Dani Alexander's Blog

The very kind Sara Alva agreed to be sent my proof copy cuz I live in the boonies. She took a vid and a great pic.

Yup. Check the homepage. Check the books. Merry Christmas. And for a little fun, I wrote this while waiting for reader feedback.

MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS

“Surprise,” Austin opened his arms wide as he opened the door.

Dare set his shopping bags next to Rabbit’s and took in the atrocity that was the  living room.

Rabbit puckered his lips like he wanted to ask ‘why, or what or when or who’. His eyes spanned left and right and left again. When he finally spoke, it was a breathy, “How? Why?”

The five stockings hanging on the fireplace were the only elegant touch in a sea of festive overkill. Nope, nevermind, their names were rainbow sequins. Garland hung on every flat surface with giant red bows and blinking multi-colored lights. More lights hung from the ceiling, wrapped around the banister, and covered every door and window frame. There were multiple window decorations in themes from Santa at the North Pole, Frosty, and a bunch of elves’s asses sticking out of the snow. Santa statues, elf on a shelf…or several shelves in this case, glowing nativity scenes, gingerbread men, gingerbread houses, Mrs. Claus. And a giant tree from floor to ceiling decorated like it came out of a fucking catalog. Not an inch of space was free of garland, glitter, or tinsel.

“Wow,” Dare said. “It’s like the Christmas Fairy came…all over.”

“I said let’s get a tree.” Rabbit looked at Dare. “That’s all I said. We should get  a tree for our first fucking Christmas.”

“He got you a tree,” Dare pointed out. “And the rest of the world’s tackiest Christmas store.”

“Well, Merry Fucking Christmas,” Austin said and plopped on the recliner. He lifted one ass cheek and tossed a crocheted Santa pillow onto the sofa.

Cai flew out of the hallway under the stairs with a smile as bright as sunshine. “It’s great, isn’t it?”

Stuart followed and jumped over the sofa. His hair bounced as he ran around pointing things out. “Watch watch.” He turned on a train under the tree and it choo chooed its way around the bottom of the tree. “Look at this part.” The lights on the tree blinked and played a song Dare recognized from holiday movies. “It’s the chowerdsky’s plum fairy dance.”

“Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy by Tchaikovsky,” Austin corrected, trying to hide his pout.

“And you can play other songs with your phone!” Stuart demonstrated with a few pop songs Dare recognized.

Cai bounded over, peeked in the bags, and then slipped on his keds. “Going to go to Riley’s for a bit.” He grabbed a sweater and disappeared out in the snow before Dare or Rabbit could protest.

Austin continued pouting on the chair.

Stuart picked up a box and shook it with his ear close to the sides. “Ugh, puzzle.”

Dare brought his bags over and stuffed the presents wherever he could find a spot. The bottom of the tree was overloaded with gifts. Rabbit joined him a second later, humming the Fairy song.

“You know he did it for them,” Dare said, begrudgingly.

“I know. Take Stuart some place would you?”

“Get your coat, Stuart,” Dare said. “And your ice skates.”

“Yeah!” Stuart tore down the hall to his room.

Peter wrapped his arms around Austin’s shoulders and bit his earlobe. “Merry Fucking Christmas?”

Austin shot straight up and took Peter’s hand to drag him up the stairs.

“The fuck do you see in him?” Dare muttered.

“Myself in about thirty seconds,” Peter said before disappearing.

–so yeah,

Merry Fucking Christmas
Happy fucking Hanukah
Happy Fucking Kwanzaa

Love, Dani

In case you’re at work, I subtly (hurr) censored the title.

Mistake 1: In Feb-March I was editing and fixing NSI for paperback using a program called InDesign. For those of you who don’t know, InDesign is essentially Photoshop but for designing books(the interior). I also made all my edits there because as you design a book, you create these paragraphs and pages that look beautiful on the page and if you ‘fix’ a word in one paragraph, it can fuck up all the paragraphs after that. Because I edited in InDesign to create the paperback, I also had to use that same file for the ebook. Well that doesn’t sound so bad right? Well, each chapter is a separate file in Indesign. So that when I found a mistake, I had to open each file to correct mistakes. And thats’ where my second mistake came in.

Mistake 2: I ran a program called ProwritingAid (which finds duplicate words and sentences and phrases) and, well, I thought I’d caught most of those(141 maybes at one point) but then it found I used a certain word 481 times. And rather than going through each file in InDesign to fix it, I decided to use the pdf to word. Also doesn’t sound like a big deal, right? Well, it turns out that at some point(not even sure where) the files deleted paragraph returns. And not just one. 100s of paragraph returns. Which meant I had to read through the whole thing and fix places where paragraph returns were missing.

Mistake(?) 3: Not really a mistake but what’s kept this ‘fixing’ process three weeks longer than it should be. In a pivotal chapter late in the book, I found a scene that I just couldn’t live with. So for the last three weeks I’ve worked on re-writing it. One small scene(2000 words). But, being the perfectionist I am, and the significance of the scene, it needs to be as perfect as it can be.

Meanwhile, while I’m stressing over this, my 9 month old started walking so I’m chasing him every day. It’s fun, but exhausting. I find my writing interrupted every five seconds <8( I mean, it’s a good interrupting but still.

What does this all mean? Well, I didn’t want to write this update until I had a breakthrough in the scene and that happened on Saturday when I got all the feels I wanted. Hopefully those feels will transfer to you because I felt like they were really missing in the most important scene in the book. Anyway, once I’ve finished that rewrite, it won’t take long to fix the paragraph issue mentioned in mistake 1 and 2.

Hopefully, I’ve lowered some pitchforks, though I don’t blame you if you want to poke me a few times with them. <3 Aim away from my hands so I can still type just in case there’s someone that’s still willing to wait for NSI.

As you can see, things have changed around the site as i get ready for release. I’m stuck atm with a timeline because the Swedish library sent me ISBNs but nowhere to register them. I finally found a service that I *think* can register my book with the ISBN but I can’t know for sure. Why don’t I know? Because this same business hasn’t answered my email. Grr.

I know I said I’d update when I had the paperback in my hand, but that would leave everyone hanging for too long. I’m hoping to have things done this week. Fingers crossed.

Not the best news, but, hey, I’m still here.

Other updates:

I’ve started rewriting Shatterproof with the new story-line I’ve been thinking about for around two+ years. I’m excited. I can tell you it takes place in Syria and Somalia. I’ll be revamping the cover for that book *and* Shattered Glass, eventually, so that they can be a pretty box set XD.

The website will change yet again when NSI has a release date and I do my cover reveal!

That’s about it.

Last, but definitely not least, Slava Ukraini! No cat tax. ( I mean I can, if you really want)

First, yes, NSI is delayed for Feb release. I literally have been working every second for the past weeks between watching my son. (Who knew a seven month old would suck up half your life?)He’s into everything. EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING!)

Here’s where I’m at:

Final edits: donePaperback format: doneCover: Done, but not formatted for all media typesEbook: (won’t take long) Not formattedAudiobook: still waiting to hear–going to publish without it for now.Proof copy: Should send that out either Monday or Tuesday, depending on how long it takes to format the covers for everything.

I’ll do a quick update on my twitter when I have the proof in my hot little hand.

Final verdict: 1 prologue, 31 chapters, 1 epilogue, 130172 words

Paperback will be 5.25×8(same as SG)

Cover reveal after I get proof copy back!

Cat Tax [image error]

PS: Does anyone like my cat tax?

PPS: I suck and I’m sorry for taking so long!