During this gap between The World is Decorated With Stars and The Stars That Guide Us, I’ve come to realize that as a writer that you must make space for the characters to be in your life or you won’t get any writing done. And when you do, they pop up at the most unexpected times. In my case, often at 2 a.m.! Despite the inconvenient timing of these insights, I was happy to be reunited with my characters. It was important for me to continue my themes from book one in The Stars That Guide Us: strong, independent women, men who are allies and not competitors with their partners, the history of Nantucket, and all this underpinned with the beauty of Nantucket, the sea, and the stars. I took the characters to places I’ve been in my own life, and it was a joy to see them through my characters’ eyes. 

I’ll be honest; I found a big difference in writing the first and second books. Writing the first book in 2013 and 2014, it felt like it wrote itself. I was still working full-time. I traveled so much for work, and I found that writing kept me entertained while on long plane rides and in hotel rooms. For the first book, I spent a lot of time making sure the timing worked, e.g. how long did it take to sail from Nantucket to the south Pacific in 1850, but overall, it was easy to write. The second book was a little different. I enjoyed writing it, but I had to work harder at it. It needed a lot of research, much more than the first one.

There are many happy moments in both books, which I hope brings the reader a needed escape from our world today. The characters also struggle; as we all know it’s not always sunshine, cupcakes and puppies. While I’ve never needed a broken arm to know that I am happier when it’s not broken, it is true that the troughs in our lives make the peaks that much sweeter. At the risk of spoiling the endings, I will admit that I am a fan of happy endings in all the books I write.

Now about the third book …

The good news is I’ve already started the third book; it too will take a lot of research as my characters travel to places I’ve only been briefly. In olden times, it’s the turn of the twentieth century and in modern times, it’s today. Nantucket, the sea, and the stars remain a constant. 

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Fast forward twelve years, and it’s a brave new world. I’m working again with Monkey C Media, Jeniffer Thompson and her talented (and patient!) team, and it’s made all the difference in the quality of my second novel, The Stars That Guide Us. I’ve worked with a copy editor for content, Lillith Kendle, a copy editor for copyediting the pesky grammar mistakes and inconsistencies, Sandra Yeaman, a designer for the cover, for the interior layout, a proofreader for the final check to make sure everything looks perfect in the layout of the printed book as well as the e-version.

I like this brave new world. I like that I’m learning so much about what it takes to publish a (hopefully!) good book. I’ve said it before—there is nothing I’ve ever written that hasn’t been made better by having someone else read it and make corrections and suggestions, and this has been true for The Stars That Guide Us. Yes, the story is mine. The polish is not.  That has come from the early readers (you know who you are!) and to the professionals who have shaped it into the book it is today. 

I’ll admit that there were times I was disappointed with some of the suggested changes. I had written, like a pugilistic squirrel going rounds in her stomach, to describe a moment when one of the characters was anxious about a situation. Out. Why? It was suggested that it brought the reader out of the moment, which is never a good thing. I still miss that damn squirrel. (Just wait, he will be in book three!) I learned to balance what I wanted with what was better for the book, which wasn’t that easy at the beginning. But then I thought, why hire professionals and not follow their guidance? There were a few cases where I chose not to make the suggested changes, but just a few.

I know now is not always, so let’s see what the future brings. While I can’t imagine how publishing will change, I believe that storytelling at its core will always be the same.

The post Times, they are a a-changin’ first appeared on Denice Kronau.

Now about the work part … yes, it is a lot of work to write a book. And a lot of re-work. The first versions of my books were about sixty percent of what ended up in the final version. But, I didn’t go from sixty to one hundred percent in one fell swoop. There were at least twenty iterations before I felt it was finished. After I thought it was finished, that’s when the professionals took over and I got to “finish” it again with their improvements. (Still missing the squirrel … and did I tell you about the porcupine hugging the balloon?) My last step is to read it out loud and amazingly, when you do this, you catch things that need to be changed. It’s funny—what reads OK doesn’t always sound OK when read aloud. It’s my favorite edit step, though I will say that it’s the hardest one. I’m not fond of my own voice by the end.

But why do you have to write a book? Simple answer, you don’t. But you could. 

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