#pubilshing

FT: Michelle, since we were both on a very tight deadline to get our novels finished and submitted during the open call, I’m sure you were writing like crazy to get it done. I know I was! Did you hit any snags? How did you keep the motivation going?

Michelle: Oh man—I actually spent the first month working on an entirely different story!  I wasn’t getting anywhere with that idea though, so one day I just sat down and started writing something new, a story that had been growing quietly in the back of my mind.  The scene I wrote ended up being the first chapter of The Better to Kiss You With.  Once I’d let myself write what my subconscious actually wanted to write, everything went much smoother.   One of the things I had to learn while scrambling to get my novel written was that I needed to pay attention to my mental health.  I’m an extrovert, but because the image of the tortured, solitary writer is so pervasive in our society I had convinced myself that I needed to say no to a bunch of social things—forgetting entirely that being social is exactly what recharges my batteries!  It turned out that if I went out to pub trivia I worked that much harder on my novel the next night, as opposed to turning down the invite and sitting at home wishing I was out with my friends.  How about you?

FT: I am a planner by nature and I had the word counts and plot lines all laid out. I knew what word counts I needed to hit by specific times. I began writing in March. In April, I started a new job halfway through the month and I knew that would really slow down my writing. So for the first half of April, I wrote 3,000 words a day. No matter what. By the end of that month, I had about 55k of the novel. The last 20k was the hardest. I was working. I had an infant plus my two other children, and the new day job was draining. Those last few chapters dragged on forever. But I just kept pushing. The biggest helps were my husband and my best friend. My hub knew what I wanted to accomplish and helped me in every way that he could. My best friend kept encouraging me and waving her pom poms of doom until I finished.

Michelle:  What kind of editing process did you have for your manuscript before you submitted it?  

FT: Being as I finished during the open submission call, I didn’t have a lot of time to get it all looked over before I sent it in. I did have two beta readers though. And after I took a little bit of a break after finishing (a few days), I went back in and banged what I could into shape. Then I sent it off to my two friends. They are folks I’ve known for a long time in fandom communities. One of them is a grammar queen and the other catches my quirks and is wonderful at plot. Between the three of us, we managed to make The Star Host into a story I was really proud to submit.

Michelle:  Thank goodness for beta readers, eh?  I had my partner Elizabeth look the story over initially when it hit 30,000 words.  I found that without being confident in the plot I wasn’t able to write the ending, so she read it and gave it back to me with her notes—thankfully, not too many.  After that I ended up re-typing the whole thing, which carried me straight to the finish.  She read it over once more before I submitted it to check for obvious typos and grammar, and that was it!  

FT: When all was said and done, how did it feel to hit send on the manuscript?

Michelle: Haha, so good!  I couldn’t believe that I’d actually done it—there were a few times throughout the writing process where I was convinced I wouldn’t make the deadline, and I seriously considered giving up.  But I sort of knew that it was now or never, and that kept me going.  Actually sending it in was exhilarating, because I knew no matter what happened after that, I’d met this incredible goal I’d set for myself.  

FT: Yes, I agree with you. It was amazing to hit send. It was a little nerve-racking and a little exciting. But I was also so relieved that I managed to finish in time, and was proud of myself for creating something that I felt was good enough to submit.

Michelle: What happened when you found out that Interlude had liked your book and wanted to publish it?  I received the email while I was at my day job, and saw the preview of it on my phone.  Because all I could see that it was an email from Interlude Press and that it started “Thank you so much for submitting…” I texted Elizabeth before opening it and said “I just got a response back & I’m sure they rejected me.”  It wasn’t even a month after I’d sent my novel in, and I was certain it wouldn’t be good news.  I gritted my teeth and opened the email, only to find that they wanted to publish it!  I immediately took a screen shot of the email and texted it to her, and then called her.  She hadn’t even had the chance to read it before I called. Then I sent the same screen shot to like six different friends because I was so excited, and actually this Christmas one of them blew up the picture and had it framed for me so I have it hanging on my wall :)

FT: I was at work, too. I glanced at my phone and saw I had an email. Then I saw it was from Interlude. That first line was such a rickroll! I read it and thought I had been rejected. But the next line said they loved the book. I immediately left my office, walked to my car, and called my husband. I don’t even remember the conversation other than me squealing in his ear. When I went back into my office, I showed one of my work friends, but that was it. I sat on the news until I had the call with the IP team. Then I casually texted my brother and about thirty seconds later he called me and yelled at me because that wasn’t the sort of news you send in a text. :)

The Star Host is a young adult sci fi adventure novel, featuring a M/M romance and a bisexual protagonist.  It comes out March 3, 2016 and is now available for pre-order!  For updates on FT and The Star Host you can follow her on Tumblr, Twitter, Goodreads, and Wordpress where we’ll be chatting next week about working with a publisher.