An Update to The Hunt for Christmas
Happy Friday everybody. It’s almost the weekend, are you excited? In my house, we’ve been having a whirlwind of a week with up and down illnesses. We have been waking up each day wondering if someone else has gotten it or if someone has worsening symptoms. It’s almost like a game that nobody asked to play. The worst part is that there winning feels like losing and there are no prizes. We’re praying that everybody gets better and we can start to put all these colds and little illnesses behind us.
I don’t know if I ever officially announced this for the blog, but Friday’s blog posts are going to be what I call “Fun Friday” where I’ll be sharing stories or random things about life. Sometimes, it might literally be a random ramble of all the things I’ve been thinking about. It might be hilarious, it might sound delusional, and it might make you wonder whether or not you want to read my stuff. It will always be fun though. For today’s Fun Friday, I’m giving you a behind the scenes peek into publishing and what went into bringing my book, The Hunt for Christmas, to life.
As I pursue a writing career and shift my focus back to writing and writing books, I’m grappling with the fact that my next book (once I fully decide to publish it) will not be the sequel to The Hunt for Christmas. When this book was first released, I started warning people not to be too mad at me with the ending because there was a sequel in mind. Now, it’s been three years since The Hunt for Christmas was released and the time and distance has made one thing abundantly clear.
I cannot write the sequel for The Hunt for Christmas.
The main reason for this is because the version of The Hunt for Christmas that was published is not the version of The Hunt for Christmas that I originally plotted out and planned a sequel for.
Don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly proud of The Hunt for Christmas and I have heard from readers who have loved the story and have said that they “didn’t want to put it down.”
This is the inside look I promised at the beginning of this post. What happened to make the book I plotted out and planned have to change so that the published product was different and ruined the chance for the sequel?
I forced myself into a deadline that I couldn’t change or get out of. The Hunt for Christmas was my third book and I was in my third year of self-publishing. I knew the system and how I needed to do pre-sales, garner buzz about the book, and all the stuff publishers do before books get published. When you’re self-publishing though, you get to do and plan all those aspects. So, I decided I was going to write The Hunt for Christmas. I planned a release date, one that would get the book out in time for the holidays and allow readers to have a holiday read to get excited for. I set my publish dates before my draft was fully finished. I had a schedule, a plan, and a whole calendar for when I was going to hit every single milestone. I had my editor scheduled and paid the deposit. I was fully confident in my ability to handle my calendar and my deadlines. While the draft wasn’t done, it was already being worked on. It wasn’t like I set all my dates without having started.
Then, every single deadline I had set and milestone marker I had created died in the chaos of my youngest son’s life. My youngest had open heart surgery at three months old. I remember writing in the hospital when I couldn’t sleep. However, hospital rooms and a revolving door of doctors and nurses do not lend to condusive writing sprints. Also, my mind wasn’t focused on my writing. I had more important things to worry about.
After open-heart surgery, we had recovery. Now, I did get a lot of writing done during the recovery peroid. There were a lot of naps all around but I did get some good writing time in. However, I did have to push the deadline back. I pushed it back to give me some wiggle room. I didn’t think anything of it. I had lost some time so I was thinking about gaining it back so I could maintain the schedule I had previously created.
Then, my son went through months of a revolving door of illnesses, all requiring hospitalizations. There were two/three months where my son was sick and spent most of that time hospitalized. I think there were maybe two weeks where we weren’t hospitalized and we were home. He was still sick and recovering all while the doctor’s office was on speed dial because we were on the edge of being told to go to the hospital. It was during one of the first hospitalizations at the beginning of the two/three months when I pushed my publication date back again. Again, I didn’t think anything about pushing back the date. I was still putting the book out before Christmas. It would still come in time to enjoy the story during the Christmas season. I thought I was getting back the time I had already lost. I had no idea what was coming down the line over the next couple of months. If I had, I might have just given up on publishing in 2021 and I would have planned a fall release for 2022. Alas, I am not God and cannot see what is coming tomorrow.
