Emoting for others. Not easy

Although I'd been told, twice, that my fiction continued to sound like a journalist wrote it, I could not figure out exactly what that meant. And if you can't identify a problem, it's near impossible to address it.

I'd heard: tell us what the character is feeling. and Ramp up Alexa's attitude.

But actually accomplishing that had remained elusive.

A girlfriend of mine from my years in New York City, a published author and illustrator (of children's books) visited with me and my husband last week.

Finally, from what she said, I got a clue. Cecile wrote some suggestions in the margins of a printout. I saw them, understood why she wrote this or that. However, that didn't mean I felt like I could replicate what she did on the rest of the manuscript.

I even said to her, "It's like a gray box where I need to put in the character's feelings. And I can't find the door, or figure out how to pry my way into it."

She's known me for 20 years. She said, "Yes you do. You have understood the subtleties of my feelings, and known how others are inside. I've heard you."

Just by someone I could trust telling me, yes, you can do this: That cracked open the gray box.

I think. I hope.

Now feel I'm working on the third draft, the prose is so different -- what with all that emotion flowing all over the place.

Thank you, Cecile!

By Laure Edwards Reminick

Marketing with a Book Trailer

I opened up iMovie on my MacBook Air for the first time on Tuesday, and six hours later had a passable first attempt at a 45-second book trailer (like a movie trailer, only for a book).

Using instructional videos from YouTube (you can find almost anything there), I found it pretty darn easy. By version 5, I had the words matching the themes of the music.

It's not that I'm really good at this sort of thing. Just persistent, and game to try.

I will post it on June 11, the day I was aiming to publish Seeking Sirius. Instead of publishing, since the manuscript still needs work, I will start marketing -- in my newbie fashion.

Once the trailer is posted on YouTube, I'll put a link to it in this blog post. And this blog will be attached to my new Author's Website.

Truly, if you want to do something, search on the web, and you'll almost for sure find instructions on how to do it.  I love technology. And the way people like to help other people.

By Laure Edwards Reminick

Will take the necessary time to get this right

My husband has a gift, probably from a previous lifetime, and honed, this lifetime, with thousands of hours of practice: he knows when the time is right for an action.

I was aiming at one of those moments, an auspicious time, to publish Seeking Sirius (self-publish, because I want to control that very moment of publishing). June 11. Way close.

Too close, I have decided. Auspicious or not.

Luckily, another time. About as good. Better in some ways. Is available. And the really good part, I get more time to make this story something you, and many other people, will hopefully be sorry is over, when you get to The End.

Now is the time for taking the prose to heights I hope to attain.

By Laure Edwards Reminick