About the Novel
Millie is a very down-to-earth, mid-Western woman who likes things just so. She is also quite adverse to change. But she has no choice in the matter when one day a young man comes to visit and alters her life forever.
She gains some new friends from a very unexpected quarter and cements one old and enduring friendship even further.
There is wry humor and a bit of suspense. There is love and compassion. But most of all there is Millie and her indomitable spirit tying it all together and making it all come right in the end.
Posted July 4, 2020
I finally finished fixing the errors in “Millie’s Adventures in Time.” This time around, I had the help of my sister, Debbie Todd, who made note of all the typos, wrong words, and grammatical errors that she noticed.
She then sent them to me in an email and I implemented 95% of them. In some cases, I let a word stand as I had written it. But for the most part, her suggestions were spot on and helped to improve the story. I’m very grateful to my sister for her help.
I was put on to the fact that the first edition had a lot of errors by a friend who bought the paperback and read it. She told me there were a lot of mistakes. I was totally disheartened to hear that. My husband and I had spent so much time reading and re-reading the manuscript that we were sure we had found them all. Hah! I should have known better.
It wasn’t hubris. It was just lack of experience with this sort of thing. I know now how easy it is to miss all the little problems.
Another friend, Chris Woods, read it and mentioned I had a problem with tenses. He said I kind of mushed them all together, sometimes in the same paragraph.
Because of how I chose to tell the story, I let a lot of the mush of tenses stand. But there were a few places where I did straighten them out … more or less. I was grateful for the heads up about that and so when I read the novel again (this time from a hard copy), I kept it in mind and was able to make the necessary changes.
I’ve uploaded it to Kindle Direct Publishing. The eBook is live again, but the paperback version is still in review as I write this. Hopefully, it won’t take as long to go live this time as it did last time. Also, hopefully, it won’t take as long for the two versions to link on Amazon.
It feels good to have finally finished the updating of “Millie’s Adventures in Time.” Did we catch all the errors? Probably not. But at least Millie is now better than it was. That’s all I can ask for.
Now I can begin working on the sequel again.
You can find “Millie’s Adventures in Time” at https://smile.amazon.com/Millies-Adventures-Time-Science-Fiction-ebook/dp/B081ZH1ZC5/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=millie%27s+adventures+in+time&qid=1597171877&s=books&sr=1-2
Posted June 21, 2020
A few days ago, I finished proof reading … again … “Millie’s Adventures in Time.” Then I had to go into the formatted digital copy and fix all the mistakes and make all the edits.
Because I was reading my author’s copy (I just love writing that :)), and the print-on-demand version has a blank page (page 347) that I could not fix no matter what I did, the two versions don’t match up and I had to re-re-reread the digital version from page 347 on while trying to keep in mind the edits I wanted to make. Was not fun.
Once I did that, though, I went through the whole manuscript once more while looking at all the grammar snafus that the Microsoft Word program so conveniently underscores in green. Most of what it found was sentence fragments that, for the most part, I let stand.
I just finished that yesterday. I could have uploaded the new version (it has a note in the front matter that it is a second edition), but I am waiting to hear more from my sister. She is a wiz at grammar and found some uses of pronouns that I needed to correct. She said she would make note of any more that she found. She still works for a living and doesn’t have a lot of spare time.
It’s a convenient excuse.
Because I let go of it the first time before it was really ready, I have all sorts of worries about it not being ready this time either. Especially since I found a couple typos while looking through it for the grammar errors. Bummer.
This is why people hire professionals to do this. Wish I had the money for that.
In any case, it should be out in its corrected form before the end of July. Yay.
Posted May 20, 2020
With the publication of “The Alien Visitation Chronicle,” I started proof reading my hard copy of “Millie’s Adventures in Time.” I’m making some good headway. I’ve found a number of paragraphs that missed getting indented. There are a few typos, but not many. In one of them I misspelled “Millie” as “Mille.” Bad me.
But mostly, I am finding a lot of editorial changes I would like to make. Hopefully, these changes will make the book read more smoothly and also make certain passages more understandable.
You know, as authors, we’d like to think we get it right the first time around. Well, I’d like to think that. But I’ve learned that’s just not possible.