When my son was finally healthy, when I had finally had everything in place to keep him out of the places that held the highest risk for more illnesses, when I had the proper medicine to support his health, I had come to the realization that I had lost two months and I was facing a deadline that was no longer realistic. It was no longer realistic when you remember that I was still attending college for my bachelors and I was working a full-time job. So, I came to the conclusion that I needed to postpone the publication. It was out of my hands and I just had to be okay with it.
When I went in to move the publication date a third time, I got a big, yellow box notice from Amazon. (I publish through Amazon, it has been the only way I can publish and afford it. I know this is highly controversial for some people but that is a conversation for a different day.) The notice told me that I couldn’t push the publication date back, I would have to cancel the book. If I cancelled the book though, I was in trouble because people had already pre-ordered the book. Cancelling pre-orders would put me on the no-no list with Amazon and I wouldn’t be able to publish for a year. At that moment, I had a goal of publishing two books in 2022. Cancelling the book was not an option. Pushing the publication date also was not an option. I was trapped in my deadline if I wanted to stay on the good side of Amazon.
Once I discovered that I was married to my deadline, I got to work. I woke up at four in the morning in order to get writing done first thing. I wrote at night after my kiddos were in bed. I forced words out even when I had none because this book had to get done.
As the days went on and the deadline hung over my head, I came to a realization—the story had to change. I didn’t have enough time to write all the plot points and the scenes. Even with putting all the time I had to write I still wasn’t getting enough written to complete the story I had outlined and planned. I had to pivot and I had to pivot quickly because I was looking at a deadline was probably impossible but I had to stick to it.
At least half of The Hunt for Christmas was writen during the week of Thanksgiving. I had the week off and I spent all my time writing, taking frequent breaks though because I have two kiddos and I had to be a mom. The boys ate a lot of snacks during this time and full meals might have been considered a myth.* Now, finishing the draft was one thing. There was still edits and rewrites and proofreads. All of this also happened during the week of Thanksgiving. My deadline to turn in this novel to Amazon was the Monday after Thanksgiving. My editor and I were literally working on top of each other during the editing and proofreads. I am not sure how much sleep either of us got that week but I wouldn’t want to know the actual numbers. It is a literal miracle that the book was finished during this week and that we got everything done. My editor is a close friend of mine and she had walked through everything I had gone through that year with me. I got very lucky that she was willing to go through this publishing process with me and was as determined as I was to get this book done. This shouldn’t be expected of any editor, just for reference. However, make sure you hire an editor that is on your side and on your team. It matters so much when it comes to the final product. (it’s because of my editor that the story still turned out well!)
Despite all the craziness, The Hunt for Christmas is still a good story. It is still a good book. As I said earlier, I have gotten good responses to the book. I am proud of the book that was published. I remember someone once asked me which book that I published was my favorite and I told her The Hunt for Christmas. She asked me why. I gave her a lengthier answer but in short, I said it was because I learned a lot in publishing the book. I learned that things don’t always go the way you think they will but something awesome can still come from it. Things can pivot and change and something amazing can still be the result of that.
That’s The Hunt for Christmas. It’s the book that had to pivot and change but something awesome was still launched into the world.
That’s why I have been struggling with the sequel for The Hunt for Christmas. The sequel was based off a story that wasn’t written. I changed a lot in the final outcome of the book and cut some of the scenes that would have led to the sequel. Some hints at Hunter’s past remained, there is still some sense that the story could continue. However, now that I have some time and distance, I am not sure if a whole sequel is there. I will have to re-read the final product to see everything clearly. If there is a sequel there, you can be sure that I will write it. If there is some strings I need to tie up but there isn’t a full sequel there, I will pursue other avenues of writing that story and putting it out there. I also might decide that the story is fine where it is and nothing else is needed. Perhaps the reader can come up with their own solutions.
Be sure to stick around to find out.
P.S. You can get your signed copy of The Hunt for Christmas in my shop. If you prefer Kindle versions, be sure to check Amazon (or get the paperback if you like faster shipping and don’t care about author signed copies).
*No children were malnourished due to my insane deadline. If you don’t know me personally, I speak in hyperbole and I tend to write the fun stuff (like this blog post) like I speak.