Hey My Very Patiently Waiting Readers,

It's been a while since I've updated the book blog, but so much has been going on. I'm using my time before I leave for grad school (visit the other blogs on the site for more details if this is news to you) to edit my manuscripts. I know that once I start school, I won't have any time.

But I came on to give you a tip that blew my mind a couple of days ago.

Now I am a huge advocate of using your technology. I edit my stuff on the go on my phone or iPad. I'm always on a screen prepping something. BUT I did something different last week. Before I went on vacation from work, I printed out my manuscript. I punched holes and set it up in a binder. All 128 pages.

I've sat down with the binder a few times and oh my goodness, there is a huge difference between seeing it on the screen and seeing it on the page. I've been able to catch several changes I would like to make. I have found opportunities to tighten and strengthen my language. I'm writing down questions to ask others when I give them pieces to look over. I am feeling progress.

So my advice? Change your norm. Set up your work in the opposite environment that you usually set your writing in and you'll see the difference in how you examine your work.

That's it for now! I'll be back soon, I promise. More blogs to come!



Till next time.



P.S. Check out my fundraiser to self publish my books. If you got some time, share it. If you got some love, throw it a bone ;) - www.gofundme.com/publishme

Hello my Anxiously Waiting Readers (I hope you're anxious!),

As I've been getting deeper into my publishing plan for my chapbooks, I've realized a couple of things.

1. I have new work! New work that should be shared.
2. I have a lot of great poems, but I want to shake things up a bit.
3. As I grow as a woman and a writer, my vision changes. 
4. I have my e-books that I've been creating from Creative Book Builder, what's going to make my chapbooks different from these?
5. What's stopping me from combining my work and making a full length collection?

Full length...that's a scary thought. My mini e-books are chapbooks when you think about it. I've done a "chapbook". I was planning on having three chapbooks, but two of them are very much related. My poems are about love in one form or another. Love of self, family, close ones, and lovers. Love of a craft, life, and most importantly words.

These poems make up who I was, who I am and who I'm going to be in the face of love.

So I have decided to combine, add, and restructure my manuscript into one. The name?

Cognition of Her Body

The title came from a portfolio that I made for my Intro to Creative Writing course many moons ago. I swore one day that I would use the title for another project that the world would see. At the time, I used the title to define that I was studying my body of work in the course. Now I use it because I am studying my body of work, emotions, and life and declaring a knowing of who I am through words in the name of love.

I am still going to have two books. Sweltering Sugar is still going to be its own book. I love haiku and short forms and believe that their value should be celebrated. You don't see books of short poetry everyday. They are out there, but why not have more. Plus I have a beautiful cover.

Fixing up the full length manuscript will take a little time, but I'll be ready to publish it in no time.

What I need right now is support from my audience (yes your lovely face on the other side of the screen) to help me make this happen. I'm currently running an ongoing campaign to raise funds towards publishing my books. The funds will help pay for ISBN numbers, design and layout fees, print runs and more.

If you want to check it out, you can go to my GoFundMe page. I promise that there are awesome reward levels (because I don't believe in not giving something back in return for generosity) and that it will be worth it. Spreading the word too is also a great help.

Or you can download one of my e-books and leave a donation on my Payhip Books page. I'll appreciate anything you can do (like if you know someone or yourself know about self publishing and setting up print copies, I welcome that knowledge!).

I'll keep you guys posted on how things are going. Till next time!

Hi Write Queeners!

I am stoked! I've been working on getting permission to use an image from a sculptor/artist from the UK for the cover of Sweltering Sugar...and I finally got it!

This is big! I can't wait to work on the cover design. I especially can't wait to show you guys the image. Once you see it, you'll want to take a trip to the UK to see the rest of his work. As soon as I get home to my computer (been away taking care of family stuff and have no internet access - thank god for mobile apps for blogging), I am going to start.

Once I'm done, you guys will be the first to know. Yay!!! ::mini dance party in my head::



Till next time!

Hello my loyal and patiently waiting Write Queeners,

This post was suppose to be written a while ago. I was suppose to come and celebrate the fact that I was liberating myself from the merry-go-round of submissions and contests. That I am going the route of independence and self publishing my work. It was supposed to be a true and happy declaration!

Yet as time passes, I find this one of the hardest posts to write. Despite the positives of going on my own path, I keep flipping through all the negative things I THINK it means.

As I plan and research my methods for self publication, I quietly wait for the results of my submissions from the past few months. With no takers, I am conflicted with wanting the affirmation of a press and being tired of letting my manuscripts just sit there. 

