Annette Dashofy's Blog

I’ve frequentlybeen asked, usually by writers still trying to find their way, how many draftsI write of a book. I never have a good answer. Or when I give one, I inevitablymake myself a liar while working on the next book. 

But right now,I’m starting on Draft #4 of my current Work in Progress, which, by the way, isdue to my publisher on December 1. However, my Draft #4 is likely verydifferent from your Draft #4. 

Let me break itdown. 

The first draftis a free-for-all. I may or may not have an outline. If I do, it’s sparse andnot carved in stone, so I’m slinging words on the page to see if they work ornot. It often sucks. But even Draft #1 isn’t a rough first draft by the time Ireach the end. Each day, I re-read the previous day’s work and make tweaksbefore I start fresh. Once a month, I send pages to my critique group forfeedback. I may or may not incorporate that feedback while I’m still poweringthrough the word-slinging phase, but there are always a few comments thatdeeply resonate for me. I will definitely go back and make adjustments toaddress those issues. 

Once I reach THEEND, I save the manuscript, retitled Draft #2. I make a few more fixes overall,specifically to make sure the ending makes sense. A little adding, a littledeleting. I change some details that have been bugging me. Then I send it offto my beta readers. These are colleagues who haven’t seen even a word of itbefore. They get to review the entire story to let me know if it holdstogether. 

Draft #3 is whereI gather all my notes from my critique buddies and beta readers and begin backat Chapter One. 

I have justfinished that one. Another version has now been labeled Draft #4. I still havea notebook full of scribbles about details to add and words to cut. Some of thebigger issues from my critique and beta notes needed a more thorough addressingthan I did in Draft #3. Those are part of my scribbles. 

Since my deadlineis approaching with the speed of a runaway freight train, I’ll use Read Aloudas I start over. That way, I can also catch typos and missing words as I makemy way through the pages. Double duty! 

It’s been 18months since my last book release. Prior to that, the longest I’d gone betweenbooks had been 12 months. In my world, it feels like decades! I mean, it nevergets old. This is my seventeenth published novel, and it’s still a rush! 

And yet, I admit,I’ve felt a bit subdued leading up to this one. And confused. 

What am I supposedto do? How does one promote a new book? 

As if I’ve neverdone it before. 

I think I finallyfigured out why I feel this way, and it goes beyond the length of time since Idid it before. 

This bookrelease, like the previous two Detective Honeywell novels, is digital only. Fornow. While a large portion of my readership gets their books on digitalplatforms, it doesn’t feel 100% real until I hold the print copy in my grubbylittle hands. 

Don’t get mewrong. I’m thrilled for all of you who are huddled over your phones and iPadsand Kindles reading my book today. I love you all beyond words. 

However, it’spretty much impossible to hold an in-person book signing without a book tosign. 

The print releasewill be November 20. And after much pleading with my UK-based publisher, thistime, it’s going to be easier to purchase a paperback here in the US this time!The Devil Comes Calling (in print) is available for pre-order on Amazon.US booksellers will be able to order copies through Gardners, a UK wholesaledistributor. And my home-away-from-home, Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont, PA, will have signed copies in time for the holidays! 

In a sense, I’mhaving TWO launch days for this one. 

And let’s keepthe party rolling into December and January when I’ll have two MORE launch daysfor No Stone Left Unturned. Digital will be out on December 19.Paperback on January 1. 

Happy New Year! 

This all explainsthe confusion I mentioned earlier. After 18 months with no new books, I’m nowcelebrating two books in four releases over three months. 

Publishing isweird.

  

When I was a kid, our farm gardens were massive. We had acres of potatoes. My grandmother's "kitchen garden" had to be at least a thousand square feet. Corn, cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes, green beans, kohlrabi, onions, peppers, and so much more. Rhubarb, horseradish, and dill grew along its borders. We had an apple orchard as well as pear and peach trees. 

Now, we have a ten-acre chunk of that 150-acre farm, and our little garden has grown progressively smaller over the decades. This year we have onions, cucumbers, a few sad tomato plants, peppers, and one plant each of yellow squash and zucchini. Those last two are threatening to take over the world alongside the cucumbers.

We've given bushels of the things away. People see my husband coming and run. They can't escape. He drives by when folks aren't home and leaves squash on their doorstep. 

I've been cooking and eating squash and cukes for lunch and supper every single day. Yes, I'm sick of them. And just when the piles of them start to look manageable, my husband goes to the garden and brings back twenty more. I kid you not. 

This is the modest collection currently on our porch. 

That big one had been hiding.

Plus, we have another collection inside.

And we haven't checked the garden yet today. Yes, I should make pickles. No, I'm not going to. I have a book deadline looming. 

But if anyone out there wants to do it, let me know. I will happily provide the cucumbers.

Fifteen years ago today, the Universal Cat Distribution System deposited this tiny, wormy, flea-infested little one on our front porch. I tried to find a home for her, but Kensi had already decided THIS was home, and I was her human. I've learned to never question her again. 

Kensi 2010Happy Gotcha Day, Kensi. Kensi 2025

I'm breathing a little easier this week. I completed and turned in my proofreads of No Stone Left Unturned early this week and have been pounding away on the first draft of the fifth Honeywell mystery. As of today, I've topped 75,000 words. I expect this one to be around 90K or a little under, so I'm on target to meet my goal of completion by the end of August. Yay me!