And just this morning, I read a blog post by an author with 60 books independently published where he was explaining (but not really) how to make a living (as opposed to just making some money … believe me, there is a big difference in those two statements) as an indie author. In it he mentioned that as a child he wanted to be a dinosaur hunter and was very disappointed to learn that dinosaurs were instinct … not extinct. So I guess I’m in good company.
At any rate, I hope that I can finish this proof reading as quickly as possible so that I can get back to writing the sequel to “Millie.” I have at least one reader who is eagerly awaiting its publication.
Posted April 21, 2020
Yesterday, I finished proofing and editing my second novel, “The Alien Visitation Chronicle.” I did this from a proof copy. I really wish I had done that with this novel.
Once I get my second novel published, I will start reading my hard copy of “Millie’s Adventures in Time.” Proofing from a hard copy is much easier than from the digital. I don’t know why it’s easier to spot the typos in a hard copy, but it is.
I’ll reissue it as a second edition. That’s the nice thing about Kindle Direct Publishing and print on demand. There aren’t a thousand print copies out there that are full of errors. And then any subsequent copies (digital or real) will be the corrected copies. Nice.
It won’t be any fun proofing “Millie.” It’s long and I’ve read it so many times already. But my husband has already started proofing the digital copy on his tablet. He’s found so many errors that it’s disheartening.
Oh well. Live and learn.
Posted February 5, 2020
I really do wish my novel were doing better sales-wise than it is. But then, I’m not really advertising it aggressively.
The few people who have read it have liked it tremendously. That’s encouraging for sure.
I’ve thought about making some business cards that I can hand out if the topic comes up. But I have a problem with worrying about being pushy. It’s probably why I never sold more of my jewelry creations than I did. And I make really nice jewelry.
My husband keeps telling me it just takes time. Maybe he’s right. But I suspect it takes much more than that.
Oh, I did look at BookBub. Way, way, way out of my budget. Oh well.
I’ll do as my husband said and just keep writing. I don’t seem to have much choice about it anyway. 🙂
Posted January 2, 2020
I’ve had a few sales. And by few, I mean a few. Not lighting the world on fire, that’s for certain. And they’ve all been to friends. Sigh.
On the happy side, the two who have completed reading my novel have really liked it. More important to me than that is that they enjoyed reading it and had fun with it.
My husband keeps telling me to just keep writing. Isn’t he the sweet thing. He tells me that it’s a slow process; the building up of a readership and concomitant sales. If I’d done this for the money, I’d be worried all the same. Luckily, I didn’t. But it sure would be nice all the same to make a little extra moola, a few more simoleons, some much needed green.
All I can do is wait and see. And maybe consider BookBub.
Posted December 2, 2019
This photo is courtesy of my sister. She is the first person to receive the copy she ordered. She told me that she wanted a real book to hold in her hands considering how much work it was for me to bring it to fruition. I thought that was very kind.
I’m getting accustomed to the idea that I am a published author. But my heart does still occasionally do a little flip-flop when I think about what I’ve done. I suppose that will get better as time goes by. I still feel the excitement though, and I hope that never dies.
I’ve been working on the next book and having a lot of fun writing. I have no idea if Millie will be any kind of success, but it doesn’t really matter in the long run. I’m doing what I love to do. Nothing could be better than that.
Posted November 30, 2019
A few days have passed since my first novel went live. I have mostly recovered from the emotional upheaval it caused. I can think about it now without my heart skipping a beat or two.
It happened so quickly, more quickly than I was given to believe it would, that I wasn’t really prepared for it. So I’ve spent the last few days sending announcements out to my friends. I’ve received some very nice replies of congratulations and promises to buy it.
While I really appreciate the support, I hope I made it clear enough that I have no expectations that any of my friends will buy it. I honestly did this more for myself than anything else. But I won’t lie, a little extra income would be welcome.
So what it boils down to is that the launch of my book was kind of anticlimactic. I read beforehand about preparing for the launch and how important it is to the success of your novel. And then didn’t do any of that. Oh well. Call me contrary. Or call me stupid. Either way, I guess it doesn’t really matter.
So, I’m working on the sequel and still compiling another book from related short stories. I will probably get the compiled book out before the sequel. More about that book later.
As always, thanks for reading. It means a lot to me.
