I'm doing it...I'm changing the POV of my ENTIRE 93,000 word novel.

Yep......I decided it was a must. The entire thing is written in 1st person and sicne it's romance, I decided it would be in my best interest to change it to 3rd. I am keeping the original though.

So here I go. At first I was going to edit the entire thing first..again...go through...look for all the adverbs, work on taking out all those no no words...really change the spots that tell instead of show. THEN I would start the POV switch. But I decided it would be a much better idea to do the POV switch first.

So has anyone done this before....any advice???? So far it seems pretty simple....just a matter of going though each line and changing I to her, she, character's name, etc...

I will also be adding in some of the hero's perspective too...which I never could do before...so this will be interesting.

I have a deadline in mind here for the POV change and the rest of the editing. I am attending a conference the end of March and I hope to pitch this book then. Do you think I can accomplish this all in, oh, just over 3 months time??? I think it's doable!

That time of year again.....Christmas cards!!!

I spend a lot of time preparing my holiday cards. Usually they are handmade and include a family photo and a yearly newsletter (though this year, with Facebook, most of my family and friends have been kept up to date on our family happenings). I put a lot of effort into my cards and I'm usually proud of them. But every year I get the "Wow, you must have a lot of time on your hands....." No I don't....it would be much easier to buy some cards and slap our names at the bottom...but for me...a Christmas card is kinda special..it's a wish for the season, a holiday hug in cardstock form. I put love into them.

I'd love to share my cards with everyone I know, but each year I struggle with my Christmas card list. Of course there are the must sends- family and my close group of friends. They always get cards no matter what. But what about the others? Everyone has at least a handful of people that you just aren't sure if you should send a card to. You recall the last year when you sent them a card and one came from them afterward....and you wonder if they only sent one because they received one from you. Did they feel obligated because you spent your 40-whatever cents for a stamp plus the cost of the card?? Or were they just late in mailing their cards last year?? Do I send one and do this all over again this year??? I sure don't know!!

What I do know is that this time of year is special. The preparation gets blown out of proportion sometimes with all the shopping and money and all that....but when it comes right down to it....the cards, the simple wishes, the time spent with family....it's all so amazing. The smiles on my kids faces when decorating the tree and the joy of driving around at night and looking at the illuminated houses. Not one of us knows how long we have on this earth and I chose to see the holiday season as a time of family and togetherness.....and my cards are just a small token of my love and appreciation for those in my life.

An Award!!!! I'm so excited!!!!

Beth at Aspirations honored me with this awesome award!!!!! THANK YOU so much!!!!!!!

I am really honored to receive this award...I strive to write a blog that is honest, down to earth...real. This is just proof that I actually am achieving what I'm setting out to do!! Thanks!!!

So....here are 10 honest things that I don't think I've mentioned before....hard to come up with more...I'm such an open book!! LOL!!

1: With Christmas fast approaching, some of my treasured Christmas presents ever: the game Mall Madness, a Roller Racer and an electric juicer. These are items my parents seriously searched forever for (well not so much the juicer...but the others!)

2: My favorite book as a pre-teen was Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret and when I read it for the first time...I couldn't take the suspense...barely halfway in I had to read the last page to find out if she got her period or not.

3: Once in 7th grade our nun principal came in and made a handful of us girls wet down our poufy teased bangs.

4: My first year of college, I probably only slept in my own bed about a dozen times. (My hubby attended the same school...we started dating before school started.)

5: I was 2 days from my 19th birthday when we got engaged...and here we are more than 14 years later!

6: All my serious boyfriends (all 3 of them) had last names that started with H.

7: The idea for the first novel I attempted came to me while playing a party game at a friend's house. (It is still not finished...I found it extremely hard to write from a man's perspective at that time...I will go back to it eventually! Maybe I'll make a POV change???? Hmmmmm??????)

8: At one time, I wanted to be a Wedding Coordinator/Planner...I wanted to be Jennifer Lopez in The Wedding Planner...headset and all. I even completed a correspondence course for it and became certified. I loved the planning parts but there is just no money in that profession in my area. And then I discovered my love for writing fiction and the rest is history!

9: My parents are great...they let me live my life and don't judge. They never tell me what to do or overstep their boundaries. (Though my dad will sometimes add in his comments from time to time..."Why aren't you going back to work in a flower shop?"- his question when I told him I was giving up my home-based floral business and pursuing a writing career.)

10: I love my husband and my kids more than words could ever say!! (which I am sure I've said this before, but it's worth repeating! :) LOL!) I want them to be proud of me and hopefully writing will take me there!

Thanks so much Beth!!!!! I so appreciate this award!!

Edited to add: OOops...my bad...TOTALLY forgot to add my nominees!!

Lynnette at Chatterbox Chit Chat
Kristi at Random Acts of Writing
Jessica at Bookends
Jordana at Jordana's Musings

I think that's about it...there were more (Roni at Fiction Groupie, Natalie at Between Fact and Fiction, and Megan Rebekah at Megan Rebekah Blogs and Writes, but the honor has already been bestowed on them by someone else!)

