by jphilo | Jun 13, 2011 | Book Updates
For about a week now, I’ve been editing Different Dream Parenting. going through the suggestions sent by the editor at Discovery House and making changes. The process is slow, humbling, engrossing, and painful at times. My thoughts ranged from Did I really write that confusing sentence? to Why does the editor have to be so picky? to I don’t want to do this anymore!
But then something happened this weekend which improved my attitude about the entire process. I was listening to an audiobook by a best selling suspense/conspiracy theory author. He’s written many books and made boatloads of money. Still, I won’t reveal his name – not out of respect, but out of compassion.
I walking along, listening to a scene where the protagonist (male) was in the hospital after an accident and the person who is revealed in the end as the antagonist (female) comes to visit. When the woman enters the room (wearing a white skirt that accentuated her tan legs), the author said, “She placed a pair of penetrating eyes on the man in the hospital bed.”
An image of two eyeballs lying on the fresh, white sheet covering the hospitalized man came to mind, along with several rascally thoughts:
Wouldn’t the eyes roll off onto the floor?
Or would penetrating eyes sink through the sheets and burn into the protagonist’s chest?
Did the sight of penetrating eyes make him want to barf?
What color were they?
Were these the antagonist’s actual eyes?
If so, is she now blind?
Or if they were extra eyes, did she pull them from a pocket?
Wait, wouldn’t penetrating eyes burn right through her pocket?
So were they in a carrying case?
And finally:
Why in the world didn’t the author’s editor catch that?
Thank goodness my editor wouldn’t let that kind of sloppy writing slip past her.
Suddenly I was eager to return the slow, humbling, engrossing, and sometimes painful task of editing that is ruling my life right now. I was grateful for my editor’s eyes which had deftly penetrated the snafus in my manuscript. Every now and then, I wonder, Does she ever take out those penetrating eyes on some poor sucker’s hospital bed?
by jphilo | Jan 28, 2011 | Book Updates
Finally, after months of research and weeks of writing, the first draft of Different Dream Parenting: A Practical Guide to Raising a Child with Special Needs is done. I am now resting easier, knowing the lovely graphic art created by the publisher will have something of substance behind it.
Don’t get me wrong. A boatload of work must be finished before the April 1 deadline – rewriting, fact-checking, proofreading, creating an index. But today, I’m celebrating what has been accomplished, the 24 gorgeous chapters and 6 enchanting appendices which are no longer a wild gleam in my eye.
They are
done,
done,
done,
backed up on three different hard drives.
In honor of the day, which is as bright and sunny as my mood, I’m going to the library to check out a fiction book. I’m gonna escape into some other author’s world for awhile where I can sunbathe on a metaphorical beach, eat bonbons, sip expensive coffee, and take a bubble bath.
I’m gonna
relax,
relax,
relax.
At least until the rewriting, fact-checking, proofreading, and index work starts on Monday.
But for today and for the weekend,
I
am
done.
It feels grand!
by jphilo | Sep 27, 2009 | Book Updates
After weeks of hair-pulling, mental anguish, and nail-biting www.DifferentDream.com, the website companion to my new book, is up and running!
You are cordially invited to visit the website and spend some time there. Your comments and advice concerning the topics discussed in the blog posts are most welcome, even coveted. My goal for the website is to provide a place for parents of special needs or very sick children to find advice, encouragement, hope and a community.
According to a book store manager I spoke with today, the distributor says it will be available at book stores around the middle of September. But according to the publisher, it’s set for release on September first. So it should be available for purchase through the link at DifferentDream.com or through these outlets:
Amazon
Christianbook.com
Discovery House Publishers
But, if you want a copy immediately, contact me. I have three cases ready to sign and sell!
