June, 2003 Went to the BEA in Los Angeles. I guess having plants on the west coast did come in handy for something! Now, I had postcards and writing samples. I handed out postcards to introduce my book to other writers, agents, and editors. Ran into Jenoyne again and gave her a postcard. She actually recognized me. Then she told me about her gettiing into agenting and she requested a sample. Well, I just HAPPENED to have the first three chapters handy. So I gave her a set. It's only been 2 - 3 weeks since having up the website and already, people are starting to recognize my cover. Not me...but my cover. LOL That's cool because I'd rather have the cover in the limelight than me.Went to the Rawsistaz Affair this month too. Picked up a publicist and made contacts for reviews. Once again, people are recognizing the cover, which means I'm doing an okay job of getting the word across the internet. Met some other writers. A great deal of them are sooooo helpful. I'm so amazed and overwhelmed.Finished the first draft too! It's pretty much been edited once and now I need to revise. I've adjusted and added to my publishing plan. Also developed a separate marketing/promotion plan.Went to the VONA Master's Workshop with Terry McMillan. It was such an honor. Terry received our writing samples ahead of time. I was lucky enough to be one of the 2 that she used as an example to the class. She pointed out good things, and bad things. This was such an awesome experience. Took pictures, and she read from her current work in progress, The Interruption of Everything. She shared with us her hobby of painting light switch covers and passed out some. This was so funny because I'm so designer-challenged and I just had a hard time with this. Decorating or anything creative in that aspect is a challenge to me. But that was so cool of her to share that part of herself with us. She signed books later. I didn't read what she wrote in my book until after she had gone: "Cheryl, you can write your butt off, but find the voice." At that time, I had the first chapter written from the perspective of a child and the remaining chapters from the perspective of Vanella as an adult and it just wasn't working. So, I worked it out and changed it. So, Terry, I FOUND THE VOICE!!!! :-)

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May, 2003 Okay, I re-adjusted my schedule. Maybe wriiting a 300 page novel in five months was a little unrealistic anyway. Got a lot written this month. Developing the story hasn't been the problem. When I'm writing, it flows. As a matter of fact, subplots have worked their way into the outline (which I've adjusted so many times), and the characters really do take over the story. I used to think that writers were so full of crap when they said that! LOL You know what? It's TRUE.Started my website this month. My target date to publish was October, 2003 so this gives me 5 months to try to get the word out so that when it comes out, people are aware and want to buy it. I emailed a few well known authors announcing myself as a new writer. To my surprise, some of them actually emailed me back with words of encouragement or even offerings for me to keep in touch or ask any questions. Now THAT, I didn't expect. I'm keeping in touch with a few. I staked out one popular writer's booksigning. I wanted to see and take notes of how his signings were done. He was cool. I must have stayed 30 to 45 minutes after everyone left and he answered EVERY question I could think of. Gave me his email address to keep in touch. That was cool.

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April, 2003 Went to the Black Writers on Tour Conference in Los Angeles. Met Jenoyne Adams and Michael Datcher. They are great together and Jenoyne was so poetic when read from Resurrecting Mingus. Brought samples of my work, just in case. Still not much done in the writing the story. I think maybe 5 additional chapters since February and my deadline for completion was next month. I'm not going to be able to make it and I'm going to have to re-adust the schedule.

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March, 2003 Work is kicking my butt and interfering with writing. I got plants on west coast that I'm starting to travel to frequently. It's throwing my schedule off. Didn't write a whole lot this month. In the meantime, I did a lot of reading on the craft of writing.

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February, 2003 Went to the UCLA Extentions Writer's Studio 4-day workshop. What an experience! Our instructor, Leslie Lehr Spirson (66 Laps), took us all up and down, in, out, and around writing the first novel. This is by far the best writing class I've taken and the feedback has been tremendous. I've learned how to end each chapter and begin each chapter to try to keep the reader reading. Hook 'em! I learned to create a hook for my story. I learned about editing and revising my manscript and so much more. I'm going to have to do this on a yearly basis.

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January, 2003 Wrote first sentence to Counting Raindrops through a Stained Glass Window. Got the first five chapters written. This is really flowing. Got my Elements of Style that I'm keeping by my side and it's still hard trying to figure out what's wrong and what's right. I think I'm going to just write and let the editor worry about that. Speaking of, I picked up an editor to work with me chapter by chapter. I set a goal of four months to have the first draft written. I created detailed character profiles and that's helping me to write about them easily.Researched the web and found a designer in New York to do my cover. He did a cover for Lolita Files' Blind Ambitions. I want my cover to represent the settings of St. Louis and Cleveland and I think girls in football jerseys will best represent that. He already did my company logo and we're going through the first drafts of the cover.

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December, 2002 I read Poynter's book and started outlining my self-publishing process. I also outlined my first novel, Counting Raindrops through a Stained Glass Window. That's the title that came to me, for now. First I created a synopsis, then outlined the plot to the story of the main characters. Bought InDesign so I could learn to typeset my own book. I needed to take a break. Went to New York for the first time for New Years.

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November, 2002 I went to Baltimore to attend a Writer's Conference. These conferences are helpful because I'm getting 45 minutes to an hour of introductory information on all aspects of writing and publishing. Between the past 2 conferences, I have been introduced to writing the first novel, what agents look for, choices in publishing, how to attract a traditional publisher, literary law, etc. I read more books on Novel Writing, Dialogue, and Character Development. I found and signed up to take Writing the First Novel at the UCLA Extension Writer's studio in February, 2003. It's a 4-day workshop, 9 - 5 each day. Can't imagine writing that long, no matter how much I love it. This has been the busiest month.

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October, 2002 Research, research, research. I needed to find more conferences and workshops to go to. The information presented was helpful and I need more. I get books on grammar because I need to go over the basics. I sign up and take an Writer's Digest online class--Descriptive Writing. I jotted down sketches of all the stories I could think of. Came up with 9. Then I selected one to start with. I'm official.

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Doing more packing today. Cleaning bookshelves and trying to narrow down 5 bookcases worth of book into 2. That's going to be tough.Since I started talking about the beginning, I thought it'd be interesting to backtrack over the next couple of entries and go over the highlights from each month. I already regret not starting a diary from day one. Although I can remember everything, I miss out on the emotion of the time. August-September, 2002 Made up my mind to drop everything and write my first novel. Can I do it? Don't know. Never written anything as massive as a 300 page document before, EVER. Went to the Writer's Conference in Columbus and sat in on my first seminars. I was informed to get the self-publishing bibles from Ponter and the Ross'. From what I'm learning, this is the route I think I'm going to go. I'd definitely do it all myself though. I know it's harder, but unless I'm with a traditional publisher, I can't see giving up rights to somebody else. I'd rather learn it and do it myself because I'd have better control over everything. Mom always said I was a passively bossy person.

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