Lily Journal

2011

While waiting for copies of A Touch of Grace to arrive from the publisher, I went to work on polishing Lily. The work was daunting. Since I had used different software over the years, the manuscript needed major editing, especially the quote marks. Some of the dialogue (and there is a lot of dialogue in the novel) had straight up and down quote marks and other sections had open and shut quote marks. All of these needed to be changed. The manuscript was returned to me as galley proofs, and I experienced another overwhelming time of proof reading it. Ugh! I hate this part of being a writer.

February 2011

Next I needed to approve the book cover for Lily. At the time I was in Solvang, California, and went to the library to check my e-mail. I opened the attachment of the book cover. Yikes! I hated it! I had an image of my character, Lily, in my mind all these years and had even cut a picture out of a magazine of what she looked like. I’d mailed the photo to the publisher, yet what I saw now wasn’t my character at all.

Melanie, my ever optimistic cheer leader, sat beside me in the library. “I like it, Mom,” she said.

“I don’t!”

Melanie gave all the reasons why she liked it. “People will want to pick up the book because the character looks contemporary and I like the background. It looks Victorian.”

“Why is she holding violets? Violets have nothing to do with the story. Roses do. And why did they use that lower case L instead of a capital L for the title? It’s smaller than the rest of the title. It needs to be a capital L.”

Over the years I had heard stories from authors who didn’t like the covers of their books. Now I understood their frustration.

I did not approve the cover. I asked for some changes—roses instead of violets and a different font for the title. The publisher made the changes and I approved the revised cover. Readers have commented favorably on it. And family and friends who know my daughter Melanie ask if she posed for it. I didn’t realize it at first, but now I see the resemblance. Over time I’ve come to like the cover.

2011       

What a wonderful, wonderful year!

I posted a tribute to my brother, Danny Boy, on my website.

I hate galley proofs. Galley proofs are daunting on Lily.

My step-mother, Marion Schwartz, died on January 2^nd. Kathy and I spent time in Orange County, California in February seeing bankers, and an attorney, and signing documents with my step-sister, Pam. Now the Schwartz Family Trust will be distributed and hopefully, my financial worries will be a thing of the past.

Copies of A Touch of Grace arrived. Yahoo!

I planned a book launching reception for A Touch of Grace and Lily. The reception was a huge success with 30 to 40 people attending. Sales for Lily consisted of selling one hard cover, 23 paperbacks, and 21 copies of A Touch of Grace. Dawn, Kathy and Melanie came. What a celebration in our home. What a high I was on.

I spoke at the Umpqua Community College Community Education Reception with 100 in attendance at the event.

I was accepted as a Stonecroft Ministries speaker. And spoke at the Hydesville Community Church Women’s Retreat. I spoke on “Rejected to Accepted.” I was blessed to be with old and new friends and sold a lot of copies of Lily and A Touch of Grace.

I created a flyer to promote Lily to libraries and mailed it to over 80 libraries in Ohio.