This week, I’m joined by Skye Horn, the bestselling indie author of the Kingdoms of Faerie series. Skye shares tips for how to stay positive when you’re facing down a wall of tracked changes and how she was able to publish her first three books so quickly. Plus we talk about the importance of having an editor who understands your genre and Celtic insults to mermaids!
Music: Harlequin by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3858-harlequin
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Show Notes:
Website: skyehorn.com
Newsletter: skyehorn.com/newsletter
Instagram: @skyehorn_author
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skyehorn.author
Twitter: @skyehorn_author
Kingdoms of Faerie series
Wings of Fate
Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Thrones and Roses and Crescent City series
Cassandra Clare, The Mortal Instruments series, City of Bones
Tolkien
Faylon the unicorn
Chekhov’s gun
The Writer Community on Instagram
Tenaya MKD, New Identity, out in February. Find her on Instagram: @tenayamkd
Ramy Vance, writing coach, GoneGod World series
Transcript:
Ariel: Hi there and welcome to Edit Your Darlings, a podcast that tries to take the sting out of editing by talking with darling authors about their experiences. This week I'm joined by Skye Horn. If you listened to episode one with Bri Spicer, you might recognize this author's name from Bri’s Hot and Wholesome recommendations. Sky is the bestselling author of the YA fantasy romance series Kingdoms of Faerie. She's obsessed with telling stories about magic, myths, and legends, and is an avid coffee drinker. Skye resides in the mountains of Southern California with her husband and two dogs. The first three novels of her debut series are available now, and the final novel is set to release in early 2021. Thank you so much for making time to talk with me, Skye.
Skye: Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be here. I was very excited when you reached out and said that Bri had recommended this.
Ariel: Oh, isn't she a gem?
Skye: She's amazing. I love her. We talk all the time about the writing process and about struggles of being a writer, so I love it. It made my day.
Ariel: I love talking with indie authors because you all have such different experiences with having your work edited. You said that you worked with critique partners beta readers and freelancers for developmental editing and copy editing. So that's a lot of eyes on your work and probably a good chunk of change out of your pocket. Why was it important for you to work through each step of that editing process with all of these people? How did you find them, and what did you learn from them?
Skye: I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I'm actually going to be going back into the editing process for my fourth book soon, so I'm back in that mindset of how to deal with all of the steps that come with editing, and for me there's so many reasons that it's important to have an editor look at your work, especially as an indie author because we obviously don't have, you know, a whole publishing team behind us. We're kind of just doing this on our own. Like you said, it is a good chunk of change, but it's worth it in the end, and I honestly believe that an editor is an extremely important part of the indie author experience as well as the writing experience but especially as an indie or a self-published author.
Kind of to narrow it down though, for me the top three reasons that I found it important was, first of all, we’re our worst critics, as authors. We read our own books a million times because that's, that's what happens when you're editing, you’re self-editing, and you start to miss things. You start reading over things that, you know, you have read so many times that it's just, you know what you meant but maybe somebody else won't know what you mean. So I think it's really important to have those different sets of eyes working at it and, you know, seeing maybe you're not coming across the way that you thought you are when you first wrote that scene or that section of your book, and you don't want to come across the wrong way, because you want your book to make sense, and as an author, you can sometimes be subjective to your own writing and not see the things that other people are going to catch. I think that's my number one importance for why I do hire so many people and I do go to so many people.
I don't hire beta readers I ask for those for free, just because I’m only one person and I can’t afford that many people. But my beta readers are great. I have six of them that I go to and they've been a constant since my first book. I find that, because they're so involved in my series, they can point out things that I miss, and they can tell me when I'm not making sense or they can tell me when I've got a plot hole that I didn't see. So I think that's super important as well.
Ariel: When you reach out to your beta readers do you send them, like, a list of questions, or is it just sort of an open forum?
Skye: For me I do a list of questions because I actually beta read as well and that's the way that I like to receive beta books. So that's kind of what I do. I do ask them, though, I ask them, you know, what method do they prefer. Do they like having a list of questions, do they like to just read it, and most people say they want a list of questions, so that's usually what I do. The last thing that was important for me, on top of the be ta readers is, like you said, I mean, I have my critique partner as well who I send... you know, I get stuck when I'm writing and I send them something and I think, what do you see when you read this, or what am I missing here that's... Why am I getting stuck, that type of thing, because most of the time you find that when you're stuck in your book, it's because you mess something up before, not the actual part you're at right now. So, it helps to have another set of eyes to look at it, usually another writer, because they're gonna know that that is what I'm looking for.
There's a lot, relying on that editor, and if you don't have one, then you're missing a really good opportunity to improve your writing. I mean I love my first book. Wings of Fate is my baby, and I put it out in the world, and it was amazing. And I’ve just grown so much since I wrote it, because of my editor. I completely credit her to that and say like that she saved my life because I was a good writer but now I'm a better writer.
Ariel: When you get your manuscript back covered in red ink, it can be upsetting, or anxiety provoking, or just sound the alarms! How would you handle opening the file with all of those critiques, and tracks changes, and still maintaining your cool?
Skye: So I'm happy to say, I've gotten better at this as I head into edits for this fourth book, but I admit that my first set of critiques and edits that I got back on book one was terrifying. I definitely like fell down that rabbit hole of oh my gosh do I even know what I'm doing, type thing. It wasn't my editor’s fault and it wasn't my fault. It was just something I had to grow to understand how to go through, I guess. So I think I stared at that file probably for, you know, the first day just didn't want to open it, just was too scared to even touch it. For me it's just all about mental preparation. Cuz you know that you're not a perfect writer and you know that there's going to be issues you need to address, and you have to have an editor who understands, you know, what you are... what you are as a writer as well.
So for me, I've got a thick skin, but I'm also a little bit sensitive. So, my editor is great because she will give me the hard comments followed by a joke that will lighten the mood and make me feel better about that huge mistake I made. So she's very like light-hearted but also very, you know, straightforward with me, which is what I need. So in order to you know get through that, it's all mental preparation and, you know, telling yourself you are a good writer, but you can always be better, and that's what the editor is there for to help you better your book in a way that you didn't see before, so I think that's just so important for any writer, to be able to take the critique and understand that maybe some of it’s opinion ,maybe some of its grammar and you need to fix that. But just to be able to go into the experience with an open mind and avoid, like you said, that mental breakdown, because it definitely is a struggle to have somebody else look at something that you are so close to, so involved with.
Ariel: How do you create distance? You said Wings of Fate was your baby, and so getting the critique on that knowing that you've poured yourself into it so hard, how do you step back and say, Okay, I am now ready to hear what needs to be improved?
Skye: That's a great question. Creating distance comes with distancing yourself from the work to begin with. So, that sounds like the most straightforward thing in the world, but it's actually very difficult as a writer, because you write this book, and you've got your first draft done and you've self-edited it and you are, you know, you've talked yourself up, and you've said, Okay, I did this, it's great, I’m gonna send it to my editor now. And then you get it back, and you know that it's going to be marked up in red. For me, it's taking the time away from that manuscript and maybe working on something else. Maybe I write a short story, or I read my favorite book, or just do you see something that gets my mind off of that manuscript for a while so that I can look at it with fresh eyes when I come back to it, because I think that if you are just focusing on that manuscript and you're just focusing on what you did wrong, then you tend to be negative on yourself, or at least I do. So it gives me time to, you know, reassess how I'm feeling, and look at it with fresh eyes and be able to say okay, you're right I could have done that better or wow, I did say that way too many times, cuz I get those a lot.
Ariel: Two questions I’m gonna follow up in there. One is, you said you have a favorite book?
Skye: Oh yeah, I definitely, I probably have too many favorite books, but I have a couple days that I reread. I'm a huge Sarah J. Maas fan, so I tend to reread her books, all the time, like especially A Court of Thorns and Roses.
Ariel: That’s Crescent City right?
Skye: Yeah Crescent City is her newest one, and it's definitely one of those books that I feel like I can keep reading. I do tend to travel toward her and she also writes in me genre, so I feel like it helps me just kind of distance myself from my own writing but also be in something that I love.
Ariel: Absolutely.
Skye: Because I love fantasy, and I’m just addicted to fantasy. I'm also a huge fan of Cassandra Clare. The Mortal Instruments series. City of Bones was one of her first series as for the Mortal Instruments. I feel like that book is a good world building book. And so when I'm stuck in world building or I know that I'm gonna get notes back from my editor about that, I like to go read books that are full of world building, kinda like Tolkien and things like that. I tend to distance myself toward her, so that I can you know still be in the YA genre since that's what I'm writing right now and see how other successful authors are able to do it, and I think that helps a lot. Plus reading is just a therapy for me.
Ariel: And then the other follow up that I had, I wondered if the view of the page makes a difference. If you're looking at all of the tracked changes, and then you just toggle so that you're hiding the tracked changes but see the new text, I wonder if that makes a difference. Do you look at it with all of the tracked changes on?
Skye: I do actually. I've never thought about doing it any differently, but I like the idea of that. I definitely look at all the track changes on and I actually have two screens up most of the time. And I kind of go back and forth between that because I feel like if I'm typing in the edits, then I understand them more than if I'm just hitting, you know, approve or deny. So, I have my old manuscript open, and I have the edited manuscript open. That gives me the opportunity to kind of focus on those certain changes, but I've never thought of hiding certain things. That is a good idea because I feel like it would help you focus without getting overwhelmed by all of the tracked changes that are on your manuscript.
Ariel: Yeah, and I also feel like you can take ownership in that new version too, right? If you don't see the red, then everything on the page is just yours.
Skye: Yeah, that's why I like having a second screen because I'm looking at a whole new manuscript at that point and I'm, you know, I'm seeing that I've made these changes but I don't have to see the red ink anymore. It's just there. Mentally that’s good.
Ariel: So I want to get further in the details about your Kingdoms of Faerie series. Now I'm still reading the first, I'm still reading Wings of Fate. And I imagine we'll have some listeners who want to pick it up, so we won't go into spoilers, but I had a couple of questions about it. First, it's a fantasy romance, right, so there's lots of emotions and yearning and almost touching. How did your editors shape those emotions and those relationships? Did they make suggestions like taking out or putting in gestures, nuances, other changes?
Skye: My developmental editor is the one who really paid attention to those romance plots that I have going on. So obviously with Kingdoms of Faerie, it is a romance-based book, so it fantasy, but there is a heavy romance plot going on.
Ariel: Yeah, there is! And I love romance so that is one of my favorite genres to read, especially in the fantasy and sci fi genre. Writers are mimickers, so we tend to mimic what we like, and what we don't like it kind of shows in our writing. So, I feel like my editor is really good at pulling those things out and being like, okay, That didn't sound like your voice. That sounded like you took that from somewhere else. And so I actually really love that, I love that she can tell the difference between what was my voice and what was somebody else's voice.
Ariel: That’s a skill!
Skye: Yeah! In that sense, she changed the way that I wrote romance, which was great. And she shaped me into this new voice that was more my own, and a little less of the mimicking, which we tend to do as writers, especially when we're reading and writing at the same time, which I 100% recommend but also, you know, you have to be careful. I think that in regard to the emotions and stuff, that was all there in my manuscript and she just helped me make it better.
Ariel: Are you going to continue working with that developmental editor forever? Do you think that a different developmental editor would continue shaping your writing in different ways?
Skye: I have worked with this editor since the first book, and that's been very consistent and very good because she knows the story as well as I do, basically. So it's really difficult if you switch editors in the middle of the series because obviously then you're gonna run into the issue of, well, did they read the first book and do they know what's happening. Do they know how I'm connecting this from point A to point B? So having her as somebody who already knows my writing style and already knows you know what my weaker points are and my stronger points are has been a lifesaver, and it's been a relationship and I've been able to form with her. That is great. So I don't know that I would switch up developmental editors just because I know I trust her, I guess. But that being said, obviously, there are editors who work better in different genres, so she is very much fantasy genre. So maybe if I decided to write a different genre then I might be looking at a different editor just because of the genre choice, but as long as I'm in fantasy I feel like she is my good go-to choice.
Ariel: Yeah, I have a few clients that I've worked with on a number of books that I really look forward to those projects, because they're my very favorite, and I just worried that I'm telling them the same things over and over again. If they worked with somebody else maybe they would have something else to learn than what I have to offer.
Skye: Yeah, that's, that's a really interesting point too because just like writing, even with editing it's going to be, you know, the same point that you see one time they're probably gonna make the same mistakes again, maybe be able to learn something new that you're not seeing. Like I said earlier with having multiple sets of eyes and that's kind of why I have a proofreader as well, to look at things. And then I also send out ARCs for my books to a specific group of people that are writers and who have been in with my series since the beginning. They're like my second round of betas after I’ve had an editor look at it, to make sure that I'm still not missing anything.
Ariel: Cold reads.
Skye: Yeah, that's a great way to put it.
Ariel: So we've touched a little bit about this is fantasy, this is romance. How about other ways that the genre is represented in Wings of Fate? And that's just a professional way for me to transition to the question I really really really want to talk about, which is your fantasy critters! Among others, you have unicorns. Did they change from draft to draft, did your editor shape them at all, and how dare you imply that mermaids are nasty?
Skye: You know! I feel very badly about that actually because I love mermaids. I don't know how much you know about the Celtic lore, which is a lot of what Wings of Fate is based on. Celtic lore and mermaids are not the good guys. They're, like, really gruesome creatures that exists in Celtic mythology, and I kind of wanted to pull on that just because we have so many books right now that are kind of like a little mermaid retelling, which I love because I love mermaids, but I liked having a little bit of that myth entangled in my story. So, Wings of Fate has a lot of different features, especially as the series progresses. It starts with unicorns, and Faylon, who is the unicorn in the first book, has actually been a fan favorite. From the feedback I get, everybody loves Faylon because he’s snarky, and he’s fun, and he’s a unicorn, a boy unicorn, so even better, right? Without spoiling anything, like, there are more creatures that come in the next few books that definitely play into that, you know, myths and legends that I am super obsessed with, but my editors, mostly my developmental editor again, did have some of the shape in that and did have at least a little bit of a say because towards like the second and third book, I was having a problem with actually putting enough creatures into the story. So I wanted more of them, but I didn't know how to do it without it being forced.
Ariel: Yeah without dragging down the plot.
Skye: Right, exactly like I wanted these creatures and I wanted to describe them and see how they could interact with this world, but I also didn't want it to feel like I was just throwing them in there because it was a fantasy book. My editor did have a lot to say about that and she helped me find places where it felt, like, natural to have the character there, and to have that creature available, especially with the idea of familiars which is something that I use in my books which are creatures that are attached to the fae, and who have like this connection with the fae, so I have quite a few familiars throughout the series, but I liked having those be my familiars because then I got to talk about them. And I got to see inside the minds of these creatures, without it being like, oh, and then there was a unicorn that rode by or there was a Pegasus in the sky. They have a reason for being there. But as for the mermaid. I've definitely gotten some feedback about that because people love mermaids. But, just by... by rule of thumb, Celtic lore does not look kindly on mermaids.
Ariel: Ouch!
Skye: I know! I’ll have to write a mermaid book next.
Ariel: And there's just something really sad about books where they introduce a creature especially a cat, and the cat is just like they’re in the room and then they're never talked about again. So I love it you really made a point to make your creatures into characters.
Skye: I wanted them to have their own personalities and their own, you know, unique perspective on the story that's happening because obviously there's a lot going on in this story, and they have a part in it, they're not just there, which is great. I really wanted them to have their own part. L
Ariel: Let's go ahead and move on to the questions that I asked all of the authors I talk to. First, what do you hate about the editing process?
Skye: Ooh. Hopefully my editor is not listening. We've talked a little bit about the initial moment where you get that manuscript back and you go through that moment of panic. So that obviously is not a fun moment, and I wish I could say that it goes away, but even three books in, I still get that like moment of, like I have butterflies in my stomach and I'm nervous to oen the email, and there's no reason for me to be that way but I am.
Ariel: Can I share a secret?
Skye: Yes, I would love a secret.
Ariel: The secret is that your editor 100% feels the same way about sending it to you.
