Electronic Proofing

by Marsha Ward

Today I'm working on the interior and cover proofs for my new novel, Trail of Storms. This process involves carefully examining every detail to see if I like the design, finding errors, making corrections, and suggesting changes. There's only one chance to get it right, and this is that chance. One thing I'm definitely requesting a change on: my name on the cover must be bigger, since one of my colleagues missed seeing it at first glance.

Yikes! We can't have that happening!

7 Things About Me

by Marsha Ward

Stephanie Black's "7 Things About Me" tag from the Six LDS Writers and a Frog Blog continues:

1) One of the great things that I've discovered about Blogger is the "Post Options" feature. It allows a poster to customize his or her delivery date and time. So, although I'm posting this a day late, to you it will appear that I'm a normal, on-time sort of person, with all my faculties, instead of an ADD-afflicted klutz. Ha!

Hmmm, I'll go back and make that Number 1. Heh-heh.

2) I finished the manuscript for my next novel yesterday, um, today, er, make that on Wednesday!

3) This is the third time I've "finished" it. It's a totally different book now than it was the first two times.

4) Now I can continue in the frantic novel-reading segment of time that, I suspect, will become a January and February Tradition.

5) That's because I'm a member of the Whitney Academy, and thus a judge in the final round for the Whitney Awards.

6) I'm a member of the Academy because I'm a member of LDStorymakers, Inc.

7) I need to send in my dues. Today! Thank goodness for PayPal!

Vacation Show and Tell

So I didn't post on "my day"--Tuesday--because I spent the day in my mini-van with 6 of my 7 kiddos and a whopper of a headache that even Excedrin Migraine wouldn't take away. The things we do so our kids can know their cousins! Tuesday was day 3 of our journey home from a family reunion in Idaho, and I feel like the smell of "travel" has saturated into my skin. (You know what I mean, don't you?)

SHOW:

Here are two of my kids climbing at City of Rocks--I wish you could see more clearly how cute and brave and incredibly incredible they are! :)

TELL:

A few days after arriving in Idaho I received an e-mail from my publisher stating that they wanted to publish my children's novel, MAKE ME A HOME, sequel to MAKE ME A MEMORY. I am very excited about this news. MMAM received attention in April, 2006 when it was selected by the Utah Commission on Literacy as the state's "Book of the Month."

Even though MAKE ME A HOME is a sequel, it definitely stands on its own, and is perhaps an even stronger story than the first.

In MMAH, twelve-year-old, Allie Claybrook, is nearing the end of her sixth grade year in Edna, Idaho as well as her dad's deployment to Iraq. And finally, after all this time she has found something else--a best friend. Reuniting with her dad means leaving Edna, the place she has learned to call "home."

I don't have a publication date yet, but I'll be sure to post it when I do.