We have to trust the Process

Contest Update
As you can imagine - I have had tons of emails. The winners will be announced next week once I get time to log all the comments and do a drawing.

Here are the final numbers (March 1st - March 31st)

• 1345 comments
• 3,148 unique visitors
• 81 commenters
• 52 Blog followers (hopefully you wont leave me now :)
• 86 Twitter followers

Hopefully you sent me emails with all your Extra bonus points b/c it affects how many times you name goes in the hat for the random drawing. :)

I really enjoyed meeting everyone and hope you continue to visit!

I will run various contests periodically.

Also - the Amazon contest is open until April 15th. We are ranked based on downloads so if you get a chance to download my chapters (top right corner), you can always read them later and do not have to comment.

We have to trust the process

I wanted to talk a bit about my revision process with Grace Under Fire.

I've been writing Grace for 2 years now. I started when I was prego with my little boy so it took me a while. (My next book will not take that long.)

I have had a couple Agents come back and tell me the book and characters and voice were fab, but the plot needed work. The suggestions that came to me were extensive. I basically had to replot my entire book and eliminate the story as it was. I wasn't sure at the time if this would work not to mention it was extremely overwhelming.

I pondered on whether to do these changes b/c 1) I have a few more fulls out to some hand-selected agents, 2) it would take a long time, 3) i kinda liked the story/plot, 4) It altered one of my characters. After all, there was no promise, no guarantee. Just a "maybe. If you do this, MAYBE we'll look again."

But in the end, I figured, why not? It was a shot and even though there is no guarantee, I had nothing to lose. 1) If the changes worked and the agents loved them, then Great! 2) If the changes worked but agents hated it - at least my book was better for submission. 3) If I hated the changes, I still had the previous version.

The only I had to lose was my time and my ego.

I mention this because I just finished those revisions and am getting ready to resubmit in the next week or so.

My book is so much better., I learned more about my characters then I knew before. I also learned a lot about myself. I learned how to put the doubt aside, how to replot but find relevant ways to keep things if they worked. I learned I am open to this process as a journey.

Now I will say, that I had already been chewing on some of the changes when the agents emailed me some ideas for revision. So the suggestions resonated with me. If they hadn't resonated and my gut didn't wonder if she was right, I would not have done them.

So here's to revisions:

• let go of your ego - this process is not personal though it feels like it sometimes
• keep an open mind - look past what is hard and look for what is right
• follow your gut/heart - it is never wrong.
• let go of any attachment to the outcome - it stops you from creating
• try to step out of your box- who knows where you will end up

Most of all, we have to trust this crazy process and know/hope we will end up where we are supposed to. Wherever that may be.