Thanks to those of you who came to the chat tonight. It was busy and I couldn’t type fast enough, but you hung out anyway. :hug:
Something I wasn’t expecting was hearing from readers about BAD BOYS AHOY! so quickly. It’s wonderful and I love it. I can’t begin to tell you how cool it is for me. :hug: But what a trip that there are so many readers who have finished reading the book already. 
And the way I hear about it. “Oh hey, Sylvia! I just finished BBA and loved it.” So casually, like it’s not going to knock me off my feet, which it does every time. I mean I’m still hearing from people who can’t find it in stores. (The official release date is Feb. 6th) So to hear from people who are done with it and have been done with it for days, even a week… so trippy.
Amazon.ca is selling ASK FOR IT already, which is kinda freaky since it’s sitting here next to me going through copy edits.
I followed a trackback to a discussion on Diana’s blog about the old writing vs. storytelling debate. She linked to an older post of mine where I said:
“This explains why I can write a story in no time at all, but layering, editing, and wordsmithing take me weeks longer than that. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to be like Alison, who knows the craft well enough to get almost finished product on the page the first time around, but it’s a worthy goal and I aspire to it. I haven’t been writing long and every week that passes I find less errors and I catch myself before I make some of those errors so I think the goal is attainable.”
Reading this made me smile. I’m now at the point where I’m writing almost print-quality work the first time around. I still edit as I go. I write a chapter, send it to my cp, crit the chapter, and then move on. Lately, I’ve had to ship the books to my editors as soon as I type THE END. Literally. No time left to read through it again. (I’m hoping my recently revamped schedule will allow me more breathing room, which should prevent me from stressing so often.) But I think the last year has taught me to spend a little more time on word choices the first time around, which means less to clean up later.
Until I get to the copy edits stage and see the CE comments… but we talked about that already. 
Sorry I couldn’t make the chat! Glad it went well.
And - you’ve been tagged, to commit a Random Act of Kindness. Pass it on!
by Karen January 27th, 2006 at 5:32 amhttp://ksteele2.blogspot.com/2006/01/random-acts-of-kindness.html
:cheer: On BBA success :yay:
by Kendra Clark January 27th, 2006 at 8:21 am