Spectral by Shannon Duffy - Blog Tour - Guest Post

Spectral
By Shannon Duffy

Summary

Convinced she’s a part of the witness protection program, sixteen-year-old Jewel Rose is shuffled around the globe with her family like a pack of traveling gypsies. After arriving at lucky home twenty-seven, she stumbles upon a mysterious boy with magical powers claiming to be her guardian . . . and warning of imminent danger. Despite the obvious sparks between them, Jewel discovers a relationship is forbidden, and the more she learns about dark, brooding Roman, she begins to question who she can even believe—the family who raised her, or the supposed sworn protector who claims they’ve been lying to her all along.

As she struggles to uncover who her family has really been running from, she is forced to hide her birthmark that reveals who she is. With new realities surfacing, unexplained powers appearing, and two tempting boys vying for her heart, Jewel battles to learn who she can trust in an ever growing sea of lies, hoping she’ll make it through her seventeenth birthday alive.

ebook, 242 pages

Published April 10th 2012 by Tribute Books 

Spectral Blog

Author Bio

Shannon Duffy writes young adult and middle grade fiction. She grew up on the beautiful east coast of Canada and now lives in Ontario, Canada. She is the mom of one boy, Gabriel, her angel. She loves writing, reading, working out, soccer, and the sport of champions-shopping. She is the author of the young adult paranormal romance, SPECTRAL. Her upcoming middle grade fantasy novel, GABRIEL STONE AND THE DIVINITY OF VALTA is scheduled for a January 2013 release.

 Blog Twitter FB




I'm pleased to welcome Shannon Duffy to Fiction Fascination today. Below is her guest post, enjoy everyone. :)

Guest Post

My editing process.

When I started writing, I never knew just how much editing and editing, and well, editing goes into a novel. So, I thought I’d share what I do as far as editing.

First of all, I do drive myself a bit crazy as I write because I’m always going back and editing as I go along. I’m getting a little better with just going with it and then editing when I’m done the chapter, but I’m a bit of a hopeless case like that. Sometimes, I’ll write a paragraph and go back and read it for typos/clarity/etc. (I don’t recommend this btw). For me though, I definitely have to do lots of editing after each chapter. I think I’d be too overwhelmed to leave it all till the end of the whole book.

So, after each chapter I’ll literally run through it about 5 times. Then, my husband reads it aloud to me, and I read it aloud to him trying to catch any errors, check for cadence, tension, flow…all that good stuff. Then, I’ll send it off to my three great amazing critique partners. Have to give props to them—Rachel Harris, Trisha Wolfe, and Brenda Drake.

While they have that chapter, I don’t stop writing though. I keep going onto the next chapter. When I get their notes back, I’ll make corrections and/or adjustments based on their comments if I agree, which I usually do—because they’re awesome like that.

So, by the end of the book I’m feeling pretty good about the way it’s looking. At that point, I’ll read through it without stopping. I have two monitors, so on one I’m reading and on the other I’m making notes of anything that may need tying up etc. When I get to the end, I’ll refer to any notes and do more editing if needed. If I did make changes, I’ll send those to my CP’s too for their stamp of approval.

Then, I’ll send it to my sister, and/or a teen reader that is not a writer. This is always good, too. Sometimes they pick up on little things that I may have missed.

Then I get to send it off to another amazing person in my life—my agent Lauren Hammond.

Hope this helps anybody writing or about to venture into it. I always love to hear stories about how others edit too. Any bit of advice is good advice I say.

Thanks so much for inviting me to your blog today.

Shannon