I don't usually post author interviews, but Maria Zannini's Touch of Fire is somewhat of a special case. Touch of Fire is the first book I have critiqued all the way through that has made it to publication. Though I haven't had a chance to read the polished version yet, I enjoyed the early version and am sure the polished one will be even better with her edits. I can tell you that Maria has talent in droves as well as the drive to get things accomplished, as shown from her book now available as an ebook and as a paperbound in Winter 2009. I will post a review when I get my hard copy, or maybe sooner depending. (I'm getting a new Palm that makes reading ebooks easier.) It will be worth your while to wander over to Samhain Publishing and check out this fantasy romance novel. Maria also offers marketing information, interviews, and fun anecdotes on her blog, experience that led her to take over the newsletter for Online Writers Workshop. (Links to the novel and Maria's site are at the end of the post.)

The other reason for the interview is as an extension of one of the panels I was on at BayCon (a science fiction reading, watching, writing, costuming, filking, and what have you convention in the Bay Area, CA, that I've gone to for years). I was asked to talk about small press, something I have some experience with since I copyedit for Dragon Tooth Fantasy Ebooks, and my short stories were all published by small presses. However, I have no novel experience as an author. With that in mind, I asked Maria to tell us a little about her recent encounter with a small press that led to the start of her career as a novelist.

How did you find your publisher? What led you to submit to Samhain?
It was a complete fluke! A friend of mine told me about a hook contest Samhain Publishing was running. I had five whole lines, but that's all I needed. Once my submission was chosen as a finalist, I offered the editor a partial. Well, wouldn't you know it, she wanted the whole thing! I burned up my keyboard getting her a full manuscript in five weeks.

What would you say is the highlight of your experience working with your publisher?
It's definitely been the editing. My initial fear was that an e-publisher might not have the same diligence in editing as a traditional publisher, but that was far from the truth. My editor was no soft sell. The book went through two full edit passes with her and then it went on to a line editor who made sure my threads were complete and I made no silly mistakes.

What would you say has been the hardest part?
LOL! For me, that would have to be the cover art. I loved it, but I was on pins and needles while waiting for the cover concept. Since I'm also an artist, I tried to be very specific on what I wanted to see. The artist, Anne Caine was terrific and she tolerated me like a saint. I was very happy with the final version.

Can you describe some of the marketing plans for Touch of Fire?
The marketing director at Samhain constantly updates the authors on promotional opportunities, advertising specials, book tours and conferences. Having spoken to a few of my friends who are published through traditional publishers, I know that's not always the case. Many times the author is on his own. With Samhain, it's still up to the author to do the legwork, but I appreciate having someone on the inside telling me what's available.

My personal marketing plans for TOUCH OF FIRE include blog tours, business cards, workshop presentations, and a little advertising. I look specifically at the quality of the marketing as opposed to the quantity. As I get closer to the print release of the book, I will probably boost my web presence and increase my appearances.

What are your plans going forward with this publisher?
I don't like to plan too far ahead because publishing is in such enormous flux. Traditional publishing houses are now including very specific contract clauses for ebook versions of their print books, so I suspect there might be more competition with the smaller presses in years to come. But there will definitely be other books through Samhain. They've treated me very well.

Making the choice to go small press vs. large press is a difficult one for many writers because they don't understand the difference and the pluses and minuses. What advice would you offer a writer on the verge of making this call?
A lot depends on your comfort level. Small press can be pretty beneficial, especially to new writers. Not only do they take more interest in your welfare, but they're more hands on. In my case, TOUCH OF FIRE not only comes out in ebook, but it will go to print in Winter 2009, selling in traditional brick and mortar stores.

While some authors with big presses have the luxury of PR and extra ARCs, it's almost always for established authors or those with power agents. So in the end, I think most of us are still in the same boat. We have the same obstacles and opportunities as anyone else in that store. A lot depends on how much effort the individual author puts in.

Anything else you want to share?
I had my reservations in the beginning about small presses, but it's been a good experience for me. When you're brand new and that amniotic fluid is dripping all around your feet, it's nice to know there's someone there to show you the ropes. I feel protected and more importantly to me, I feel in control. I like that.

Links:
Buying information: http://www.mybookstoreandmore.com/product_info.php?products_id=973
Publisher information: http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/touch-of-fire
Blog: http://mariazannini.blogspot.com/
Website: http://mariazannini.com/
MySpace Page: http://www.myspace.com/mariazannini
OWW newsletter: http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/index_newsletter.html

This novel is my main project for the year, and a smidge behind in the schedule, but Shadows has now advanced to the next step.

