dborys

Help! Having finally finished the first draft of Cry Baby Cry, I am now in the process of editing in preparation for a July 1 book launch event. The problem? I’ve been working on this book so long–one year–that I either hate everything I read or love it too much. I need beta readers, people willing to read the manuscript with a critical eye, not looking for typos and grammar mistakes, but whether or not the story makes sense. I’m particularly interested in getting feedback from anyone who is familiar with or sensitive to LGBTQ issues. I want to convey the subject appropriately and need an educated eye to see if I’ve done that.

If you are interested in would like to receive either an ebook or pdf copy of Cry Baby Cry, please email me at StreetStoriesNovels@gmail.com.

Here’s a summary of the story:

Even if gender identity was a choice, no one has a right to force you to choose. Lily’s father needs to learn that lesson. Now, if only Jo can teach it to him before anyone dies.

Lily May Beckett tried to be a good girl and change her ways, but when the path to forgiveness leads to hell on earth, sin feels like the only option. Haunted by the memory of her failure to save a murdered girl, Jo Sullivan risks her life to rescue Lily from a reality that only a twisted mind could believe was part of God’s plan for humankind.

In my latest blog post on Birthing the Next Book, I talk about how I’m behind on my word count deadline, but what I want to point out here is a couple of fun thoughts about the excerpt I decided to include for the day.

The writer in 4B did owe Jo a favor for beta reading the tacky romance novel he’d finished last month. Sanjay would count it as her owing him a favor, rather than as payment of his, but he was an agoraphobic who never set foot outside his door so at least he’d be available regardless of when Avril stopped by.

As I was writing the section you can read a bit of by clicking the quote above, there were three threads unrelated to Cry Baby Cry that made their way into the scene. The first was, that when I was trying to decide which neighbor Jo was going to leave her key with, I almost decided to use Calvin Ringenberger, who is a character that actually only shows up (I think) in an unrelated short story I wrote about Jo a long time ago. Instead, I decided to create a writer so it would be someone who would most likely be home all day.

Once that happened, it just naturally followed that I would add the bit about Jo doing a beta reading for him, since I’ve been thinking lately about calling for beta readers for Cry Baby Cry, which is not a tacky romance novel (not tacky at all, hopefully) but anyone who does read for me is seriously in my debt anytime they want to collect.

The third thread to mention is that I’ve decided that Jo needs to go downstate for this part of the novel, and when she does, she is seriously treading on the territory of my Deb Donahue books. My split personality is going wacky over that.