Wow!  Yesterday was a busy day.  First it was launch day for Two Out of Three and that was exciting in itself.  Then, I listed the novel on freado.com, a book giveaway site, and things really started shaking!  Two Out of Three will be features as part of the cover memory match game and now as a prize!

It's odd, most people think that you write a book with the understanding that you will one day have it published.  When I started writing Two Out of Three, I had that assummption, but it has been much harder than I thought.  See, Two Out of Three is my baby.  It's the piece of work that I am most proud of and it was very difficult to make the choice to release it out into the world.

In a recent press release, I talk about the strong connection that I feel toward this novel, but even that doesn't fully explain my emotional connection to this nnovel and the main characters.

I started writing this novel in junior high (middle school) with just a rough outline of one scene that ended up getting cut out of the story all together.  It was during that time that I came up with the characters and fleshed them out while listening to the radio and watching MTV.  

The first real draft was done in high school, which was perfect since the novel starts while the two main characters are still in high school.  Those first few chapters that centered on that time in the characters lives had a realism that the rest of the story lacked at the time. 

I completed the second and third drafts right after my first marriage fell apart.  I didn't change anything about the first chapters, but worked instead on the rest of the story.  I don't want to give away too many spoilers, but the character of Sarah and I had similar emotional reasoning at that point in the story and at that point in my life.  Ihe phrase cutting off your nose to spite your face comes to mind.

So now here I am at the fourth and final edit.  I'm widowed and starting over again at 37.  I pulled out the novel again and guess what?  The early chapters are spot on, the middle of the book has the anger and raw emotion that it needs to transition, and now again, in the final chapters, emotionally the character and I are in the same place.

Now, when I say that this book has consumed my life, understand that it actually represents many phases of my life and is much more personal that any of my other work.  Even though the character and I have lives that are totally different, ours have been entangled from that first moment that she came to mind from the lyrics of a Meatlloaf song.

New full length book trailer for Two Out of Three.  This one tells more of the story.  I didn't think I would actually like it better than the first one, but it ended up turning out really well.  Better than i hoped.

Okay, so Ghost Country: A Novel has a new look!  After my glowing three star review (laugh if you want, I'm very proud of it), the novel was reformated to be more Kindle and Nook friendly, but why stop there?

I was never really happy with the original cover of the dolls all in a heap.  It looked like a bunch of dead bodies.  While anyone that read the book understoood the doll reference, the cover just wasn't right.

So now, ghost Country has a brand new look.  I'm pleased with this one and I really feel that it fits with the literary theme more. But what do I know?

So give me your thumbs up or thumbs down on the new cover!  Do you prefer this one or all of those little doll corpses in a pile?

Okay, so I know I've said this before, but here it is...The final cover for Two Out of Three.

I have a horrible time with covers, I admit it.  I second guess myself and go back and forth until it drives me crazy.  I normally design about six different covers and then pick one.  This time I did about ten different covers and was only able to narrow it down to about five.

So i stepped away from it for a while and focused on editing instead.  I thought that was a pretty good idea since it doesn't matter how nice the cover is if the book isn't done. 

Well, now I'm in the final stretch of editing and formatting.  I went back to the cover situation last week and this time it was easy.  I just knew that this was my cover.  So world, there it is, my cover.

I was writing a press release today and got to thinking about my previous books and the strange journey that my writing took. 

When I began writing, I was very lucky.  I graduated high school and was lucky enough to become a guest columnist for The Tribune right away.  Over the years, my work was published in numerous literary magazines. 

Just when I was thinking I had my life figured out, I took over the home décor business my mother started.  I no longer had the time to write.  I sort of forgot about it until I started writing articles for the website. 

That’s where my writing would have ended if it wasn’t for customers telling me that they loved the advice and I should put all of those articles in a book or something.  I did what they suggested, but didn’t expect that much to come of it.  Home Decorating for the Real World has been an almost constant fixture on the Kindle Bestseller List.  Wow!  Talk about unexpected.

I followed that up with a collection of short stories I had previously published in literary magazines.  While not a bestseller, it still performed surprisingly well.  I decided then to follow that up with the book I am currently working on , Two Out of Three.

What struck me was the first book was written for my customers from Nana’s Attic, Ghost Country was written for my daughter, and this last one is just for me.  You can read more about it in the press release at http://www.pressreleasepoint.com/decorating-swatches-native-americans-dana-michelle-burnett-has-done-it-all-author-now-sets-her-sight .