So far this year, I've done a deep edit pass, a proof edit, and a spell check. The novel is, as of about a minute ago, in the hands of the two critters who volunteered for the job. One of the critters has read the novel before (and is still willing, and eager, to go again (go figure)) while the other is brand new to this story with little foreknowledge at all if any. Between the two, I'm hoping to get what I need to polish and send Shadows off to find a new home.

And for the curious, the final word count is 135,117. I tried hard to keep the word count down in this edit pass, and cut a significant amount, but there was that much and more to add. Still, I was thinking I'd be looking at 140k-150k, so I'm happy.

Just to prove how chaotic life has become, I wrote this on the 4th...and am posting it now. So far I've seen some positive comments about the book from one critter, very general, but still positive, so there's hope that I haven't broken it :).

The most unbelievable and amazing thing happened tonight. The Shadows of the Sun edit pass is complete, and one day BEFORE the revised deadline. This has been a crazy year so far. Even with giving myself an additional 15 days, some days it seemed like I'd never reach the last page.

All that remains is to do a copyedit pass, one more light crit pass to make sure I haven't broken anything big, and then Shadows will start making the rounds...I hope before December of this year. Guess I better get cracking on that submission package, eh?

My fears of a 150k behemoth did not come to pass. I kept an eye out for opportunities to cut, and so even with the added scenes, I increased the count by only 3,000 words. At 135k, it's large for what people are looking for, I know, but I hope the story balances that out. And maybe, if not, it'll balance enough so an editor or agent is willing to help me find the 10k to cull. At this point, I've removed anything that I thought unnecessary and everything that I thought weakened the novel (amazing how many shortcuts I'd taken :p). That leaves only removing something that strengthens Shadows but might not be 100% crucial. Sigh. But that's a decision I don't plan to make unless I have to.

While I'd be lying if I didn't admit to a very real sense of relief, and confidence that the story is much stronger than it was before, part of me is sad to reach this step. There's still work to be done, but I'm expecting it to be the fiddling type rather than anything massive. Then a project that has been with me in one form or another since 1988 will be out of my hands and launched onto the world. I don't know if I'll ever revisit Kyrnie's world, but I do know that I'll never forget my sojourn here and just hope that others feel the same way assuming they get the chance to explore.

Stats:
Edited Today: 2,829 words
50 Chapters complete - 102% of the novel
-15 Chapters remain (yes, I SERIOUSLY rechaptered in this pass.)
-3,016 Remaining word count
135,209 Current Total
135,209 Predicted Total

I know I've been horrible about updating, but life happened and kept me from editing as well as posting. However, in the short week that ended April, I pushed everything else away and dove in head first. Though I blew my initial goal of May 1st to get the edit done, I'm on target and looking good for the backup date of May 15th. The edit is going well, and getting easier as I go along. I'd forgotten the critter comment that the second half was much stronger, but I'm loving that fact now. There are still some big fixes that need to be done, and a whole new scene that must be written, but the number of "guess I have to rewrite this scene from scratch" instances have gone way down.

What's even more important is that I still love and believe in this story. Kyrnie's had a rocky road, but I think this time she'll actually be ready for the big time.

Oh, and the biggest change? When I first wrote Shadows, I got it into my head that books should be around 30 chapters. I think it happened by accident at first, but then grew into tradition over the course of 2-3 books. With Shadows clocking in at 135k, those 35 chapters were pretty hefty. One of the tasks I've undertaken this time is to trim the average chapter length down, to go for punchy rather than jamming scenes together to stay within the realm of 30 chapters (which I didn't succeed at anyway). Currently there are 39 chapters and I'm in the middle of what was once chapter 28. My largest chapter went from 5314 to 4123 and my average from 3805 to 2672. The smallest, however, went from 2220 to 1313. But I think it's working better that way :). No one sentence chapters for me as of yet.

And stats:
Edited Today: 10,138 words
39 Chapters complete - 81% of the novel
-4 Chapters remain
25,303 Remaining word count
106,890 Current Total
135,543 Predicted Total

Well, this has been an interesting ride so far. It's hard to tell whether I was just distracted by everything going on around me or whether I was just having a hard time getting into this edit. Frankly, I don't care anymore because something clicked :). Shadows of the Sun is no longer fighting me. It may have just been a case of needing to think a little bit longer.

This has been a long road. When I wrote the first version, I wasn't good enough to tackle it. Oddly enough, I think I am now, after a number of edits that have each brought it closer.

That's a lot of pressure.

