IS THERE LIFE AFTER EDITING?

MUSE MONDAY
I groaned at the email from my editor, Stacy Dawn, today. And I love my editor. But when I saw the subject line "Post-War Dreams Final Galley"...well, I just couldn't help feeling despair mixed with elation. I have to read my book, yet again.

It's not that I think the book is boring. It's not that I'm unhappy with the finished product. But consider this - Post-War Dreams was the first book I wrote nearly ten years ago. I shopped it to agents for a year or so. After numerous rejections, I rewrote the book. Then I shopped it to a few publishers. I was told it wasn't the right era for historical or the main characters were too young or even though the main characters were young, they acted as adults and teens wouldn't identify with them. I put it away for a year. By then, after all those edits, I'd read it at least a dozen times if not more.

One day, I dug it out, read, and edited it yet again with good results. A very small publisher in Minnesota liked it and published it as women's fiction under the title Honey On White Bread. But it didn't do well. The publisher didn't really have a large women's fiction line. I'd always loved the story and my characters. The publisher kindly gave me back my rights and I turned to the publisher of my other books, TWRP, The Wild Rose Press.

TWRP has expanded their genres, and now has a Vintage line, perfect for a 1945 historical. When my editor read the book, she loved it and performed her magic. Stacy knew just what changes it needed to make this novel come up to the level of writing I've achieved over the last ten years. But since TWRP contracted the book, now titled Post-War Dreams, I've read it four more times. This last read is to catch any typos or mistakes not caught the last million times. And guess what...I'm finding a few.

But wait! Not only am I reading Post-War Dreams again, Stacy says she'll be sending The Legacy of Love and Murder, third book in the series, to me in the next few days for the first round of edits.

With two books in edit mode, I really can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. Someone check on me if you haven't heard from me in a week!

Post-War Dreams Vintage Romance (release date coming soon)

World War II has ended and the soldiers are coming home. After years of following her crop worker father, motherless Claire Flanagan is also coming home. If she can keep her father in one place long enough, she plans to follow her dreams to Hollywood. Until she meets Benjamin.

Benjamin Russell has been working since he was fifteen to support his mother and siblings. What he most wants in life is to own a construction business and take care of the family his father abandoned. The last thing he expects is to fall for his younger sister’s best friend.

Life, however, throws cruel twists and turns into the path of romance. And when an unrequited love seeks revenge against Claire, and Benjamin learns his ex-girlfriend is pregnant, will lost dreams of a future together be the only thing they have left?