How my novel, my websites, and I will be spending our autumn

I received suggestions from another critique partner (thanks, Kim!), and now I'm back to revisions for the rest of the calendar year. I feel like this stage resembles the challenges of assembling a jigsaw puzzle: scenes that I thought belonged in one place turn out fitting better in another, pieces of the story that I didn't even know existed show up, and some characters fit better when I view them another way.

I'll primarily be tackling character adjustments with my edits.  I worked on my ghost over the summer after he wasn't quite working right, and I think I've strengthened him as a character, but other folks now need some tweaking.  However, as daunting as the revision process seems when first starting out, I always find a tremendous sense of satisfaction when everything falls into place.

I've been debating altering my working title (Blackbirds), because it's currently too subtle.  I have another, longer one in mind, although my agent mentioned that sticking to one-word titles seems to be the preference of editors of young adult fiction.  What I think I'll do is increase the significance of blackbirds in the novel to keep my original title as a running candidate and see how I feel once I'm ready to submit.

In addition to hunkering down with revisions, I'm busy interviewing guests over at Suburban Vampire. This week I chatted with novelist Denise Verrico and Vampire Mob creator Joe Wilson. In the coming weeks, I'll be hosting Jasper Kent, Marta Acosta, David Michael Slater, Jonathan Maberry, Janice Gable Bashman, and Sophie Littlefield, the latter of whom shares my literary agent, Barbara Poelle (and Sophie happens to be making her debut in young adult fiction with a novel called Banished in October!).  I'm also hosting several giveaways.  Definitely visit.