On the other hand, I did a marathon, pushing myself to edit 7,500 words a day for two days, and things started to click. I was sucked back into the story. All my fancy notes about "thought out" solutions? Many of them helped offer a direction to take, but few ended up being completely re-conceptualized.

I took scenes marked for minor changes and tossed them out the window; I took ones marked for major changes and reworked them in a completely different direction.

The key point?

The rewrites work. They're strong. They take the themes and characters, and make them better.

Guess this shows I just had to wait, and drag my heels, until it just clicked. Maybe there'll be a little less whining and a little more productivity from now on ;).



And stats:
Edited Today: 5,836 words
16 Chapters complete - 37% of the novel
18 Chapters remain
83,738 Remaining word count
48,451 Current Total
135,154 Predicted Total

I know...I'm behind in blogging. It's been crazy on both the writing and the personal front. However, I am slowly but surely making progress on Shadows of the Sun. I set myself a deadline of 3/31 to get the new outline done, and I was up until 11:30 that last night, but I finished. The outline I had used previously was some versions out of date, and in going through each scene again to write the blurb, I could mentally churn through my solutions and decide if they were actually what the book needed.

Ultimately, some fix plans grew stronger, some stayed the same, some changed entirely, and some were round filed as trying too hard :). I think I'm relatively well grounded in what I need to do, but this edit is going to be just as difficult as I imagined.

I have started working on the initial chapter, which has been rewritten more times than I can remember. This time, I've split it in half, added a new 1st scene and made serious changes to every single scene afterward :p. Four scenes complete so far. The first is new, the second changes the introduction of not one but two characters, in both cases to make positions and personalities clear. It's rather sad when you know exactly what the characters are like but your readers tell you one is whiny and worthless and the other should be shot. I mean, I'm fine with shooting characters who deserve it, but these guys are the good guys!

So I hope I've done a better job on their introduction, and in doing that, made the reason another crucial plot moment occurred obvious rather than sloppy. I think I have, but I know these characters too well to say for sure, because I thought I had before too ;).

The bad part is that the book is already long. In fixing these bits, I've only made it longer. At this point I'm looking at shaving off 7k-8k in order to get to the overly long 125k. Sadly, I think this is going to be on the heavy side, but better a strong book than one that fits nicely in a word count slot. That's not to say I don't plan on one last pass for the sole purpose of shaving word count. If I can take a 5000+ short story down to 3500 for a contest, I can fix this. Now I ended up breaking the story rather significantly when I did that...something that luckily only required a four word fix...but at least I know I can do it.

In the new outline, there are only 2 brand new scenes to be added, though with all the other changes (most of them adding not cutting) I've got my work...umm...cut out for me :).

So, time to sleep so I can get some work done tomorrow.

And stats:
Edited Today: 2.282 words
2 Chapters complete - 5% of the novel
32 Chapters remain
126,236 Remaining word count
5,958 Current Total
132,838 Predicted Total

And the re-outlining has finally begun. I've gone through all the notes, including the Q&A with my critiquer, and collected the global changes.

Now I'm reading each scene and creating a new outline from scratch. I wrote this book just as I was working out the way outlines would help me. Therefore, its original outline is not very helpful at all :P.

I don't know whether I've gotten that much better at editing, or if distance is what I needed, but I can understand some of the comments I got before on certain characters now so much better. Stuff I could have sworn was laid out on the page, as I read the scene, is mentioned subtly, as though reminding the reader of something that they should already know, except that the first, detailed mention doesn't exist. Yep, I'm talking about Welhame here. I no longer question why his important--and positive--role did not come across. It's hard for readers to pick up on these things when they ARE NOT THERE :p.

If all goes well, though, I now have the distance, the ability, and the plan to make this novel rock as it should have from the beginning.

Oh, and I now know my weakness. When I get lazy, I duplicate themes and threads. I thought it was mere accident that I'd done so in the book until I worked on my synopsis and skimmed the outline instead of rereading the whole thing. Because of that, my first and second synopsis draft have two errors, one minor and one major. The minor can be excused. It won't affect anything. The major makes two different themes look pretty much identical and is proved false in the first paragraph. How's that for a wonderful presentation. Between the sample chapters and the current synopsis, no editor or agent would know which to trust :p.

BTW, I'm currently both taking a focus on synopses through OWW (closed but they might run another if there's enough interest) and teaching a specific synopsis technique on Forward Motion as this month's workshop. (Membership is free and there's still time to join that one if you're interested.) That's why I'm working on the synopsis for Shadows of the Sun, something I do before I start writing and after I've finished the final proof normally. And no, the timing wasn't planned. The one I didn't control was set after the one I do :).