Connecting with the World!!!

I love checking my recent visitor map!! I am floored by how many people outside the Unite States are reading my blog!!! Little ole' me.....people from around the world are interested in what I have to say.....it just amazes me! I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be reaching the other side of the world with my blog posts!

So a huge Hello to all my international visitors!! I'd love to put a face with the country! Please comment!!! Turkey, Slovenia, Portugal, Pakistan, India, South Africa!!! Many more too!! Thank you so much for stopping by!!

My thoughts on self publishing...

From the very beginning, self publishing was just not from me. I wanted to get paid...not pay out my money to have my book published. (Though I know traditional publishing does not make an author an instant millionaire). I wanted to see my book on the shelf of a bookstore not peddling it out of my trunk. (I know there are other avenues for selling self published books, but in the beginning, this is what I envisioned). I needed the publishing world to tell me I'm good...I could not say to myself "I am good". (Yeah, I may have some self esteem issues).

Now before self published authors come for my head...I completely respect those who do self publish and I think there are good reasons for self publishing. Sometimes a book is so niche that it doesn't appeal to an agent or publisher. Or poets....from what I hear, finding an agent or a publisher for a book of poetry is impossible. Or the writer who just wants to put together something for their own personal enjoyment, a family cookbook, a memoir, whatever....this is a way to do it and receive a nice looking product.

It takes guts, lots of em', to put yourself out there and do the work that is necessary to make money on a self published book. To make a self published book a success, it takes more work than a traditionally published author. (And I also know how much work it takes for a traditionally published author to make their book a success too...but being backed by someone helps, a lot).

At one point I thought of self publishing my second novel, the one that is now contracted by Lyrical Press, A Bitch Named Karma. I love that story so much and it was killing me that no one loved it as much as I do. I needed to see it published. I queried that thing like crazy and it just never found it's right match until I queried Lyrical.

I don't know all the details of the new Harlequin self publishing thing.....but I am a bit appalled at the way they plan on basically saying: "Your work isn't good enough for us to publish, but you can pay us to do it."

I read a self publishing blog called The Self Publishing Review. For that brief moment when I was on the fence about self publishing, this blog definitely made up my mind. It tells it's readers why self published books do not do well....unless the author has paid for professional editing services, many of the books are just not up to the standard that they could/should be. This blogger reviews self published books and gives them 15 mistakes before they close the book...many don't make it past page 10. That is a clear cut dose of reality.

Now that I am in the editing phase with a professional editor through my publisher...I see how, even after I've done multiple edits on my own, the story is still far from perfection. So glad I didn't shell out all that cash to self publish.

I hope I didn't offend anyone with this post...it's just my thoughts about this topic.

Fiction only or some non-fiction too??

When I was a teen, I wrote newspaper articles for a club I was a member of, the FFA. I was the reporter and it was my job to tell the world (or at least our little part of it) about club happenings. My articles were published in small papers designated for individual neighborhoods in our city (Bee Papers, The Metro, and for my neighborhood- The Riverside Review) and one even made it into the big newspaper in our city (The Buffalo News). My writing was included in a county-wide agricultural paper too. That year at the FFA NY State convention, I was awarded the State Reporter's award. A huge deal for me! I applied to two different colleges: one for journalism, one for Floriculture Merchandising.

I went to college for floriculture, got married, started my wedding flower business and started a family. I started writing again but this time I was drawn to fiction. It started as something I just did cause an idea popped into my head. But quickly this new found passion grew and in record time I finished an epic novel. It was only the beginning for me and once again I craved publication.

I tried to write non-fiction again and found it to be incredibly difficult. The only pieces I wrote that satisfied me at all were about topics I knew A LOT about...things that were dear to my heart. All the research in the world didn't help either...I just did not have the gusto that is needed to make an article great.

Do you excel in fiction or non-fiction or can you do both well??

Day 3 of my Brain Vacation

I decided to take a brain vacation this week. I've been editing my little heart out the past, oh 5 months. Not every single moment of every day....and there have been days where I didn't open a single file, but I decided I needed a whole week to step away and catch up on some things in my life that have gone neglected.

So let's see...what have I accomplished.... Not nearly as much as I planned.

I did get to pretty much finish the Christmas shopping. I have to buy for one more person (just a matter of picking it up) and I need somehting else for my dad. He's one of those guys who usually just goes and buys whatever he needs when he needs it. I did manage a robe and slippers for him....very exciting. I'd kinda like to get him something else...something that has a tad more wow factor to it.

Today I filled an Etsy order and sewed some drawstring bags. I need them for the Christmas party at my daughter's school. They will hold the kids letters to Santa!

Yep...that's about it.

I need to figure out what I'm doing for Christmas cards this year. Usually I do something fun and hand-made. I have zero inspiration this year. Not one thing has come into my head. I wanted to catch up on some scrapbooking...I have a good 200 or so pics that need to be scrapped. I have presents to wrap too.

Well...it's early...just after 1 in the afternoon. My son naps till at least 3:30...I still have a good 2-1/2 hours left!