics were with a cheap camera, and I'm not a photographer by any means. I'd love to have a cover with maybe a shot of a university-looking building, students in the background or something. I don't think I'd ever find anyone to represent the characters, so it would all be non-model stuff. I am hoping Chris has some stock stuff I can use.

If you have a MySpace, please feel free to add me:

http://profile.myspace.com/228872989

I'm using it as my "writing homepage" for now lol. My blog entries are usually writing related quizzes or issues of some kind.

Well, I finally got my butt in gear and started the re-write back up again.

I had done a week's worth of editing before my computer had to go get fixed, then it was Christmas etc. I'd vowed to start January 1st, but I didn't. So yesterday I promised myself I would start re-writing Brookline University again, and I did.

I managed to do about 5000 words yesterday, and I finished editing up until the end of Rush (Part 2). Today I got Part 3 and Part 4 done. That was a big struggle because it was 90% re-writing and only 10% of the old story being kept. There was so much wrong with it that I cringed reading it over. I got just about every detail wrong lol. But I knew that a long time ago. The first section was intimidating to me because it was a lot of re-writing. The next two stories are Pledge Period (Part 1) and Pledge Period (Part 2). They also need a lot of re-writing because I got so much wrong lol. But I know I'll be able to get through it now, I just need to keep at it. After that things will be easier to edit until story 15, where the assault storyline is. I may have to actually switch the order of a few stories to have emotional stuff work better.

( Cut for rambling discussion of assault scene )

So basically out of 24 stories that make up Book 1, I have edited 5 in total now. I feel pretty good about this pace. If I keep it up, I can see being done with this first big edit by the end of February. Then another edit for March/April, then a formatting edit to 6 by 9 (I am 90% sure I'll be doing this series as trade size) and then I have to worry about covers.