Busy Being Busy

So my book is in the hands of my fiancé right now. However, he also wrote a book which will be BrickWarriors Publishing’s first release, so he’s busy preparing it.  That leaves my book on the shelf, so to speak (geeze I wish it was on an actual shelf somewhere right now….or even better, in someone’s hands!).  As soon as we launch his novel, the sooner we can launch mine, so I’m pushing for a publication date.  Plus, I’m equally excited to get his book on that shelf or in those hands.  We released a teaser for his book today, so I thought I’d share the info on here as well. Here’s a sneak peek of A Riddle of Regicide:

Draxin Stormgarde awakens in the Thieves Guild with no memory of his past, no memory of his family. After being forced into training with Yortaz the evil jester, Draxin learns that the Thieves Guild is plotting to assassinate the king. And he’s the person they expect to do it.

During a raid gone awry, Draxin escapes and meets Ravelin, a mysterious royal agent tasked with protecting the king. Together, they race against time to stop the Thieves Guild before the king arrives in town for the annual Elk Day Festival.

Throughout his quest to save the king and unearth the demons of his past, Draxin must outwit a menagerie of fearsome beasts and sinister villains to keep from literally losing his head.

Will Draxin solve the riddle of regicide in time to save the king, or will Yortaz and the poisonous Thieves Guild prevail?

A Complete Lunatic

BrickWarriors Publishing is so close to launching! I’m 99% sure The Curse of the Moira will be released in November.  I was hoping it would be this month, but there were a few unexpected delays.  Cough…laziness…cough.  But I’m super motivated now.  One of the last things I’m working on is the author bio, and it’s quite a hassle.  When you pull a book off the shelf, the author bios are just full of bragging.  I don’t want mine to be that way.  I want it to be authentic and funny.  The problem is that it’s very hard not to sound like a complete lunatic when you write a funny author bio.  It’s a work in progress, but here mine is:

Despite having blue eyes and red hair, Saxa Taylor does have ears. She lives in Delaware with her fiancé, and spends her days figuring out how to grow her toy business and how to convince said fiancé to let her have a kitten. The Curse of the Moira is the first book in a series.  You can find her online at brickwarriors.com.

Yeah…that’s not going to work.

Decision, decisions

I’m feeling very scattered tonight. First off, the movie The Help was good, but not as great as the book of course.  Isn’t that always the case?  I’m currently deciding which book I want to read next.  Writing this blog is delaying me from having to make the choice.  So the secret’s out of the bag…I’m terrible at making decisions.  And this really has been a struggle when writing my book too.

As I was going through the recent edits of my book, I just kept thinking, do I really need to make that change?  It took me a long time to get through all the critique.  I do not take criticism very well.  But I’m done and it is now in the hands of my final editor…my wonderful fiancé.  I asked him specifically to just point out typos and any inconsistencies.  So otherwise…zilch.  The story is done as far as I’m concerned.  I’ve tapped out.

And I don’t mean I’ve tapped out because it’s good enough.  I’m done working on it because I’m convinced that it’s amazing.  Another secret is out of the bag…I don’t take criticism well because I tend to be a little cocky.  I’m beginning to wonder how big this bag is.

Distractions are Good

So I had a friend look through my book to do some light editing (I say “light” because it’s already been edited a lot by myself and others, and I assumed I was close to my final copy, if not there). Well, my book has been butchered.  Taken out back and viciously slaughtered!  There’s blood everywhere. Such a mess.

Anyway, I don’t feel like going through all the gobbledygook right now. I’m going to stay in my “happy I’m almost done my book” mood a little longer.  Which brings me to distractions.  As part of my holiday marketing campaign for BrickWarriors, I decided I wanted to start doing YouTube ads.  Specifically, how cool would it be to have an ad go viral?  Cha-ching cool!  Obviously, you can’t control what goes viral, but we decided there are things that might help boost share-ability.  So we’ve been working on a somewhat inappropriate ad targeted toward adult Lego fans.  And I’m the leading lady!

I know that filming a YouTube ad for a legitimate reason isn’t a distraction per se, but it did successfully divert my attention away from all that blood on my book. Anyway, I’m hoping this distraction will be good for business.  Well, let’s see what you think.  Click on the picture below to watch our ad:

BrickWarriors: Not Just for Kids

Thank You For The Help

With all the books I’ve read lately I’ve been so upset that I’ve forgotten what it feels like to suspend my disbelief. But then I read The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  I cried, I laughed, I hoped…this book got to me in such a good way.  It didn’t annoy me like all the other books I’ve been reading since I’ve entered editing mode of my own novel.  I actually couldn’t stop reading The Help and I was so sad when it was over. I’m sure that Stockett got a lot of heat since she is a white woman writing in the perspective of black maids in the 60s.  And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t skeptical despite hearing such great things about it.  Stockett did it though.  She made me love those characters and grow with them.  I wanted Aibileen to be able to feel whole despite the loss of her son.  I was so eager for Minny to get out of her abusive relationship.  And I was so proud of Skeeter for staying true to what she believed in, despite heartache and the loss of her friends (who needs them?).

The only thing I didn’t like about the book was how open ended the ending was. And it’s only because I loved the characters and wanted to know what happened next with them.  I wanted to be able to verify that Aibileen and Minny stayed safe and were able to successfully start the next chapter of their lives, and I wanted to see if Skeeter was able to find love and acceptance in New York.  If it hadn’t been a great book, then I wouldn’t have been disappointed with the ending at all.  I’m itching to see the movie now too.  I’m not ready to let go of the characters yet, so I’m hoping the movie stays true to them.  I can only hope that my book can tug at the reader’s heart strings in such a way.  The Help gave me hope that good books do still exist and that I’m still able to enjoy reading.  I was beginning to feel a little lost, so thank you for The Help, Stockett!

Lay vs. Lie…Grammatical Nightmares Unleashed

Editing a book pretty much sucks. When you finish writing a novel, you can’t help but think that you’re super close to releasing your book into the world.  In reality, though, you have to edit it for months and months.  This is definitely my least favorite phase of the novel writing process.

When I was younger I was terrible at reading. I was in the lowest reading/writing class in school and I was embarrassed.  So I spent my free time and pretty much the entirety of my summers reading.  I’ve read so many books that I couldn’t possibly count them all.  And eventually I got moved up.  I made it to the top reading class.  I’d say all the hard work paid off, but it wasn’t hard work.  Once I picked up a book and started reading for fun I couldn’t stop.  It’s one of my favorite things to do.  But there’s still that insecure kid in me that’s worried I’m not good enough.  So the editing phase of my book has been a complete nightmare.  I’m learning things about grammar that I never learned in school.  The difference between lay and lie gets me every time.  I can’t use either word without looking them both up.  Sometimes I just ask my fiancé because I can’t bear to search for it again, but surely he’s losing patience with me for asking the same questions over and over.  There are just so many tiny, frustrating little grammatical things like that.  I’m working hard though, and I do hope to have my book ready soon.

I’ve actually taken a small, much needed break from editing for the past few weeks (my book is in someone else’s hands and I’m waiting to see what feedback she has for me). So instead of torturing myself looking up lay vs. lie for the millionth time, today I got to work on some of the artwork for my book.  I finalized my map and have the concept down for my cover art.  I really like how everything is coming together.  I just need to keep reminding myself that I’ve come a long way since elementary school.  And one day I know I’ll learn the difference between lay and lie.  Some things just take time.

Here’s a snippet of the spine of my book: