Okay...so...Because my edits aren't done yet - hopefully they will be soon - and I don't have any good news to announce, I decided I should create a timeline to show how far we've come!
So. I wrote the very first draft of Beyond the Unknown in November of 2011. I wrote it with a section of the NaNoWriMo group. We met together in the junior high classroom. That month was full of a lot of problems between me and my friends, but I managed to write a lot of my stresses into the book. Which you will only be able to figure which of them are true happenings if you know me or my friends.
So I started the book on November 2, 2011. I finished it on the 30th day of the same month. And then...hehe ... I saved it...and didn't look at it fro a few weeks. The only thing I looked at it for two weeks later was to upload it to a website - called createspace - and print my proof copy. After I got that, I went through and highlighted all of the mistakes (or all I could find). And then I pulled up my digital copy and made the edits.
Next came the 5 free copies. All the "winners" of NaNoWriMo (anyone who passes/hits their goal with the "competition") got the free copies of their book. One of mine went to one set of my grandparents, one to the other set, one to my little sister "Chrissy", one to my mom and I kept the last. The next time I looked at the digital copy was to send it to a friend.
I - uh - then a few months later went looking for it. I was going to start editing it (so this was somewhere around February 2012) so I could start the second book in November like everyone was wanting. (Literally everyone who read book one wanted a book two) So...I looked everywhere. Kind of. I looked where I thought it was and it wasn't there so I gave up. A month later I looked again, panicking a little that I couldn't find it on any of the computers. The only option left, was to use the printed copies to re-type everything.
I got about one-third of the way done when one day, a friend came to me and said, "Hey! I'm a chapter away from the end of your book!" What book, I asked. "The moon one." I was so happy! She had a copy. She looked at me like I was crazy when I asked her to send a copy back to me, but she did. And I resumed my editing.
I got the decision made to publish and then I had to find an editor and an illustrator. The first illustrator came to me voluntarily - Kyle - but told me a while later that he would not be able to accomplish the task. So I went to my best friend and asked her to help me.
I finished those edits about a month and a half before the next NaNoWriMo. In which, I wrote the second book. After I finished that one though, I set way to editing it a week later. After the first edit was done, (which sadly took several months because I was NOT happy with that book) I went straight to the five free copies, not needing to buy the proof. Then I went up to a summer work camp. My mom was home to get my copies and distributed them to the same people who got the first book.
A day after my summer work ended, I came home and wrote out the outline for the book 3.
A few days later, my best friend said she, too, would not be able to do the cover art. So, as a last ditch effort, not wanting to find another option, I went through my moon pictures I had taken and found one I would be able to handle seeing whenever I saw my book. :)
So now, I have two books PRINTED, one being edited and almost published. And book 3 is in outline and the first page is written. :)
So that's the up to date timeline of my books. Mostly :) Hope you enjoyed my rambling stuffs....
