It Is Done...

Yesterday, I finally completed Beyond the Milky Way! I'm so excited yet terrified all the same for this feat because it means so many things. Right now, I've printed out the entire story: 213 pages, in hopes of rereading it, making changes and then rewriting it. Then, I have three friends who I will enlist their help to go over it as well. THEN I will send off to various publishers, to see who will take the bait. I was told to submit to all of them at the same time; that way, I can get all my rejections at once! :D

I've come to learn not to expect any good news with this, particularly seeing that the reads have dwindled drastically. A bit upsetting: if readers aren't willing to read this story for free, what makes me think they're gonna pay for it?

Anyway, that's part of my doubts about this journey. But, no one will be able to say that J Linz didn't at least try. So, there's that. :)

Alright. I'm off to go edit. Or procrastinate and eat cake: those who know me, know which one I will actually do! Wish me luck.

Where Have I Been...

It's been three months since I've done any type of updates on here and I apologize. I have gone through some tremendous things that left me unable to do anything, at least have the will to do anything. I'm getting better and my mind is trying to become more focused.

I won't bore you with the exact details...

Just know that there's been a major setback in my plans as far as publishing. I've updated a few chapters and after speaking to a writer friend, decided to change the ending in order to submit it to an actual publisher.

It seems that a lot of them prefer the campy HEA (happily ever after) or HFN (happy for now) endings because apparently, that's what readers of romance prefer. To each their own... *shrugs*

I'll submit to at least two publishing companies before I go the self publishing route. I'll let you know how much my hair turns gray or how many dreads I've pulled out during this process! :D

That's pretty much all for the update. I'm working on a couple of other stories but for right now, they don't seem to be anything as major as Beyond the Milky Way. Things could change, though.

All I know is that I'm going to owe my friend a lot of money for the covers, if that's the case! :P It'll be worth it, though...

One or two more chapters left before I can go through Milky Way as a whole and submit to the publishers of doom... I mean, the publishers! Wish me luck!

Teaser Tuesdays 4/4 & Updates!

So, I hit a bit of a snag as far as posting chapters for the various websites I keep the story on. But, everything should be fine.

We're four days into Camp NaNoWriMo and I've started on the second book for the project this month. I set the goal really low so as not to get overwhelmed with trying to finish the first book. Right now, I'm a little over 55K words in for the first book. Word goal for Camp NaNo is 20k; all I have to do is write around 1k words a day and I'll reach that goal by the 20th! :D

That's about it. Still posting every day to every other day on various sites. I would like to have Beyond the Milky Way published by June 14th; we'll see. Oh, book two will be titled: Lady of Esperia!

Here's your Tuesday Teaser!

“I heard what you and Areiv talked about Friday.” Lindsay glared at Bradley. His eyes widened for a moment before he gave out a sigh.

“Okay, it wasn’t what you thou-”

“You told him that it was a bad idea for him to be with me. How do I take that out of context, Brad? You seemed pretty damn clear to me!”

“I just don’t want to see you hurt, Lizzie…”

“For the last fucking time; Areiv wouldn’t hurt a fly! When I called you jealous that one day, never in my life did I think it was for real! So, let’s hear it for real this time; what is it about Areiv that irks you so damn much?” she already knew the answer; Lindsay really wanted Bradley to openly admit it.

“He… he never hid his intentions! Of all the female species here, he’s overly nice to you and you alone…? I’m pretty sure there’s plenty of Esperian women for him to pick from, but he put his sights on you, knowing damn well that you were already married! I mean, come on, Lizzie; he started charming you from day one, and you let him!” the words flew out of his mouth before he could stop them. Bradley knew that they were the wrong choice of words as soon as Lindsay’s eyes widened and she gasped.

“… Oh, fuck you, Bradley!” Lindsay didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing tears in her eyes as she quickly turned to leave. Bradley wanted to pull his hair out for saying what he did but grabbed her arm, instead.

“Shit! Wait, Lizzie; damnit, I didn’t mean tha-”

“You did mean that! Let me go!” her voice cracked as she struggled to hold in her tears. It wasn’t true, Lindsay told herself; Areiv wasn’t trying to charm her from the start. The attraction was there, of course but they both knew she had a husband. She did nothing to make anyone think that it was okay to woo her.

“Lindsay, the truth is that I really like you, okay?! That’s the real reason why I don’t like Areiv, because I saw that he did, too! Bu-” the pain was sudden as Lindsay’s fist connected to his jaw; the punch was enough for him to release her. Lindsay’s hand throbbed in pain but her anger caused her to be unaffected by the feeling.

The Covers!

Ran into a bit of a snag as far as updating/posting/editing. Beyond the Milky Way will contain a couple of sex scenes. And, I'm not good at writing those things; writing them during sprints? Yeah, no. 

In the meanwhile, I want to not only share with you some covers for the story but also let you know that I made the decision to switch the main genre from Science Fiction to Romance. After I received a review that made me scratch my head and complaining to a couple of writer friends about it, it dawned on me that the reviewer was expecting a lot of SciFi-y details. They were disappointed that one particular part didn't do anything for the growth of the characters or flow. 

{SPOILER: the races aren't important...}

Now that that's out the way, I wanted to waste time show you the covers that were made for this story!

1. This was the original cover used on Wattpad. The story was first published on AFF but the site doesn't give you an option for adding a cover. Wattpad does. Keep in mind that none of these are stock pictures. I honestly just went to Google and searched "galaxy". Then I went to Ribbet to crop the photo to roughly 252x400, probably brightened it and then took that picture to piZap and added the font. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy, mac n cheesy! :D 

 

2. For some reason, it won't center but that's not the point! Welcome to the rewrite! On the far left is the original cover (for some reason my pen name is missing and I can't remember why...). This time around, when I went to Google, I wanted a picture of the Milky Way galaxy... and I know that because we're actually in it, we won't have a picture of the likes that I was wanting. Problem was, this was the picture that appeared when I Googled and I thought the quasar was cool-looking; the title is literally exploding quasar Milky Way. BAM! Cover for the rewrite! The cover in the middle was my actual first one; I really liked the way my name looked but if you merely glance at it, the Z looks like a G. Redo and you have the third pic!

3. This is the baby. She's the one (and as you can see, my background...)! This is the cover you will see when I publish this story. One of my writer friends has a knack for making covers; this was her end result. I always felt that whenever she asked if any of us in our writing group wanted a cover for stories, it was her way of nicely saying: "Your current cover sucks, let me fix that for you"! In my case, they do. I don't have the equipment to do covers the way I truly would like them; she does. When she asked me if she could design the cover, I was all "sure". I gave her the pic of my former cover and after a while, she asked if the galaxy had to be Andromeda and I was like O_o. Those last covers, for those who aren't science and space heads, were indeed of the closest known galaxy to the Milky Way, Andromeda. Damnit, Google! She wanted to do a Star Trek-type theme and this cover was born!

So, there you have it: a history of covers! If nothing else, I am excited to see this in print soon and I hope you will be as well! Now... I sleep!

A Small Update

Nothing major to report except that I'm closing in on 50K for Beyond the Milky Way! I had all the plans in the world to have it finished before the start of Camp NaNo but it doesn't look like that will be the case. No worries, though: I'll just work on two stories at once. I've somewhat proven that it is possible to write 50k words in a month, even with the procrastination I'm known for!

Thanks to a fellow writer, I was introduced to this app called Writeometer. It is a mobile app but helps you more than you think! It's main idea is for word sprints, which you can set the timer to how many minutes you desire. My friend was used to thirty minute sprints until she asked me to join in. With my time constraints, I could only do fifteen minute sprints; she eventually told me that those worked out better for her as well!

So, once you download the app, you fill in what project you're working on. I haven't truly tested the limits but I have three projects so far; I have no idea if you can add more. After that, you set the other perimeters like your word count goal overall as well as your daily one. It'll calculate how long it will take for you to reach your overall goal, depending on your daily word goal. But, you can adjust all you want.

So, I lied. Looking through the logs for my project, I started on February 11th. I already had a little over 4k words. So far, I have 120 entries of fifteen minute sprints but nineteen empty days; basically, days where I didn't write. Well... I guess it's not a TOTAL lie; my math is wonky but I believe that adds up to a little over a month. Hey, I leave all that math stuff to my mathematician husband, thank you!

Sprints help to fight that procrastination. Because it's just like NaNoWriMo; they don't ask for it to be perfect. The only requirement is to write. What I do is I have two documents up whenever I do sprints for my Beyond the Milky Way project; this is because I'm revising from the 2nd revision (yes, it is a bit of cheating but I am changing quite a bit; I'm not copying word for word). The first is the last revision and the latter is the revision being worked on. After I finish a chapter and log in all the sprints I've done, I open up another document: this one is the one you guys see posted on the sites I mentioned in my last entry. I found it very helpful to have a separate document for revisions because they alter your original word count. The second revision is actually 47462 words in; the totally revised document has 34397. If I count where I've stopped revising for the third time (if that makes sense...) then the second one has 35056. 659 words is practically two word sprints for me!

Yes; you've gotten a glimpse into my method of madness! I am working on my third revision of the story, and after receiving some valuable feedback from another writer, I'm going through a fourth one before it will be ready for print! I am hoping to have this done by my birthday; that would be nice!

And now I leave you; I have a house to tend to. Well... a husband and some laundry. But, according to Writeometer, all I need is 231 words a day to reach 50K by the 24th. Sad that the story won't be finished at 50k but hey, progress is progress! :D