The last manuscript has been finished since mid-summer. I spent a chuck of the summer taking a writing course and getting lost in life. Late Night Feelings and Home Sweet Home were under consideration at certain presses since around April and June. In the meantime, work was just sitting there. Waiting, just like the scribe. 

It was after one particular rejection, my thought process went like this: This is such a waste of time! I can't even get feedback on what's wrong with my manuscripts. Maybe it's the mix, maybe it's the order? I just don't know why no one is biting when I hear often that I am a good poet. Maybe I'm not good enough? Well excuse me if I don't have a fancy MFA or even a direct degree in Creative Writing to know how to craft my manuscripts well. Heck, school doesn't even get into the real nitty gritty of the writing life. A lot of it, I taught or sought after myself. I've done a lot of this on my own...

When I got to that last thought, that's when it clicked for me. I have done a lot of this on my own. No one had ever sat down with me and told me this is how you advance in your craft. I had no mentors I could always run to. I had books on the craft of poetry, some college courses that had really stuck with me, the feedback from other writers occasionally, and the internet. If I have gotten myself to the point where I could create a manuscript of poetry for a chapbook, then I am certainly capable of putting it out on my own.

I have ideas for each manuscript, from cover to layout to ways of promoting each finished book. While a press can get me in front of an audience that has already been loyal to their brand and give me the satisfaction of being believed in, they have the ability to compromise my ideas.

I worked too hard on these manuscripts to compromise any further. Plus all of the money spent to have a couple of people read my manuscripts, only to get a no with no feedback as to why? No, I could take that money, create the book myself, and have the world read it and tell me no, inviting feedback if they want to give it. 

The whole thought process to come to this decision scared me. Willing to let the world tell me no? My goodness! As a person whose whole life has been filled with unwelcomed rejection, inviting it in was a new concept to me. Intentionally inviting it in. Then I would be investing in my own round of rejection too. What if I print out 100 books to sell and no one wants a single copy? There are so many doubts that accompany self publishing. It's not as easy as they make it seem to be. As it becomes more acceptable to self publish and the tools and resources become more readily available, it becomes that much harder to stand out. 

My biggest worry is the ability to put my work in the perfect order. Unlike a story, whose order can be determined as it is written, poems are written during any given time. I worry that if I cannot get the order together that the overall theme will be lost to the reader. My work is very personal, but I always try to unite the reader to the experience so they can make it their own. And every experience has a beginning, middle, and end. I want you as the reader to get that. I guess that's why I'm still holding on to the manuscripts. 

I have other minor worries as well such as the actual cost of self-publishing, book design, and more importantly my ability to sell the books I will be putting my blood, sweat, and tears into (yes that was so cliche to say). These fears do slow down progress a bit. I am pushing pass them everyday though because god forbid something happens and I don't get to publish my work. Maybe it would be nice to be a great tragedy and to have my work appreciated like many greats whose work was discovered after leaving this earth. BUT I really want to enjoy my work so I can create more. The addiction is poem creation, not book creation. Books are just a way to expose people to my work so as I create more, people would want to check out what else I'm creating. 

So now I am on this journey of self -publishing. Before I try to publish my three main manuscripts, I have been experimenting with different ways of publishing. Towards the end of the summer, I discovered an app for the iPhone, iPad, and Android called Creative Book Builder. This app allows you to create interactive e-books. We are not talking about e-books that little kids can make featuring their drawings and a few words (apps like these have become a growing trend; good to start young, but hardly a solution for adults). This app can make you an e-book that you can read in iBooks and other e-readers. The books look legit. I spent a month carefully crafting an e-book titled Beloved. It is technically my first book, but I am hellbent on making Late Night Feelings my first official book - as well as exploring all of my publishing options. Later on this week on the main Write Queen blog, I will be doing a review on Creative Book Builder, a steal at $3.99, by Tiger Ng. Since putting out Beloved I have made Bitten In The Wake of Dusk an e-book and have made a mini haiku book called When You Down A Margarita. 

Now I am sure you are wondering, How can I help? (Okay maybe not, but I hope you think about it now). 

Well any writers who can send me info about self-publishing would definitely become my favorite people in the world. You can spread the word about my e-books by promoting my store link (after downloading them yourself of course). And you can donate to my fundraiser where you will receive a lot of perks for being a part of the process on GoFundMe.com. If the minimum for the fundraiser is a little too much for you, you can pay-as-you-wish when you download my e-books. Even 25 cents helps. But what helps even more is spreading the word, so spread the word and help me get to my goal. 

