When I received the proof copies of Paragon I pictured myself doing a happy dance. I’d heard other authors talk about the first time they saw their book in print. How glorious it was, like there were beams of light radiating from the pages themselves and a choir of angels singing. Imagine my surprise when I opened the box, pulled out a copy of my book, and burst into tears. I proceeded to bawl for the next two hours straight. I suppose if they had been tears of joy it would have been okay, but they weren’t.

I can sum up the reason for my tears with one thought: the first look at my book was a proof copy and I had made several formatting mistakes. Most people probably wouldn’t even notice the things that brought me to tear, but I had a moment of perfection planned and dang it, I didn’t get it right the first time. Not that that should have surprised me, I don’t think I’ve managed to get a single thing right the first time with anything related to writing (something I love), let alone publishing (something I don’t love).

After I cried, threw a fit and vowed never to do anything remotely related to publishing ever again, I picked myself up, dried my tears and got to work fixing the mistakes. A little side note-I followed the same pattern the entire rest of the day. I vowed to quit at least a dozen times as I worked to fix problems. Which means two things: don’t believe me when I’m beat and say I’m going to quit and unless you plan on being trampled stay out of my way because I will succeed.

Here are three big things I learned when I saw my book in print the first time.

1. Golden rectangles are important
2. Serif fonts look better in print
3. Don’t open the box until you are ready

1. Did you know there is something called a golden rectangle? My son has talked to me about them many times, totaling up to several hours worth of information about golden rectangles that obviously didn’t sink in. So here’s what you need to know about golden rectangles if you are publishing a book: there is a certain height to width ratio that makes some rectangles more pleasing to the eye. Case in point-my book. The difference between my book and paperbacks on my shelf was tiny. Mine was 5 x 8. The ones on the shelf were 5.06 x 7.81 but I could tell instantly that my book was not a golden rectangle. Somehow that tiny amount (.06 x .19) made my book look long and too skinny.

2. A serif font is like Times New Roman or Garamond. A serif is a small line attached to the end of a stroke in a letter. Sans means ‘without’ so a sans serif font does not have the small lines attached to the end strokes in letters. What kind of font you like is a personal choice, but there is a reason most books are printed in a serif font. It is easier to read on the printed page. However, on a screen like an e-reader or computer a sans serif font tends to works better. If you want your book to look professional, use a serif font in your printed book.

Of course now I have to make a disclosure statement about how it is possible to have a book look professional and not use a serif font. It is also possible to rake fall leaves on a unicycle but I wouldn’t recommend that either. Unless you are a professional leaf raker with tons of experience don’t get fancy and try to do it on a  unicycle. You’ll just look silly. Same principle applies to picking fonts; don’t get fancy the first time you do it or the second or third… My problem came because the sans serif font I chose looked fine on the computer screen (refer to what I said earlier about how sans serif fonts look better on a screen). The font did not look so great when I opened the printed proof.

3. Think for a moment about watching TV. It’s been a long day, you want to turn your brain off and be entertained. You plop down in your favorite spot, wiggle around until you’ve sunk in just right and sigh. Then you realize you don’t have the remote. So you hop up, snag the clicker and settle in again. Then you realize you’re hungry, but you don’t want to get back up so you holler into the other room, “Hey, grab the chips and a soda for me.”

Nothing happens.

“Please.”

They bring you chips and a soda but you wanted rootbeer and Doritos and they brought Sprite and the last crumbs in a stale bag of potato chips that had been lost in the back of the pantry for three years.

Moral of the story is plan ahead. Grab the remote and get your own snack before you sit down, then you won’t be disappointed. In the same way, if you want angels singing in the background and beams of light surrounding your book the first time you see it, put on music and get a spot light before you open the box. And that’s exactly what I plan on doing from now on.

I realized a while back that I’m a writer, an author, but not a blogger. What’s the difference? I cannot spout creative, fabulous first drafts and interesting columns several times a week or even several times a month. If I did, it would take all my writing time and I wouldn’t get any work done on my books.

Writing novels is the kind of writing I really love. For me the excitement in writing happens as I take a wisp of an idea, something intriguing, but not necessarily thought clear through, and I let the idea talk and shape itself. I’m constantly asking the character’s why. Why are you doing that? Why do you care? Why does your story matter? The list of questions stretches out for miles.

When creating a story I’m so interested to find out what’s going to happen next. I usually have a vague idea where the story is going, but no clue what kind of people, towns, houses or flowers we are going to pass to get there. I love it when someone in a story does something out of character and later I find out their actions made complete sense; I just didn’t know all the facts before. It makes the writing process very interesting for me.

However, my very favorite part of writing is the rewrite. My rough drafts are never very good, but I can see the potential. To me it’s like when you find something in the attic, at a garage sale, or in the very back, most dusty part of a shop. You look at the thing you found and can see it’s real value, even though to everyone else it’s just a piece of junk. You know it just needs to be dusted off, fixed, and given a fresh coat of paint. When I get critique pages back covered in red with notes scribbled everywhere I  want to sit down right then and start fixing things. I might not take every suggestion given to me, but when I can take a suggestion and use it to make the story better, even in a small way, that’s very exciting to me. I love the feeling when I’ve finished reworking a scene and I can say, this is tons better than it was to begin with.

Previously, I had what I call a fake blog. I wrote things once in a while, however, no one could comment. I wondered whether having a real blog was a good idea since I knew it wouldn’t be my main focus. I love writing way more than blogging, so I probably wouldn’t post things often enough to keep it interesting. I decided I wanted to be able to hear from my readers. I’ll never be a real blogger, which I’m fine with, but a blog seemed like a good way to let you know what I’ve been doing and hear from you.