Tag: Amwriting
Goodreads Question on the Genre of The Mason List
**Goodreads Question**
“When writing The Mason List, did you worry about not fitting specifically into a certain genre?”
I always planned to write a “romance” book but I wasn’t really aiming for one genre or another. I know that can often be bad for marketing a book. What Genre is The Mason List? Well…it’s a Contemporary, Coming-of-Age Romance that crosses both Young Adult and New Adult with splash of Chick Lit.
I read all sorts of genre’s. I think for me, all of those blend together in my head. I didn’t have one genre in mind when I set out to write the story. I was just telling the story. Alex’s backstory took over a large portion of theme. That wasn’t the intention but it became 50% of the story.
My core concept: I wanted a story that actually showed the characters together as kids. I didn’t want the story to start as adults with a few sentences that indicated they grew up together. I wanted the reader to feel like they grew up with the characters. To me, the story of Jess and Alex only existed because of the adventures they had together as children. It wasn’t always perfect and they didn’t always make the best choices. But they were together and the reader got to experience those twists and turns along the way.
I worried when I released The Mason List that people would have issues with the first half of the book being told from the young kid perspective since I was marketing in the romance section of Amazon that is full of traditional style New Adult books. I say traditional, because there’s certain elements that are typically present in most New Adult books.
However, most people have embraced the book as a whole. They loved the epic style and didn’t have a problem with the page count. There’s been a few who didn’t like the first half – and I’ve had people who loved the first half but not the last half. I think some of the dislike does come from the jump in genres. I also know that everyone does not like the same books. I’m okay with it. I had fun writing The Mason List. And at the end of the day, I know the published story is the one that I wanted to tell for Alex and Jess. I stayed true to my original core concept.
The Mason List: It’s the Final Countdown
Edits are over. Did I type that sentence? I have moved to the layout portion of this project. I spent four hours this past weekend just fixing the paragraph indentions for the Kindle Mobi file: from Word to Writeway Pro to RTF back to Word to HTML file to Mobi file. Yes, that’s my actual work flow that appears to allow the insertion of the first line indentions. Apparently, Writeway Pro doesn’t like the indentions on the first pass, but I need to upload into that program for the actual chapter layout with table of contents. Trial and error; push out to Kindle for a test. Ironically, this is supposed to be the easy one. Smashwords is supposed to be the hard one. I am also doing the print layout, which may result in the death of my computer mouse.
With all of that said – Happy Thanksgiving!! Hopefully, I will have more exciting blog reports as we get closer to the release date.
When I started writing three years ago (gasp!), I didn’t know how time consuming this project would eventually become in my life. My cousin shared a quote this week.
“Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it’s a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress; and then it becomes a master; and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.” – Winston Churchill
I don’t know if I will ever feel the book is ready for the public, but eventually I have to let go and say enough is enough.
Thanksgiving Song of the Day: Better Days by the Goo Goo Dolls
The Mason List: Let the Final Edits Begin
Yes, that’s right. My wonderful editor Anna has sent her final edits. No more passive verbs! Aka my nasty little habit. This is also a transition for me since I have been writing away on my second novel, Red Dirt Claws. Emma hat off. Alex hat on. In other words, a drastic channel change from comedy to drama.
In Red Dirt Claws, I’m leaving Emma standing in her yellow bikini in front of Wyatt flirting her way right to his heart. –Channel Change — To The Mason List where Alex begins her story with a mental breakdown in the opening scene.
Here’s what’s left in the process of getting The Mason List published. The final edit is the next step. I basically have two copies of the book right now. One copy from my editor with all the grammatical, spelling and sentence structure clean-ups. I have another copy that I have edited with story line and scene clean-ups. I will be taking my final copy and merging pieces into the editor’s final copy.
For me, this is the most tedious part of writing a novel. Line by line. Word by word comparison of the two copies. This story is approximately 137,000 words which is roughly 550 novel pages. In Microsoft Word, my copy is 461 pages.
The picture below shows the side-by-side comparison. The story begins at 8:15 pm. Yes, that means what you think it means for my friends who know of my LOST obsession. I slipped that little bread crumb into The Mason List.
I do most of my writing in Microsoft Word. I also use WriteWay Pro. The program is really good with organizing chapters and exporting out in manuscript form. I spent the final six months of writing The Mason List in WriteWay Pro. As each chapter comes to a close, I will be feeding the pieces back into that program.
Once I get a better grasp on the final pass through the novel, I should be able to schedule a release date. I am very excited to introduce the world to The Mason List!
SD Hendrickson 