I do have one item on my to-do list that will take up part of my time this coming week. As I mentioned last time, I'm teaching a two-hour workshop for Steel Quill Workshops. It's titled Creating 3-Dimensional Characters and is geared toward all genres and all skill levels. If you're interested, click here to register. The workshop takes place on Sunday, August 24 from 1:00 p.m. until 3:00 at 5858 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA. 

I'm still here. I even managed to get out for a few in-person events last month.

First, I had the honor of being Linda Castillo's conversation partner for her Pittsburgh stop on her book tour. RAGE, her new Kate Burkholder novel, is fabulous. I loved it and was reminded that I need to go back and pick up a few of her earlier books that I somehow missed.

Photo courtesy of Mystery Lovers Bookshop

Then, I spent a little time at our local Senior Citizen's Center to chat about books with the hometown crowd. 

Photo courtesy of Burgettstown
Senior Center

Finally, I was honored once more to be the conversation partner with Shari Lapena. Her newest thriller, She Didn't See It Coming, was riveting! And the crowd was amazing. 

Photo courtesy of Mystery Lovers Bookshop

Now, for the month of August, I'm mostly holing up in Book Jail. I'm juggling two books right now: drafting Honeywell #5 (which needs a working title) and proofreading No Stone Left Unturned. 

I do have one in-person appearance this month for anyone who's a writer. I'll be teaching a two-hour Creating 3-Dimensional Characters class for Steel Quill Writers Workshops in Squirrel Hill (Pittsburgh), PA on Sunday, August 24. You can check out the details or register here.    

After what has felt like forever, I have book covers for the upcoming third and fourth Detective Honeywell Mysteries.

 I may be totally am biased, but I think they're gorgeous!

You can read the back cover copy descriptions on my website.

Back in March, I was happily munching a salad when something didn't feel right. The hard piece of something that I spit out was one of my crowns. No big deal, I thought. Call the dentist, go in, and get it glued back in place. Then I looked closer and realized the crown had taken a large portion of what was left of the tooth with it.

Okay, so it WAS a big deal. There wasn't enough of the tooth left to repair, so I had to see an oral surgeon to have the root extracted.

(Don't cringe. I'm not going into great deal.)

Unfortunately, while I got in right away for the assessment, I couldn't have the procedure done until this past Monday. Yes, that's a long time.

It wasn't that bad. The doctor was FAST. I was in and out in no time. I refused the narcotic pain meds, opting to use over-the-counter products instead. Note: I highly recommend the Tylenol/Advil combo I've been told to use on several occasions.

However...

While I wasn't in any real pain, I was a tad loopy and a lot sleepy. Monday, following the procedure, I mostly did nothing but wait for the Novocain to wear off. Tuesday, I napped, read, napped, and read some more. Shocking as it may sound, I DID NO WRITING. At all.

Wednesday, I dived back in, but only for a little while because I had another appointment. Not for me. For Kensi and her heart murmur. Thankfully, the report from the veterinary cardiologist was glowing. She told me to keep doing what I've been doing. I'm a relieved cat mom.

Kensi couldn't wait to come home and start washing off the yucky vet hospital stuff.

I'm happy to be back to work on normal stuff today. No doctors, no dentists, no veterinarians. Just me working on my next book and Kensi napping in the sun. Let me tell you, while napping and reading sound heavenly on most days, when it's forced on you, it's not my idea of 

Have you ever put off a task because you expected it to be grueling? That's basically how I approach developmental edits. I have pages and pages of notes from my editor, and I need to find a way to rip apart my book and put it back together to patch the holes she found. 

Guess what? It's never as bad as I think it's going to be. The hardest part is dragging my writer's brain out of the book I'm drafting to sink it into the book that needs to be edited. 

And that's where I am. I received my editorial letter early in the month. It's only a page and a half, which is virtually unheard of for me, and a good part of that is raving about the characters and twists. At the time it hit my inbox, we were recovering from a vicious windstorm and had no power. Then there was preparation for the Pennwriters Conference. 

And my editor told me "no rush." Never ever tell me "no rush" because that' permission to procrastinate. 

I ran out of excuses this week and jumped in. Once again, it's not as bad or as difficult as I anticipated, although all of the issues she pointed out are in the final pages where I didn't satisfactorily wrap up all the threads. I've been re-reading the whole thing and making notes of where I can plant a bit of internal dialogue or where I can insert a touch of foreshadowing to go along with the changes I need to make near the end. All of which, I must say, will make the story more complex and stronger emotionally. 

My goal is to complete these revisions in the coming week so I can get back to drafting Honeywell #5 as of June first.  

 The new laptop arrived.

I remember the old days when I would spend hours...days...a week...getting the new computer set up. Every program had to be installed. Every password had to be remembered, looked up, or changed (because who can remember ALL their passwords???) And that was after the original start up and hours of updates.

Thanks to fiber optic internet, updates took maybe twenty minutes. Then I had to sign in to one account, using a PIN. Voila! My email and photos and virtually everything else effortlessly showed up on the new machine. Even my screensaver was transferred. 

I did have to install my preferred browser since Edge isn't it. Plus Dropbox. Plus Zoom. I'm sure there will be more, but for now, it's pretty well ready to roll. 

Meanwhile, the old laptop is still limping along, so I haven't sent it to the electronics graveyard just yet.