Writing Out of Darkness by Billie Jo Turner

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I’m probably the most inexperienced writer currently with BWL. Out of Darkness is my first published work. I’ve had minimal experience with writing a blog. I’ve only participated once in a blog spot offered by Janet Lane-Walters, Eclectic Writer (https://wwweclecticwriter.blogspot.com/).  Janet kindly offered a question and answer format. 

 Since publishing Out of Darkness, I’ve struggled with promotion and social media as these are things that don’t come naturally for me. I’ve never been a big presence online.  Facebook has always been a means of connecting with family and for little else. Instagram is my go to for Tasty recipes. So being a newbie, I haven’t felt like I have much to offer for a blog. Everyone start somewhere and  I’ve come to realize that being new, my beginning is still pretty fresh. What I can offer is my experience along with the trials and errors, my journey.

When I wrote my novel Out of Darkness, I was writing for me. I think at the back of our minds, at some point we’ve all dreamed of writing a book and having it published. But that wasn’t what inspired me to write my novel. Completing  Out of Darkness was an accomplishment, a goal I wanted for myself. I’ve always been an avid reader. I loved being taken away into other worlds. I would often imagine stories that I would like to see written. My English teachers always encouraged me to write and I’ve written many short stories over the years but I never had the courage to take on such a large project. 

A friend of mine is a writer and we often talked about her projects and her writers group. She encouraged me to come to some of the  meetings. I was already well on my way to writing my novel but there was so much I still didn’t know. I became a member of the writers group and tried to soak in the advice, knowledge and experience from the group and  from the workshops they offered. I was learning  the tools I needed to complete my book. 

I was thrilled to complete it. I thought I’d done a great job (I had learned humility yet). I gave my finished work to my friend to read and she gave it back to me with notes in the margins and a page of notes and suggestions. You can imagine my surprise to find out that the first draft of my amazing accomplishment was not the prize-winning literary art I expected it to be. I joke about my lofty expectations but I did think it was pretty darn good for a first attempt. I gratefully accepted her suggestions and notes and got straight to work at improving my work. When I figured I was done I sighed with relief and set it aside.  I wanted to give it some time before I looked at it with fresh eyes again. And it sat. 

My friend eventually published a series of books. I attended one of her book launches at the local library. I enjoyed chatting with other writers and artists of other kinds as well that attended. During the event, I visited with another writer. I told how her I’d also written a novel but  that it’d been sitting for a while.  We were discussing my difficulty in deciding  which genre my novel belonged due to the multitude of subgenres, so she asked me to tell her a bit about my book.  I told her how my hero Kai, accidentally stumbles into an immortal existence and finds himself bound to protect the mortal world  until the night everything changes when he rescues a university student from a brutal attack.  She agreed that my novel would fit the paranormal romance category. To my surprise,  I’d been talking to the publisher at the BWL Jude Pitman. She said my story sounded interesting and she invited me to email her my novel. 

Well damn, now what. It’d been quite some time since the last time I took a look at my novel. So over the next few days I went through it with a fine tooth comb and tweaked it yet again.

I sent it off to Jude and a few days later, I got a response. In the email, Jude explained that while BWL usually works with experienced writers,  she liked the way I handled the premise of my story. BWL was going to accept my novel with some conditions of course. She explained how BWL has high expectations from their writers and how the final onus is on the author to deliver a Ready to Publish manuscript. 

While they rarely do this, she was going to see if one of the editors would be willing to give me a little extra help. I was so excited. Then came more blows to my pride. While she felt my story had been handled well and had a good premise it needed some work when it came to the craft of writing. Some helpful suggestions were made and I went through my work once again. Something was just not clicking for me. I will tell you that working with an editor is not for the faint of heart. You need to have a thick skin. And I tried. There were times where I felt completely demoralized by the comments of my editor but I am very grateful regardless. As my editor told me, the comments were not meant to be personal but to make me a better writer. While it was hard to see that during the process, I took the criticism as constructive and carried on until I finally had that finished, ready to publish product.

One of most valuable things I’ve  learned is that everybody has a different method. I had one mentor telling me the importance of the rules while another mentor was telling me that there are times to throw the rules aside. The hard part is learning when the rules apply them when they don’t.  There are rules you need to follow for grammar and structure but everybody gets there in their own way. Some writers all about the structure while I write more freestyle. That isn’t to say that I have no structure or direction. I know when I start writing in the direction I want my characters to go as well as the general plot. I don’t have it all blocked out and mapped on a piece of paper like some writers. I have it blocked and plotted in my mind. Sometimes I let new ideas flow while I ’m writing and then I go back to make sure the continuity isn’t affected but that works for me. 

I have to also say that being accepted as a part of the BWL family is a blessing. The encouragement and support given by the writers of BWL has been amazing. I see a group of people who are dedicated to not just lifting up their own works, but the works of their fellow writers. 

This past year has brought many changes to my life. I published  my first book. Shortly after, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy. My daughter went off to college and is just now moving into the dorms. I got married and moved to the country. My oldest stepdaughter moved away and my youngest stepdaughter moved in. I am still chipping my way through my next novel tentatively titled Snow Bound and working through ideas for a sequel to Out of Darkness. It has been a very eventful whirlwind of a  year.