So I suppose it was inevitable to everyone else, but I am heaving a huge sigh of relief that I have finished typing in the comments on Shadows of the Sun, even if that is only the first step in a long editing process.

This is actually the second time I've read through the whole crit, and I had an odd disconnect. The first time through, I made a lot of notes and came up with solutions, which I then passed back to my critter for slaughter. Somewhere in between that step and now, I got the feeling those changes had already been incorporated in the manuscript. And since the most recent edit was before this crit, I have to keep reminding myself that those comments were what sparked the solution rather than a sign that the solution failed its purpose.

That said, what I have not done yet is gone over my proposed solutions and the discussions that ensued regarding them. I'm planning to make up a list of the major changes, and then as I re-outline the novel from scratch, mark which, if any, of these major changes apply to each scene. I'm hoping to craft a monstrous battle plan that I can follow step by step to keep my feet moving and my eyes on the future when I can ship this book off.

So, next step is to create that list. I've taken notes as I went along, but I need to read my older solutions and either replace the new ones or remove the old from consideration.

I know one of the real puzzlers now has a clean-cut solution, or so I think. I'd come up with several possibilities, but each was a bit of a stretch. The sight of a comment stating bluntly: William could not be that stupid, set me on a logical path that works for me because I like the layers within layers and the information presented when it appears to have one form of significance that turns out to have another later in the book.

Whether I succeed or not, this is definitely a wild ride :).

And the Shadows of the Sun (Kyrnie) edit pass begins.

I have a hand written crit that came with an additional 9 pages hand written and two typed, from which I spawned three pages of my own hand written notes and several emails.

My first step is to transfer the comments on 593 pages to an electronic version. Let me tell you it's quite intimidating.

I started with unburying enough of my desk to be able to manage a pile of loose papers. That wasn't a difficult task, and it certainly needed doing, but it certainly wasn't fun.

Then I dug the mail box out of my bookshelf and pulled the pages free. I swear they expanded coming out of the mailer. I have a stack 3.5 to 4 inches tall of papers. I can tell you my heartbeat accelerated at the sight of them. Made me want to run away and hide. I don't work in paper anymore. And this is a lot of paper.

So I glanced down at the top-most page only to see "page 20." Panic! How had I managed to lose the first 19 pages?

Instinct made me check the back of the page to see...turns out that it was a partial print that was reused. I was looking not at the beginning, but at the end.

However, that little mix-up energized me to complete the whole edit.

When I turned the page over, I saw the corner marked as page 593. And then a hand-written note right above "the end." The note was simple, straightforward, and just what I needed in facing this big project. The words? "Kick-ass ending." With that to keep me going, I can tackle this huge novel and make it shine :).

Now this has been a truly crazy week. I finished the Con Shirt edit on Sunday and started immediately into an edit of Selkie, which is now renamed From the Sea. This novel is one that's very close to me, being based on my favorite Celtic mythology song, The Great Selkie. However, staying mostly true to the song, at least to the big moments, and keeping the reader with me has been an ongoing difficulty. I lost one reader, whether to the fact that the story turned out more literary than paranormal romance or because it was just too rough a draft neither she nor I will probably know for sure. However, this meant that I needed to find more readers, which didn't prove that difficult. Except that I did have one partial feedback and one full feedback already.

So in my grand wisdom, I decided to do another quick edit pass based specifically on the comments. Only I had to finish Con Shirt first. Oh, and to control my habit of doing anything that meant progress besides editing something to final, I have established a drop dead, unchangeable no matter what, deadline of 2/16/08 to start on the next (and maybe even final) edit of Kyrnie or Shadows of the Sun.

What that meant, quite simply, is that I had to edit Selkie this week and before Saturday.

*GULP*

Amazingly enough, I succeeded. I've never been so focused or consistent in my life. Between the two crit versions and some notes of my own, I edited (by jumping from comment to comment) over 200k in two days. Then the next morning I wrote a new scene from scratch, edited it a couple times, and declared it done for this pass.

I did not actually succeed in my aims with this or Con Shirt, but I came really darn close. Both still need a spell check before they can go out to those who are waiting for them. But I think I can legitimately do that step while taking a break from Kyrnie. It's not like it's anything but mechanical, right?

On Selkie itself, I still find the story powerful and get wrapped up in it. I know there are probably things I failed to see, things that my love of the story glossed over, but I've corrected everything that I could based on the feedback and who knows, maybe this one will manage to get out the door this year as well. It would be nice considering I managed nothing new last year.