Posted November 27, 2019
So much happened yesterday that my head was spinning all day. I had a hard time focusing but I did get my author page on Amazon set up and it’s accessible today. But the eBook and paperback have not yet linked into one page. Even so, you can look at them separately. And I already have two sales. Woo hoo! Of course, one is to my sister and another to a friend.
Aside from the notice here, those are the only two people I’ve told directly. I’m waiting for the two versions to sync so I can send a link to the rest of the people on my email list. I still haven’t quite figured out how to do that without seeming like I am pushing my book at them. Hopefully something brilliant will come to me in the next couple of days.
I still find it hard to believe that I have published my book. There were times I thought it would never happen. It is a bit surreal to see my name on Amazon. Surreal was the word my sister used and I thank her for that because it fits to a tee. But it feels good too.
Now that I’ve recovered from most of my anxiety about publishing, I find I am anticipating getting the sequel finished and published as well.
This is such an exciting journey that I am on.
Posted November 26, 2019
Yesterday, after much ado, I pressed the “publish your paperback book” button on Kindle Direct Publishing. To say it was an emotional moment would be an understatement. I required several hours after finishing the final proof to work up the courage to actually publish my novel.
I was advised that it could take up to 72 hours for the review process to be completed and for my book to go live on Amazon.com. It did not. When I checked my emails this morning, I had a notice that my book was available, but that all services might not be; such as “look inside.”
My husband got excited and since he has the Kindle app on his phone, he looked it up. As he was looking at the listing, the “look inside” service became available. Well, at least for the eBook. I don’t really know how it works for the paperback.
Now I have a whole host of new things to learn and figure out. I have friends and family to notify. I’m having a hard time prioritizing it all in my mind.
Probably I should be looking over the email they sent to me and getting set up with Author Central, seeing if there is a link to my book’s page on Amazon and all that sort of thing before posting this. But I’m kind of excited right now and a little bit scared too. So this was the easiest thing for me at this moment.
There will be more later. Possibly a link to purchase. Oh my.
Posted November 21, 2019
Well. I did it. I uploaded what I hoped was my very well formatted manuscript to KDP. I guess maybe at this point, it’s no longer a manuscript, strictly speaking. I’m not sure what it is.
Thankfully, KDP’s program didn’t find any problems. Well, okay, it found one on the very last page which is a call to action I inserted into the back matter letting readers know to expect a sequel … at some point. As far as I could see, their removal of certain formatting didn’t effect the appearance of the page in any way.
But. And it’s a big but. I did find a few pages where the white space generated by justifying the margins, that I thought I had fixed, did not transfer to the “finished” product in the upload. Since they look fine in my version and they check out as justified, I’ve no idea how to fix that. Also, there is one blank page in the KDP version that is not blank in my version. ????
Even so, I am happy with the cover I designed using their software and I am happy with the overall appearance of the book. I guess the next step is to approve it and then move on to pricing.
Considering how hard it was for me to upload it this morning, I’m wondering if I will have as much difficulty with the rest of it. And it’s hours later now and I’m still feeling a bit stressed about it. Dang. A psychological counselor would probably tell me to relabel my anxiety as anticipation. Has that ever really worked for anyone?
Posted November 19, 2019
Yesterday, I had a fight with this website. It wasn’t the website’s fault. I just don’t find the controls to be all that intuitive. I’ve been spoiled by Windows. I did eventually get what I wanted: a drop down menu under “My Novels” so I could separate news about the first novel and its sequel.
It was a good distraction from the anxiety I feel surrounding the imminence of publishing said first novel even if it was extremely frustrating. I still don’t feel like immediately uploading the manuscript as I mentioned in yesterday’s post here, but it might happen sooner than I originally thought. I am becoming more comfortable with the idea. And yes, I can’t deny the excitement.
Posted November 18, 2019
Over the weekend, I finally finished formatting my first novel. At least I hope so. Kindle Direct Publishing may have something else to say about it. We’ll see.
Next step is uploading the manuscript and then making some decisions about pricing, Kindle Unlimited (or not), Expanded Distribution (or not), and goodness knows what else. So I might let it sit for a few days while I give it some thought.
But I’m closer now to publishing and I can’t deny I’m starting to get a bit excited.
Maddie's Mom Writes 