From Here To There - Among the Bravest of the Brave

Title page of our article in - Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History

Side note before I start this week's post ~ During this past week I've been tagged by two awesome authors ~ Jessica Patch and Brandi Boddie. Thank you, ladies! Next Friday I will post my "I've been tagged post." Watch out...you could be tagged next.


This past Monday, Eric and I finally received copies of the magazine that published our Civil War article, Among the Bravest of the Brave – The Battle History of the Ninth Indiana. The article was published in the Indiana Historical Society’s magazine, Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History. The article and artwork looks just beautiful! The ten page spread came out last week in the Spring 2011 issue of Traces. We were also pleasantly surprised to see the 9^th Indiana Regiment featured on the front cover. Awesome!

Cover of Spring 2011 issue of Traces

This whole process is so exciting for both, Eric and I. It’s been a long road to our first major publication.

FROM HERE TO THERE

We started with a 4,600 word article we had written together nearly 18 months ago. We’ve been plugging away at several articles for the 150^th anniversary of the Civil War.

In March of 2010, we queried the 9^th Indiana article to the Indiana Historical Society. The article was perfect for their magazine. Traces is emphasizing Indiana during the Civil War over the next 4 years of the Sesquicentennial. About 10 days later we received an email from the accomplished senior editor that the IHS was accepting our article for publication. Of course, we were informed that the article would most likely appear in the magazine sometime in 2011. We were overjoyed to say the least. I felt like Joe March in the movie, Little Women – 1994 version, when she received word that her first story would be published in a magazine. “I’m an author!!”

After the initial acceptance, then came the waiting.

A year and nearly a month after acceptance, we got a hard copy of the article to look over and a contract to sign. As far as the article, we only noticed a few minor revisions. We were also told that the article would appear in the Spring  2011 – June issue. We signed the contract and were promptly paid for our work.

Just before Memorial Day Weekend, we received the proofs of the article with the artwork. That’s when we finally saw what the piece would look like. It was 10 full pages! After looking over the proofs, we made our final inspection and a few minor changes. (I think there was a period left off of a sentence) I felt like I was holding my own novel in my hands. I got the taste of what it would feel like to have one of my books published. I am extremely proud of our article and it has given me the bug to really buckle down and get finished with revisions on my books. Eric and I are also about to query another article to a national Civil War magazine as well as another Hoosier article to the IHS. We’ll see what happens.

I just wanted to share that milestone with you. As we write and query our novels, we must celebrate every publishing victory, large or small, on our journey. They range from completing a difficult chapter to writing an awesome query that sparks the interest of an agent…getting through tough revisions…selling a book…receiving a call from an agent…writing a blog post that gets you new followers…meeting your daily word count…starting a new book…finishing a 90,000 word manuscript…etc.

This week we did the dance of joy. I can't tell you how elated I am to see our names in print. It's a good feeling.

So what writing or publishing milestones, large or small, have you met lately?

I would love to hear from you.

Between you, me and the gatepost,

Loree

I also wanted to thank all of you for your thoughts and prayers for Lauren. I dedicated last week's post to her in hope that it would get the information out there. As of this post time, she still is missing. Please continue to keep her and her family in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you.