Tag: reading

Writing

February 2015 in Review

Kara Jorgensen4 Comments

Starting in January, I decided it would be a good idea to look back at each month and see what I have accomplished in my writing and marketing as well as reflect upon what needs to be improved in the future.

February was a meh month for all of my work.  While I finished the formatting for The Winter Garden in ebook and paperback and was able to move up the release date to March 15th, I didn’t get much done in terms of book three.  I did make a little progress with all of my projects. Maybe part of the problem is that my hands and mind are in too many places at once.

What I did accomplish: Continue reading “February 2015 in Review” →

Writing

The Importance of Proofing

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I had a minor rude awakening this weekend.  My proof copy of The Winter Garden came last weekend, so I decided I would give the book one more round of proof-reading to find some leftover typos and make sure everything was in order.  I quickly found out, it was not perfect.

Somehow italics in certain chapters magically disappeared.  No idea how it happened, but somewhere between the original file and the paperback, half the italics in the book did not translate.  Luckily, I discovered the issue Saturday night and fixed it using Word’s compare draft feature along with control-find.  At times, I wish I didn’t reference so many books or have my characters think so much, but the issue did make me very aware of what nearly skated under my quality-control radar.

This is why when you create a paperback, they send you a proof-copy to check over.  At first, I didn’t notice it because half the book had italics (sprinkled throughout), but chapter two didn’t along with many others.  Comb through your manuscript with eagle eyes.  Take your ebook or original copy and compare it to your paperback because that is how issues like this are spotted. I didn’t notice it until I was correcting typos and had my Word file for the ebook and paperback editions both open and saw that a book title wasn’t italicized.

Apart from the italics issues, I also caught quite a few typos or awkward phrasings that were easily smoothed. Proofing is a time to put the final polish on your novel and make sure everything is up to snuff. Luckily, now it is all fixed, though I’m sure I’ll find more silly errors within the coming months, but the issues have been caught and the both formats have been finalized for publication.

What am I going to do with the 35 days between now and March 31st when The Winter Garden is released? Hopefully work on book three.  More about that will come as I get further into it.

Personal Life

Me, My Self, and I

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What am I doing today?  Well, part of it will be taken up by going to Panera for an early birthday meal for my boyfriend (happy almost 24th birthday to him) and the rest will be devoted to me and my writing.

I am embracing being selfish and self-involved and all of those horrible “self” words people hurl at you when they think you should be doing something else. Continue reading “Me, My Self, and I” →

Personal Life · Writing

You Are What You Read

Kara Jorgensen7 Comments

tbr pile oct 30What do your reading choices say about you?  Since beginning graduate school, I have been turning this question over in my mind as I listened to others in my classes mention who their favorite authors are.  Most of them are people I have never heard of or read but are rather famous in the contemporary lit world.  Typically, I hold my tongue and don’t mention what I read for fear of being ridiculed or looked down upon.  This led to a greater question: why do people read certain books?

Do people (especially those in academia) read for fun or do they read certain books because they feel it is expected of them?  As I continue my journey through the MFA in Creative Writing program, I find myself wondering what my professors read, especially when they are writers or poets as well.  What we read automatically becomes ingrained in our beings and eventually comes out in our writing. I can attest to the fact that when I read a book I love, I am inspired to write and often I will lean toward that genre or some theme found in that work.  If I read a book I had to drag myself through, it typically slows my writing to a crawl.  Oddly, while I didn’t love reading Virginia Woolf for the most part, her works had a huge influence in the way I deal with close narration and “head hopping” as others call it. Continue reading “You Are What You Read” →

Writing

Cover Reveal for The Winter Garden: Book Two of the Ingenious Mechanical Devices

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Real-Winter-Garden-Cover-Final-front

Well, my second novel finally has a cover! I am beyond excited to present the cover for The Winter Garden: Book Two of the Ingenious Mechanical Devices. The illustrious Javier Ruiz has created a lovely cover for the second time in the style of a paper theatre.  The book is slated to be out in early 2015, but it already has a Goodreads page found here.  The synopsis is as follows: Continue reading “Cover Reveal for The Winter Garden: Book Two of the Ingenious Mechanical Devices” →

What I Have Been Up To Recently
Writing

What I Have Been Up To Recently

Kara JorgensenLeave a comment

I have not been a very good blogger recently. Keeping up with posts is never easy for me, but I have a grand announcement, I published a novel.

The Earl of Brass began as a project for my undergraduate classes, and it is finally out in the world for all to read. The story involves adventure, a little swashbuckling, traveling to distant lands, Victorian England, and a hint of romance. The synopsis is as follows:

When Eilian Sorrell, a promising archaeologist and the eldest son of the Earl of Dorset, loses his arm in a dirigible crash, he fears he will face a bleak future among London’s aristocracy. On a quest for normalcy, Lord Sorrell commissions a prosthetic arm but finds the craftsman is not what he seems. After the death of her brother, Hadley Fenice takes over his prosthesis business but knows it will be an uphill battle as women are discouraged from doing man’s work. In return for building Lord Sorrell an automaton arm, he offers her a chance at freedom by following him to the Negev Desert under the guise of a man. But what lies beneath the desert is more precious than potshards or bones. As they venture deeper, they discover a society where the path of life is not governed by gain but by passion. When imperialistic invaders come in search of a new colony to pillage, Eilian and Hadley are forced to defend their fleeting glimpse of paradise.

The story is available on Amazon in paperback or ebook, Smashwords , and Barnes and Noble

In the coming weeks, I will be writing on self-publishing, my current and future work, and how it is to be a somewhat struggling writer looking for an audience.