Edits are here!

We got the edits last night for our book. I have only read through the prologue so far, but it rocked! Our goal is that in three weeks we will have more or less the book finished just as we want it. It is all so exciting! I have 3,542,873 things to do today, but we should be blogging about the editing process soon!

Friday Blog!

Okay, so it takes a village to raise a child, and obviously it takes a village to publish a book! I wonder how people can self-publish, it must be like being a single parent. I can't imagine doing this on my own! So, an early shout out to some of the people who have been very important to me in working through this. First, to Karen and Elizabeth, for editing the book and taking on the project! Awesome!!! Then to Jason Jarbo, Jaeden Peterson and Lisa Petersen, for already reading an early edition and giving valuable feedback! Of course there are my cousins Austin and Aaron Nabaum who are putting together logos for us. Thanks to Clayton Chambers for a fantastic cover to the book. We have Kris Heims, helping with accounting, and Mandy Schermer for helping with legal. Holla! My aunt Anne, the fabulous librarian, and my sister Cara for marketing advice. There is Jessie Riley, Jaren's wife, who is one of the greatest photographers on the planet. My office mate at work Philm Brown who has helped with ideas and perhaps some videotaping in the future, and Jeanette Pilak for UNESCO for filming an episode with us of On the Fly for the Iowa City of Literature campaign. The wonderful people at Prairie Lights and the Haunted Bookstore for volunteering their space for us to have readings. Sweet as, folks! I feel like I'm at the academy awards and am forgetting people! I'll do another shout out again to catch everyone I missed, but my goodness, we couldn't do this without all of the help we are getting. Peace! Love ya all!

What a week

Ok, so writing a book is a lot easier when it is just for fun and there is no pressure to have it be good or done at a specific time. We are working on book two right now (spoiler -it is connected to thefirstbook) and it is not easy. The first book is going to rock and we want the next one to be even better. So I've spent the week doing research on places in Africa and North America and reading ancient texts and thinking deep thoughts and not doing much writing and feeling guilty about it :) I wouldn't quite call it writers block, but the story is so complex and there is so much going on that it is easy to get sidetracked or distracted from just writing chapter 5, which is what I need to be writing. And then we have marketing stuff going on, which takes time, and then there is the rest of life. I am actually sitting outside a subway on my way to soccer games in muscatine. I should be home writing, but how can I miss my kids soccer games? So i am going to stop this post and try to get some writing done on the drive. Say what you will, it is an adventure!