Saturday, April 30, 2011

Review of Addiction

Hi Everyone,

Okay, I normally wouldn't do this but I thought my sister was honest in her review. However, it was just her opinion, and I would love to have others comment who have read Addiction. Below is what she said about Addiction:

"I stayed up until almost midnight to finish the last 70 pages of your book. You did a great job telling the story. It was interesting and held my attention. BLANK (I took this part out because she gave away the killer in this part of the review) Basically, what she said is that I was clever. lol The only parts of the book I didn't really care for were the way too graphic for me raunchy sex. The romance was missing. I enjoyed the story though. You have come a long way in your writing. Congratulations."

Is this a good review? Well, it depends on how you look at it. lol I certainly won't pick up any inspirational readers and maybe I won't get the romance readers. Not unless you like raunchy sex. Wink! But then I might pick up some men readers because men like raunchy sex. hehehe

Other reviews can be found on Amazon and at these links:
http://bkwalkerbooks.weebly.com/1/post/2009/12/-read-review-of-addiction-by-sandra-k-marshall.html

http://ddrreviews.blogspot.com/2010/01/addiction-by-sandra-k-marshall.html

http://www.nightowlreviews.com/nor/Reviews/Vee-reviews-Addiction-by-Sandra-K-Marshall.aspx

That's it for this Sunday. Have a great week.

Sandy or Sandra K. Marshall
http://www.eirelander-publishing.com

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Mistakes, I Made In an Old Book

Happy Easter Everyone,

Can you remember hunting for Easter eggs as a child? I do, and I remember it being sunny, but we're going to have rain. Smile. I hope you have a bright sunny day planned with family and friends whether it's raining or not.

Last week, I told you I would tell about the mistakes I made on a book I wrote eleven years ago set at the old TWA overhaul maintenance base and tell you why it never sold. There were so many things wrong with The Beast Within that I have had to rewrite most of the story so far, and I'm not finished. There are pieces I'm able to save, but not a lot. I'm only a fourth of the way finished with the first revisions.

I'm not going to tell you everything that is wrong with this story because they are far too numerous to mention. Besides, you only need to know the big mistakes I made.

Number one mistake I made was to put in way too much detail about the work being done at the overhaul base. Only people who work at an airline facility would have the faintest inkling of what I was talking about in that story. Most readers would be bored after just a few pages and toss the book in the trash. I'm removing everything that doesn't move the story and characters forward. Only what pertains to the story will remain.

Some of you may wonder why I made such a huge error. I did it because I knew too much about the inner workings of an airline maintenance base and not enough about writing a story. Not many people know about moc tags, planning, scheduling, mods, air directives, dampers and airline parts.

When I removed most of this kind of stuff my story was shortened a bunch. That tells you how much jargon about the maintenance was in there. Most of it was unnecessary. Smile.

Some other things wrong with this story is that my characters weren't very likeable because they didn't show enough emotion. I needed to get deeper into their thoughts so the reader understood the characters and empathized with them. Hopefully, I'll be able to fix these problems.

The transitions weren't smooth and I did some head hopping in points of view. This was something I knew and thought I had fixed before but that wasn't the case.

These are just a few of the problems that I need to fix. The book will need at least three revisions before I can start resubmitting it, and then there are no guarantees the story will go to contract. If it does go to contract, I'll have three more revisions.

Starting on Monday, I'm at the Tiki Hut blog from April 25th through May 1st - http://www.AuthorIslandTikiHut.blogspot.comif you would care to visit. I'm having a contest there and the prize is a $15.00 iTunes gift card.

Have a wonderful Easter weekend. See you next week.

Sandy
http://www.eirelander-publishing.com

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Rewriting A Book

Hello Everyone,

First, I want to tell you I had a great time at the writer's retreat. Worked a lot, went to workshops and ate way too much. Smile. We laughed and visited with friends and even got in some walking. Yay! After all the food, we needed the exercise.

I'm posting my blog early because hubby and I are meeting some friends in the afternoon for lunch and then going to a late mass for Palm Sunday.

Today, I'm going to tell you about a book I wrote over eleven years ago. I started writing THE BEAST WITHIN while I was still working at Trans World Airlines and finished it after I retired.

I sent query letters out and received requests for either a chapter and synopsis, a partial (a synopsis and three chapters) or the whole manuscript. I was so proud of this book, and I knew I would get a contract with it.

THE BEAST WITHIN was set at the T.W.A. maintenance overhaul base in Kansas City, and I was thrilled at the response to my query letter until the big R's started coming in (Rejections). Some of them were kind but most were form rejections that didn't tell me what was wrong.

For me this book was the best I'd written to this point. But eleven years ago that wasn't good enough. To be honest the query letter was better than the book, and that was why I received so many requests for my story.

A couple of months ago, I picked up the manuscript to read because I wanted to see if it was as good as I had thought. I read the first fifty pages shaking my head the whole time wondering how I could think I'd written such a great story. After those pages, I went back and started marking through everything that needed to come out and rewriting the story.

I have changed the name of the book to Rumbles, Rumors and Lies. Out of ninety-two pages, I've eliminated forty pages so far. Next week, I will tell you what I did wrong to have to completely rewrite this story, and it won't be an easy task.

You can find my anothology Fool Me Twice at
http://www.eirelander-publishing.com, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords and AllRomanceEbooks.

See you next Sunday. Have a great week.

Sandy
http://www.skaymarshall.com http://www.sandramarshallblog.blogspot.com Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1496954556 My Space - http://www.myspace.com/s_zinn_marshall Twitter - SandraKMarshall LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/pub/sandy-marshall/1a/851/a04 Good Reads - http://www.goodreads.com/skmarshall

Thursday, April 7, 2011

No Post This Weekend

Hi Everyone,

For all of you who drop in faithfully to read my blog every Sunday. I want you to know I'm not posting anything because I'm going out of town, Friday, for a writer's retreat and won't be back until late Sunday.

Have a great week. I'll be back next Sunday.

Hugs,

Sandy
http://www.eirelander-publishing.com/

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Diversity: Do You Have More Than One Publisher?

Hi Everyone,

I am an author, and I've had books published with two publishers. My first publisher closed due to health problems, but there are many reasons why authors change publishers.

Some change because there editor leaves and the new editor is not as enthused about the author's work. Sometimes, an author will change genres, and there publisher doesn't publish that genre so the author moves on. Then there are editors and authors who butt heads, which causes that editor to drop that author. If an editor thinks an author is getting stagnant she/he might get dropped. An author may be offered more money at another house, so she moves there. There are many reasons for leaving a publishing company.

I'm old school and have a tendency to be loyal to those who are loyal to me. After all, I worked for the same company for 36 years before retiring, but does that work in the publishing industry? There isn't much loyalty out there these days between companies and employees. Our young people tend to move a lot, and it's usually for the money.

Do you know of any other reasons an author would move to a different publisher than the ones I've mentioned?

Have a great Sunday, and I'll see you next week.

Hugs,
Sandy
http://www.eirelander-publishing.com/
http://www.skaymarshall.com/