So excited to announce That One Small Omission will be released in both e-book and print versions on Wednesday, October 11th! As soon as I have the purchase links, I will post them. Thanks to Solstice Publishing for their belief in my novel!

As you know, we have alpacas. They bring us joy, give us great fiber, and make us laugh. They also appear in books 3 and 4, although they probably would like a larger role in the books.

We are thrilled that the alpacas were recently interviewed by the very famous Sneaky the Library Cat, who works with author Debbie De Louise. The interview is linked below:

Sneaky Interviewed Us!

As I type this, the final proofing of That One Small Omission is happening, then we will send it back to Solstice Publishing, and then we will know the release date.

In honor of that, I made a new teaser:

Then, while the proofing is happening, I’ll be integrating the editor’s suggestions into The Phone Call. All in all, it’s pretty exciting around here!

As you know, I’ve been learning about book teasers since I started on this publication journey. I’ve learned about why book teasers are important, then learned about how to make them. I’ve relied heavily on other published authors for their recommendations of photo-editing programs, read blogs and discussions about fonts, colors, effects, and a myriad of other topics. I’ve read commentary on whether or not to include photos of people, or just images that represent parts of the stories.

So, in all (to date) I’ve made approximately fourteen teasers that I like. Some I really like, some I think are okay, but aren’t quite as exciting as I’d like. When I finish one I really like, I post it to either my author Facebook page Anna Belle’s FB, or to my author twitter account Anna Belle’s Twitter as a way to share news of my novels and to get feedback.

Here are some of my favorite teasers for That One Small Omission so far:

And some of my favorites for The Phone Call:

The publishing journey is such a fascinating one, and I am so thankful to be on this journey!

Love is amazing. Love can be loud, joyful, passionate, silly, and heartbreaking. There is the almost indescribable feeling of falling in love, the feeling of holding your child for the first (or last) time, the feeling of holding your parent’s hand. Then there is the quiet, solid, comforting love, such as when the love of your life knows you need to do some proofreading, and he jumps in to do the dishes, laundry, household chores, and take care of the animals. How lucky I am to have that kind of love in my life!

The other day I wrote about my reaction to a suggestion from my editor, and that I was a bit cranky about the suggestion. I did a lot of soul-searching, and actually did two versions of the same basic paragraph, one with the change, one without the change. Well… Actually the one without the change still had a bit of the change included, just a reference to the original version. In the end, I had to agree with her recommendation, and made the change. Our pieces of writing are so personal, the “ownership” of them is strong, that it can be difficult to let go, even just a little bit.

It is a busy time of year for us as a family. The school year has started, our youngest has gone back to college, our oldest son recently bought a house, our grandchildren are growing like crazy, and the garden needs harvesting.

In the midst of all of that, the writing projects are moving forward. That One Small Omission is in the final proofreading prior to setting a release date.  The Phone Call is in the hands of the Solstice editor. Book 3, previously known as Keeping Away, is now in search of a new title, but is in the hands of my editor. The first draft of book 4 is almost done, and I can’t wait to finish it and then start revising it.  It is so much fun juggling all of the projects!

I love editing. I mean, I seriously love editing. I love looking at my text and changing it as I read and re-read, and I love taking the input of editors who are hired to work on my novels and see their suggested changes. I almost never react to suggestions with crankiness. But recently, the editor for book 3 made a suggestion regarding a food item the characters were eating in one scene. She made the suggestion that the combination of food and drink was not the norm, and that if I was using that particular combination, I should probably give some sort of explanation why that combination worked in the story — you know, back story for the combination. It’s funny, thousands of editing suggestions have been made for my novels, and that one suggestion caused more grouchiness than all the others put together. So, I still haven’t resolved that one suggestion. I know that ultimately, it is my decision whether or not to accept the suggestions, and almost always I do, but we will see if that one makes the final manuscript or not.