As you may know, my mother and I have spent the last few months doing an intensive edit of Chasing Nonconformity (sequel to Imminent Danger). And I am almost ludicrously pleased to announce that finally — FINALLY — we’re done!
What does this mean? Well, first, I’m going to spend the weekend re-reading the entire thing to make sure we didn’t do anything too crazy during our editing sessions. Then, early next week, I’m going to send the book out to my top-notch beta reading squad. They’ll read it, send me comments, I’ll spend about a month going through them all and making revisions as necessary, then I do a bit of formatting, and then BOOM! Sequel is published! Summer 2015, baby!
On that note, anyone want to be a beta reader? A few of you have already expressed interest (Misha Burnett, Celeste DeWolfe), and it’s possible others have and I’ve just forgotten about it because my memory is laughably terrible. SO, if you’d like to beta read, please let me know! You’d have about a month to read and send me your comments — and your reward, of course, would be a shout-out in the Acknowledgements section and my eternal gratitude.
That’s all she wrote! Wooooooo!
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Totally related media of the day:
So as I was SHWOOP-ing over the past 5 months (gasp!), I randomly tweeted fun SHWOOP moments. I shall now share my favorites here. No worries if they don’t make sense out of context — very little that I say or do makes sense.
Mom (reading): They walk to the hatch, they reach the hatch … there’s lots of hatches happening. I feel like a chicken. #SHWOOP
— Michelle Proulx (@michellishelli) January 14, 2015
Mom: Editing a book with you is like walking on quicksand. Me: What does THAT mean? Mom: You know what it means. #SHWOOP
— Michelle Proulx (@michellishelli) January 15, 2015
Mom: I had too much lunch. I don’t feel like a Ssrisk when I have too much lunch. #SHWOOP
— Michelle Proulx (@michellishelli) March 13, 2015
Mom: Look at that! What a beautiful paragraph! Me: It had better be, considering we spent the last HOUR on it. #SHWOOP #fml
— Michelle Proulx (@michellishelli) March 27, 2015
Yellow is start. Blue is end. Shwoop is life. Shwoop is love. #SHWOOP #amwriting
— Michelle Proulx (@michellishelli) April 16, 2015
Michelle Proulx - Author 
Congrats on the milestone. Though that last message makes me think you’re wearing a self-hugging jacket right now. 🙂
Lol. Who needs a self-hugging jacket when I’ve got a fluffy puppy to hug? And by hug, I mean attempt to hug and then shriek and fall over when she tries to bite my nose. It still counts!
Also, thanks for the congrats 🙂 I’m sure you can guess how relieved I am to finally have the end in sight!
Makes sense in dog logic. Noses are the tastiest part and sticking out like that is just asking for a nip. 😛
I’m sure you’re doing cartwheels in your head to celebrate.
Are you looking for Mary-Robinette-Kowal-style beta reading, or a more-detailed beta read? I probably don’t have time in the next month for a fine detail analysis, but I definitely have time to highlight points that confused, strained belief, or fell flat for me
A quick read-through would be great, if you have the time 🙂 I’ll add you to my list. If you can’t get through it, no worries!
In that case, you know it, babe! Count me in 🙂
Woo!!!
I’d love to beta read for you! 😀
Awesome! Thanks so much 🙂 I’ll put you on my list.
Shwoop me! Schwoop me!
I actually sent myself an email about four months ago that said “Misha Burnett wants to beta read”. So you’re in whether you like it or not, lol.
It sounds like you aren’t short volunteers, but if you want a short volunteer let me know.
Haha absolutely 🙂 I’ll keep you posted!
Congrats. Always keeping up with your work. Did you find it this hard to get it right with the first one? I tell ya, I’m struggling with this next release. Two years later. 🙂
The first book was WAY easier than the second. I mean, it technically took longer, but the actual writing process was a lot smoother than Chasing Nonconformity. I think that’s partially because this is a sequel, so I’m not just writing whatever the heck I want — it has to follow the same writing style, be true to the world and the characters, etc. etc. And to make you feel a bit better, I started writing Chasing Nonconformity in 2010, so you’ve got at least two more years on your current project before you’ve hit “taking way too long” status 🙂
This is super-delayed, and I apologize because I am a terrible human being that can’t juggle more than breathing and walking at the same time, but CONGRATS!! I am flipping cartwheels over here, and can’t wait to read that bad boy. An excuse to fire up my tablet! Seriously, I shed tears at this news. The only hard part will be remembering I’m not just pleasure-reading–I have, like, a job to do. Anyway, send it whenever you can. ^^ I will stick it into my schedule~ With pleasure!
I already sent it to you! But possibly to the wrong email? Ahhhhh. Check your Celeste DeWolfe account and if it’s not there, tell me so I can send it to the right place!
Ahhh! I’m sorry! I always forget to check it. And here you are, probably thinking I’m either a jerk who only feigned interest, or possibly that your book was so awful I couldn’t finish it. Neither of which are true. (I can totally vouch for the second even though I haven’t started yet.) I will check, and since I’m sure it is there, I will get to reading! =D
Plans for tonight:
Get kimbab.
Settle down with cat.
Read. ❤
Or I just remembered that you always forget to check your email and figured that’s what happened, lol. Yay for reading! Enjoy the kimbap — can’t wait to hear what you think!
I would love to beta read! That is, if I’m not too late.
Sadly you’re a bit too late, yes, but thank you so much for volunteering!!!