Tighten that Saddle and Hang on for the Ride

I confess, I’ve been lagging on the blog thing the last few weeks, but boy have I been busy! My day job has exploded—which is a good thing. Having security with a solid day job is a blessing! I know the bills will be paid, thank God. But I’ve been busy with the dream stuff too and loving every crazy moment of it!

On my last blog, I told you all about the big edit deadline I had on book 1 of The Deceiver series. If you haven’t had a chance to read that last blog, take a second after you read this one and catch on up. ;o] Anyway, that editing assignment was a lot of good, hard, time consuming, wonderful, delightful, enjoyable, exhilarating work. Auhhh…can you feel the love? Yes, well, I rather enjoyed my week of madness surrounding writing and editing my book. I was living my dream.

Since I accomplished that first big editing deadline, I’ve been contacted by my publisher’s layout and design department. They sent me a questionnaire about my ideas and vision for the book cover and will be working on some options for me to look over by the end of February. Of course they will have their own intuition and experience to make my ideas even better and I can’t wait to see what they come up with! Also they are getting started on formatting book one into a printing layout design for me to review as well. This will also be sent to me for review by the end of February. I have a lot to look forward to near month end!

In the meantime, I’ve been spending my lunch breaks at work and an hour or more each evening reviewing the final edits we made that they sent back to me on book one. This way I can just double check it for any last minute errors or typos. We are all human after all. Ever see a period floating off on the side by its lonesome? Like this  .   I have. Looks kind of funny, right? I want to avoid those. Once they have the print layout done, I’ll get the official copy to look over and they’ll make any final changes that need to be done. So all this evening obsessing is just giving me a leg up on that last minute dash coming.

Once the book cover and layout is complete, my publisher’s marketing department will be start working on getting my author website and Series Facebook page up and start creating the TV commercials and e-commercials. I’m quivering with anticipation here…

I have another piece of great news to share. I was just notified this past Friday that we are also starting the first phase of editing on book 2! This month will be quiet for me as far as any assignments related to the editing. They will take the month to clean up any grammatical errors, punctuation foul-ups, and make notes about anything that just doesn’t make sense or is too “wordy.” By month end I will have a new deadline given to me to review and make my own edits on book 2. Can’t wait!

The end of February and the beginning of March are going to be insane since I have two books overlapping in production and both will have deadlines and things I must do. But you know, I wouldn’t trade a moment of it. It’s what I prayed for, what I dreamed about, and what I longed to experience. Praise God!

I can’t help but feel excited and full of anticipation! Feelings of “stress” haven’t really come. Yes it’s a lot of work, but it’s a joy filled busy. Oh, did I mention I’m still working on book 3 too? Yep. Just a little bit busy…

Well, that’s that latest on what’s going on with the books. It’s exciting being a new author and experiencing all of this for the first time. Really is surreal and such a blessing.

Have a great night everyone! Remember, dreams really do come true. Just keep pressing one and stay determined! Oh, and please feel free to read my other blogs if you have a chance.

 
R.J. Machado De Quevedo

(Follow me on Twitter under @TheDeceiverBook )