Hello again! I’m here to tell you the neat little
story about how this book came about.
I’m one of those quiet Christmas freaks that loves all
things Christmas, from the brightly lit Christmas tree to gift giving and
holiday cookies (not so much baking them, but eating them), and the music and
movies. But I’m not the biggest
Christmas freak in the family. My daughter wins that title.
She even changed her spring wedding to a December wedding in
New Hampshire of all places. But her wedding day did not have snow. It wasn’t
even cold. As a matter of fact, it was warmer on her wedding day than it was on
the original date in June the following year.
But I digress, this isn’t about my daughter’s wedding,
however beautiful it was. Although this IS about my daughter. You see, when I
started writing she was twelve. And the books were an absolute no-no for a
twelve-year-old. But the girl was curious, so she took a peek at my first book
and opened to a very violent scene that scarred her. Since that day, she hasn’t
read anything I’ve written with the exception of a book she begged me to write
about surviving a high school bully. Beyond that, she won’t open a book, even
those that are more young adult and rather tame in the scheme of things.
She was here with her family at the end of October and my
mother-in-law told her she needed to read my new series – Season of the Dragon
– but my daughter said she wouldn’t read anything of mine. Not since that sneak
peek she did when she was younger.
Well, the next day a cover came across my Facebook scroll.
And I bought it knowing she loves all things Christmas. I sent the cover to her
with the note “I’m writing this, so you have to read it.”
She surprised me by saying only if I can see it as you write
it. Obviously, I agreed and sent her my already written but very raw first two
chapters.
She sent me nearly a line by line edit with changes that she
felt very strongly about. Like you don’t have confetti for Christmas. It needs
to be glitter and it shouldn’t be red, green, and blue, it needs to be red,
green, and gold because those are the colors of Christmas.
She called me because she was so concerned at how I would
take being edited by a non-writer. She didn’t know if I would be angry at her
notes or not. But being in this business for fourteen years, you recognize when
someone is trying to help make your story better versus tear it apart. While I
wrote 99.9 percent of this book, my twenty-six-year-old daughter had a hand in
a couple scenes. The hot cocoa reference was hers, along with the color
correction, and changing confetti to glitter.
Outside of the first two chapters, she didn’t have much
feedback beyond that she loved the story. And I am so pleased that I got her to
read an urban fantasy short story of mine. Not only does Silent Night capture
the magic of Christmas, it also has monsters and a pretty damn cool sword, too.
Silent Night is available on Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Kobo, and Google Play and some other lesser-known distributors. It’s also in paperback.
You can choose wherever you are most comfortable with using this universal
link: https://books2read.com/u/4jo86v
Until next time,
Ciao.
JET
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