Chasing the Dark - From Idea to Print

I was left alone for a week in 2003 and decided to write. I hadn't written a novel since 1999, and I had an idea after seeing an ambulance a few days before. I sat down and wrote for six days. I named the book The Blessed Ones. The manuscript was a mess and I didn't like the book, but I sent a few queries out to agents and publishers anyway.

There was no interest in it, so I set in aside. A few years later, I read it and edited it again, changing a lot of things. I had other people read it and tell me what they thought. Most people didn't like it.

A few years after that, in 2009, I edited it again and changed it some more. I sent out a few queries. No takers

In 2010, I started proofreading for a publishing company called Passionate Writer Publishing. After working on several manuscripts, I thought The Blessed Ones might fit the kinds of books they publish, so I submitted it.

The book was accepted and I was psyched. The editor I work under took on the MS and made it much stronger. I was sent revisions and did those in a couple of days. She suggested changing the title to Chasing the Dark and that's what we went with.

The book will be released October 25, 2010, in both print and electronic versions. Here's a synopsis from the publisher's Web site:

Melanie’s a budding artist always looking for the next high. She finds it one night when Sora and Josh take her on an ambulance-chasing ride. They watch a gruesome scene as the bodies are removed from the wreckage. Melanie doesn’t know why, but she is both attracted to this new pursuit and afraid of where it will take her.

The chasing brings Melanie closer to the mysterious Sora, his secret past, and the darker things that happen in the city at night. Along the way Melanie must face her own demons while escaping the drug dealing business.

Join Melanie and her friends Shara, Manny, Max, Sora and Josh as they confront and chase away their own personal demons.