=]

Until next time my loves, be well and hey, maybe we can work on our future books together ;)

Hello my lovely Write Queeners,

I have some exciting news! The last manuscript, Sweltering Sugar, is 98% complete! Since it's a haiku/short form chapbook, I am a little unsure about format so I want to have a couple of people read it before I can say it's 100% complete. But since that is such a small detail, I can say that it is done.

So that makes manuscript #3. Three manuscripts and a world of possibility. But we all know that I like to make things complicated. What if I decided to combine all the manuscripts together and made a super manuscript? Like when the Power Rangers call all of their zords together and...okay, let's not finish that statement. It dates me. Those familiar get the picture, right?

I want to combine them all and create a full-length poetry collection. I already have a title: Cognition of Her Body.

It was the title of a portfolio I had to make for a poetry class a long time ago. I always loved it and hoped that I could use it one day for something else. Plus since each manuscript shows something different about my body of work, it's also appropriate. 

So I can either let Late Night Feelings, Home Sweet Home, and Sweltering Sugar stand on their own or I can combine them and have Cognition of Her Body. 

That's a lot to think about. But as I said, we know I am complicated. And I think ahead. I already have the full-length manuscript document put together, just in case.

Also, no change here. Still in the submissions vs. self publishing debate. Either way, now I have a whole new market to look at with the thoughts of a full length collection.

Any thoughts or suggestions about this? Leave a comment below and let me know!

Since recently finishing Home Sweet Home in the past couple of months, I've realized a couple of things:

1. I have an odd amount of pages in my manuscript. I actually go a little above or a little below most requirements. 

2. I might automatically disqualify with some publications and presses because of one thing and one thing alone: I use identifying elements in some of the poems. An acrostic poem that spells out your name will usually do it.

3. There will be some places where I would want to submit both HSH and Late Night Feelings; very few allow multiple submissions. 

As I sit and wonder if maybe I should go for a book length edition (already have a title and everything),  I also consider why I am going to chapbooks and why I am willing to search for places that fit my manuscript rather than making my manuscript fit for presses.

When I decided to put a book together, I chose chapbooks because I wanted to take stock of my collection. I've written a lot of poems, but a lot of them are awful. Most of them are about love, but occasionally I write about my family or get a little political. To throw them all in one collection would mean that I am not thinking about telling a story or showing some sporadic (but related) progression. All it means is that I'm trying to have a book. There is a difference. Anyone can take writing from all over the place and put them in a book. They'll be able to say "This is my book."

But a writer wants to tell a story. A writer wants to tell a string of unique stories and show us what we all have in common. A hundred people can write stories about cheese. But fifty of those stories can be about American cheese. Most likely, unless you have the tremendous gift for words that makes your story of American cheese stand out, your story is going to sound like everyone else's. 

That's where the writer and the ability to sketch out a plan for their story comes in. A writer will think about American cheese and all of the five W's (who, what, when, where, and why...and occasional how). The writer will also think about all the different ways you can tell a story about American cheese. American cheese could have a whole big adventure! One of those ways will click with the writer and then the writer will organize all that he or she has accordingly to tell the story. They don't think about rules for a contest. They just write with a vision.  That vision includes format, style choices, and risks they feel make their story unique. 

That's the approach I took when selecting poems for each of my manuscripts. I had a specific story I wanted to tell in each one, with a string of poems. None of the topics are new, but I took everything I had and made it work for me. So a manuscript that has my name hidden in it may disqualify me from many contests. But it tells my story. To eliminate one of those poems would change the scope of the story I want to tell. Sure, I would meet the requirements for submission, but if I'm not telling the whole story, isn't that just as useless?

Find places that will work with your work. Don't ever compromise the integrity of your manuscript unless it's absolutely necessary. Even if it means going through a slow, uphill battle because your name is all over it. Even if it means looking for months to find the place that will accept it as it is. That will take what you have to give and more. Don't do it!

Remember that you write for yourself and the world you create, not the industry or even the genre.

Your manuscript is a reflection of you (okay that sounds cliche!). Just don't chop up your masterpieces for the masses, okay?

I didn't think that I would have time to format Home Sweet Home, but I did! After spending some time with my dad for Father's Day and before I edit stuff for World Liberty TV, I decided to do something for myself and finish the manuscript.

I am so happy! Now all I have to do is conquer Sweltering Sugar, then start aggressively submitting all three to different places.

The little things do count guys! Start making your dreams happen!

Happy Father's Day to a father who may not be perfect, but always offered this one piece of advice and encouragement:

Just do what you gotta do mama.



Don't worry Daddy, I will!



Happy Sunday Everyone!

Hello my lovely Write Queen readers!

I am happy to announce that I almost done editing the Home Sweet Home manuscript. I have just finished making edits to the poems I have selected for this collection. That is usually the biggest battle for me. Once I know the poems are where I think they should be, the rest of it is not so hard. 

Now I have to decide on the exact order they will go. While the theme is apparent and the poems can stand by themselves, I like to think that when I choose poems to be put together like this, that there is a slight story to it. The order isn't the hardest task, but gives me the most insight on my thought process and vision for my manuscripts. 

It develops slightly as I am choosing and editing poems, but now it's time for me to put the puzzle pieces together. Now it's time to see what Home Sweet Home really is.

After that, it's all about formatting for submission. I learned with Late Night Feelings that different presses will ask for different things (cover page, no cover page, acknowledgements, no acknowledgements...see where I am going with this?). So I will need to have at least six different versions of the manuscript for submissions.

With formatting, my biggest challenge is the Table of Contents. In Microsoft Word, you must have your pages formatted in a certain way in order for the TOC to generate. This consists of what fonts you use and the Styles section that I bet no average user pays attention to. I won't get into those details now (you'll just have to come back and see a future post.), but it can be a pain in the neck.

I am so excited to be almost done!

I can't finish it today because I am on my way to treat one of my best friend's out and I have tons of other editing work to do when I get home, but it will be finished before the end of the month.


Until then, enjoy your weekend my loves!

There is nothing like the feeling of a book in your hands.

If it's new, it's the feeling of anticipation running through your veins.  If it's used or borrowed, it’s the acquisition of someone else’s secret, waiting to become yours. A dog-eared favorite feels like you are holding hands with an old friend. And if it’s your own, it’s a feeling of highest accomplishment a writer can achieve (except maybe certain awards, but we don’t write for those). It all boils down to that gush of emotion that comes from just the feeling of the pages beneath your fingers.

With that being said, let me pitch my feelings towards eBooks and eReaders. It’s less personal, but it’s instant. You can’t feel the contours of the pages; you cannot feel a physical connection - but you can become absorbed immediately. If a writer has done his or her job, the words have put you under a spell. You stop paying attention to the lack of paper underneath your skin and get pulled into the story. The fact that you can access millions of books at once; being able to carry your whole library in the palm of your hand is the epitome of having the whole world in your hands. 

With both perspectives on the table, I want to talk about my current struggle: wanting to publish my chapbook in print and in digital format.

There are not many small presses willing to do both. Most presses will give you a limited run on your book if it's in print (saddle stitch is not easy to reproduce at a whim - and on little to no budget). The presses that are willing to go the digital route will only make it available digitally. The ones that do both are either highly competitive, will only publish a full collection, or have requirements that do not match with my body of work.

While I am in the constant pursuit of finding presses that will meet this desire to be traditionally modern, I have been toying with the idea of self publication. I know that there are plenty of options in the Print On Demand world that will fulfill this request with ease.

The only problem?

Credibility and expertise.

When you are published under a press, it gives you a boost. It says someone believes in my talent, my work, and is willing to vouch for both. It gives you an audience who is willing to check you out because their press says that you rock. A press is also a resource for learning and being involved in book design, promotion, and selling. They have a model that works for them and if you find that you believe in their mission, admire their set of authors, and your work fits their bill - your chapbook or book has a chance to barrel its way into the literary world.

With self publishing, you are left to your own devices. Everything is your responsibility and you have to take the time to learn. I do believe that with self publishing, it gives you an opportunity to turn yourself into something that goes beyond the title of author. Suddenly you are a book designer, a publisher, promoter and sales man. If you learn how to do it well, you will earn credibility that will outshine with negative connotation that comes with self publishing.

If you don’t do it well, your book is in danger of falling in the cracks. There will be no one to back you up.

Fear is never an option when you desire to publish this much however. Those who self publish are willing to take the chance.

Does that mean that you will self publish Christina?

Not yet. While I am a modern day writer who is into all that is new in book publishing, I have some traditional whims floating in my heart. I want to be able to hold my first chapbook and see the imprint of a press that took the time to believe in me. If I see that I am not getting anywhere with pursuing presses, then I will work on going the self publishing route. For now...

Let's keep on trying!

Please feel free to let me know your thoughts on this matter. The comment section is always open!