7 Cover Reveal Monday and How We Wrote the Book

Good morning, and happy Thursday, everyone! I'm so excited I can't stand myself. In just four days (on Monday) the cover reveal for 7 happens. It's completely different from anything I've seen on the shelves today, and the story inside is along those same lines.

BUT!

Today, I'm gonna tell you all how we wrote the book(s). That's right, there's more than one. Yes, they'll be released as a set, because we feel you can't read one without having the others IN your hands.

As we created the story, we nearly drove one another nuts. *grin*

Why? Because of the process we used. So, if you're ready, sit back, relax, and let me regale you with a story on how this novel was conceived and written.

As you may know, the five of us, Casey L. Bond, Tia Silverthorne Bach, Kelly Risser, N. L. Green, and myself, all go to the author event Utopia. During the con, we set aside time to brainstorm new collectives. Our first attempt was Fractured Glass, which released at the end of 2014. It was so well received, and we ladies loved working together so much, we decided to write something else together. This will become a tradition. Every year, you'll get something new and different from us.

Anyway, we met in one of the rooms at the hotel with journals in our hands (surprisingly, we all brought the exact same journal) and started talking. Idea after idea was tossed around until we all said "oooooooh, yes!" at the same time.

Hours passed as we fleshed out our tale, and suggestions were received and added to the journal pages. In time, we had a plot that left us all with our bottom jaws swinging. We decided to all write in third person, past tense, with no restrictions on POV, and we fleshed out the main character.

Then, we gave it a title. Because of restrictions, we've taken to calling it 7. Not the word, but the number, because it's represented by this:

It was decided that we'd use our own names in the story, but we wouldn't write about ourselves. That task was assigned to the lady sitting to our right. How fun is that?

This novel has the following construct:

Part One was written by Casey.
Part Two, by Jo.
Part Three, by Tia.
Part Four, by Kelly.
Part Five, by N. L.
Part Six, by all five of us at once.
Part Seven (a bonus short story), by all five of us at once.

Yep. It has seven sections. But, until the conclusion (Part Six) was completely written, we didn't get to see what any of the other women had done.

It made for the most interesting construct I've ever seen.

We used Google Drive to write Parts Six and Seven, and we all penned it at once, like programmers do when writing code. Rapid fire questions and answers happened, and we've been blown away by our ability to pull it off.

I hope you're as excited about this book as we are, because I can guarantee you've never seen anything like it before.

And the story... Well, none of us knew what would happen in the end, so we hope you're as surprised by it as we were.

There will be a Goodreads giveaway that will start right after the cover reveal. Keep an eye out for that, and for the FACEBOOK launch party! YAY!

What do you think? Gonna try it? Eager to read the book? Tell us what you think in the comments.

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Collaborating on Google Drive

Happy Tuesday, good people of the blogosphere! I promised you this post last week and ended up not doing anything at all. Eeeeew. What can I say? I have my off days, too! *grin* But, as promised, it's a Tuesday and you're getting all the deets. Now, I'm not going into all the things Google Drive can do, because that's a vast amount of information, but I'll explain how it can be used to co-edit a document and a cool feature that's available once you're on the inside. Ready? Cool. Grab those pens and notebooks and let's get going!

Once you click on the drive icon from Gmail, you'll see something like this:

You'll want to click the New button (in red) on the top, left-hand side for this exercise. Here:

Now, you'll have a choice to make. Please choose Google Docs like this:

Drive will magically take you here:

Click on the words Untitled Document in the top left:

Type in the name of your new doc in the popup box:

I'm not going into all the menu options today, that's a whole other blog post. But, as you can see, you have a ton of ways to format your document (and it auto-saves your progress):

Now, you need to look on the top right and find the share button:

Once you click it, you get a popup like this:

Start typing a name. If you have them in your Google address book, you'll get a dropdown:

Choose one. Click on the dropdown on the right that says Can edit:

 

These are the options you get:

Be sure Can edit is chosen (it's the default, but...). Now, you've chosen your collaborator, so let's go look at advanced options. Click the button:

You'll see a screen like this:

Pretty self-explanatory, no? Make your choices and send it on. I'm inviting the awesome Casey L. Bond to join us for this tutorial.

Here's where the magic happens! Once your collaborators access the document, they'll have a little icon (based on their Google Drive photo) in the top right, next to your name (Casey's is the cover of her novel, Reap, mine would be my logo):

As they type, their name shows next to the text (this works for each person typing):

They can change options just like you can:

Now, see the little icon next to Casey's?

Click it and select launch chat. This pops up:

It gives you a way to discuss what's being typed in the document as others are editing it without making changes. How cool is that?

Add to the coolness, this document is automatically saved in the main menu of your Drive. You can pop it into a folder, or leave it with all the other stuff you have stored there. The sky's the limit!

I hope this little walkthrough taught you something you didn't know. The power of Google Drive is awesome, and I hope to hear about you guys using it in the future!

Did you learn something? Ever used that feature before? Tell me about it!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo