Nicole O’Dell is the lucky winner of a signed, numbered copy of Writer Mama, How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids by Christina Katz (Writer’s Digest Books 2007).
Congratulations Nicole!
To all of you who have stopped by – thanks for visiting. Please check in often.
Filed under Christina Katz, Writing
After years of being a SAHM, I realized I needed some education and guidance to do what I wanted to do. Write – write well, get published, and still raise my four busy, busy children. Some of my questions were: Where do I start? What are the steps to become a successful writer? How can I make this work and balance it with my role as mom?
Enter Christina Katz’s book, Writer Mama, How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids. The title got my attention because it appeared like it might answer my questions. Christina’s book delivered. BIG TIME. It helped me to address what kind of writing I wanted to pursue and and a “map” of how to do it.
I’ve gone on to take Christina’s classes (you can find them through the the link below). The curriculums are based on Writer Mama, How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids (and her new book as well), but go into far more detail. As a writer I have come away feeling challenged, focused, and confident.
Writer Mama, How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids is a practical no-nonsense guide on to how to have a writing career while being a mom and offers the tools to get it done. Christina provides healthy doses of inspiration and support along the way. The book is a wonderful resource for non-moms too.
It is my great delight to welcome a woman I deeply respect and admire – my teacher and mentor, Christina Katz.
The Writer Mama Two-Year Anniversary Blog Tour Giveaway!
Post #25: Turning In the Full Draft of Your First Book
If I have done a good job describing just how much work it takes to get from the idea stage of a book to the finished full draft stage, then I probably don’t need to suggest that you take the time to celebrate this momentous occasion but I’m going to do it anyway.
Here’s the thing: your book-writing journey isn’t over yet and your book-marketing journey is about to kick into high gear, so if you don’t pause and celebrate this huge accomplishment, it will just blur into everything else you still have left to do.
For example:
You will likely receive requests from your editor or editors for changes (chapters in Writer Mama were swapped around at this stage).
You’ll likely receive requests for additional paragraphs or sidebar material (my editor wanted more on platform development in the last section of the book).
A chapter might get cut (a couple of mine did at the end).
A sidebar or exercise or two might get cut (I had to replace one or two).
Of course, there is always the possibility that you won’t have to make many or any changes to your manuscript. If this is your experience, then you probably invested more planning time into the front end of your book proposal process or had plenty of “curing” time during the writing of your manuscript.
Be certain if you are dealing with any kind of permission requests that you started the process long before now. You don’t know how long it will take to procure permission and if you are denied the right to use some material you’d counted on, you will possibly need to substitute other text or your own words.
Remember that even if your book is complete and is in satisfactory editorial shape, you are not done with your book, not by a long shot. And this is why you should celebrate. The fact remains: you just finished writing your first book and it’s a big deal.
Otherwise, you might zip right into tweaking the manuscript you just worked so hard on, and miss out on a little bit of a break. If you can take a week or so off from working on your book, this would be a good time to do so. Celebrate, regroup, renew, you’re going to need your energy and your clear head for the next phase.
In this way, the full draft celebration is part celebration, part ritual. It’s your opportunity to pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself for crossing the finish line and it’s a way of signaling to yourself that even though you still have plenty of work left to do, the hardest part is done.
So I hope you will go out to dinner, splurge for a pedicure, or do something snazzy to mark the occasion. Once you get to this point, you truly deserve it.
Today’s Book Drawing: To enter to win a signed, numbered copy of Writer Mama, answer the following question in this blog’s comments:
Describe, in some detail, how you will celebrate the completion of the full draft of your first book manuscript.
Thanks for participating! Only US residents, or folks with a US mailing address can participate in the drawing. Please only enter once per day.
Where will the drawing be tomorrow? Visit http://thewritermama.wordpress.com/ to continue reading the rest of the Writer Mama story throughout March 2009!
Writer Mama, How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids by Christina Katz (Writer’s Digest Books 2007)
Kids change your life, but they don’t necessarily have to end your career. Stay-at-home moms will love this handy guide to rearing a successful writing career while raising their children. The busy mom’s guide to writing life, this book gives stay-at-moms the encouragement and advice they need including everything from getting started and finding ideas to actually finding time to do the work – something not easy to do with the pitter-patter of little feet. With advice on how to network and form a a business, this nurturing guide covers everything a writer mama needs to succeed at her second job. Christina Katz is also the author of the newly released Get Known Before the Book Deal, Use Your Personal Strengths to Grow an Author Platform (Writer’s Digest Books 2008).
Filed under Christina Katz, Writing
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