I’m finally ready to make an announcement…Turning to Color and Welcome to Garden Valley will be published on Monday, August 15!

This has been a rewarding yet challenging task that I’ve been chipping away at every day for the past eight months. I’ve gone through SEVERAL drafts of this book. What I thought started with Monica being a sassy character came across as someone who was downright unlikeable. Yikes, we can’t have that! I smoothed her out, I added other characters, I changed mini plotlines, I cut parts, and even with this last read-through I tweaked and changed almost every sentence. 

Here was the most important question that guided my decisions about these changes: is this ultimately better for the book? Regardless of time or effort, if the answer was yes, I would go in that direction. (The answer was always yes!).

Ultimately, I want what’s best for the book. I really enjoy writing and coming up with stories, but my end goal is that my readers are getting some type of fulfillment and connection with my books and the characters.

I’m not entirely done with the book, but what I have left of tweaking this and that will only take a couple more hours. If everything goes as planned, my publishing date will be Monday, August 15.

So to answer the question of this little series, “Can I publish two books in July?” the answer is no. BUT, in the scheme of things, I’m only a couple of weeks behind this date that I pulled out of the air. 

I came up with a few questions that you can ask yourself if you are in this situation of not meeting a self-made goal or deadline. First of all, don’t be too hard on yourself!

• Are you continuing toward your completion goal and not giving up?
• Have you adjusted your timeline to offer some grace with your schedule? I hadn’t expected to have this book go through two developmental edits, but I took a step back and adjusted my timeline as I went. I’m so glad I did! The result is a better book.
• Are you forgiving yourself for not meeting your initial goal? There’s really no point in beating yourself up! 
• The ultimate question: are you still enjoying your project? If not, maybe it’s time to give yourself a break and come back fresher and with more determination. If you are still enjoying it, keep going! 

What’s next? I’ll be getting started on the next book next week! My next series will be a bi-weekly update of my process of writing and publishing a book from start to finish. 

I sincerely hope you enjoy Turning to Color AND the free book that I’ll be giving to my email list, Welcome to Garden Valley. Enjoy!