Skye: That's good to hear!
Ariel: They are so worried that they're going to offend or they're going to break your heart, or they're not going to be understood, so it goes both ways.
Skye: Yeah, it's so funny because the first book that I got back edited from her. Obviously, it was my first book and I had a lot to do. And she wrote me a very long email before I even opened the document that was basically like, go get some chocolate and get ready. I was like I already love you so much! This is great! But I had to rewrite eight chapters of that book. It was very difficult and I was a little devastated, but it worked out in the end and beautiful at the end. But yeah, the whole middle I did that thing you're not supposed to do and I info dumped, and I threw stuff in there that shouldn't have been there, and so I rewrote that whole section. So I'm always scared that's gonna happen again even though it's never happened again. I've never been in that situation where I had to rewrite, you know, 100 something pages of my book. So that is my least favorite part of the editing process, but now that I have that tip I think I'll try to think about that before I open the email because you're right. I'm sure she's just as nervous as I am sending it over to me.
Ariel: Yeah.
Skye: Another thing though that I really don't like is when I'm going through that editing, I just want to sit there and do the whole thing in one sitting, and I shouldn't be that.
Ariel: Oh no!
Skye: Yeah, that's what I want, though. I’m just like, I wanna get this over with, because I'm so bad at this. And so I sit there and I'll be frustrated with myself for it, but my tip to anybody listening is don't do that because, obviously you stress yourself out with absorbing that much information at one time, and I've taught myself to take it, you know, one section at a time now, and it's okay to take a while to get through those notes.
Ariel: Yeah, one section at a time, or like half an hour at a time, and whatever you get done you get done, or go through all of it and do the easy things and leave notes to yourself to come back to the things that you're like, oh I don't even want to think about that right now.
Skye: Right.
Ariel: Whatever works for you, make it easy on yourself.
Skye: Yeah I always do grammar first.
Ariel: Grammar first, huh?
Skye: Those are the ones that I don't really have to think about. I'm like oh yeah, I didn't use a comma there, or oh yeah I was supposed to put... that needs to be switched around and doesn't make sense. So I do that stuff first because it's just easiest, and then I go back and I do the developmental stuff at the end because I need time to process those notes.
Ariel: What is the most common bit of feedback you receive on your writing?
Skye: So this has actually changed a little for me.
Ariel: Oh, progress!
Skye: Yeah, I think. Yeah, I think that's a good sign. Originally, I had an issue with show don’t tell, which is pretty common with first-time writers and especially with romance. We talked a lot about how those emotions have changed, and I was doing a lot of the telling of, you know, what my characters were feeling rather than showing what they were feeling, so I had to learn how to not do that. And I feel like I've gotten a lot better because she doesn't give me those notes as often anymore. Another one is I get repetitive, and I use the same phrases a lot. I've noticed my favorite phrase is “after a moment.” My last draft, I did a Ctrl F and I was like, how did I use it so many times? That's my biggest bit of feedback is that I get a lot of the repetitiveness because I think that I'm an underwriter when it comes to my manuscripts, and so I write really quickly but I need to go back and add things in, so I tend to write those you know “after a moment” moments, so that I can get through my chapter, and then I forget to go back and you know, add what actually happened.
But the thing about that type of feedback though is that it is something that's very easily fixed. It's very easy to, you know, make a note to myself. If you could see my computer, I have sticky notes all over my computer that say things that I had... get comments on a lot. I'm actually cheating right now cuz I’m reading my sticky notes. It's things that I can remind myself not to do and that I can catch myself doing while I'm writing the manuscript, so I feel like I'm getting better at those. The most recent I think... it's just, it's hard for me because I should have done a series Bible for my book, and I didn't, so I spend a lot of time going back through my other books to make sure that I have consistent themes and consistent stupid things like you know, what color were their eyes or what color were their hair, things I have to go back and look up.
Ariel: That's a phrase that I've heard a couple of times but I've never actually held one in my hands. What goes into a series Bible, and how is it different than just a style sheet?
Skye: So they're similar. Series Bible is a little bit more in depth and it's more the writer’s version of a style sheet, because style sheet’s more like an editor term. A series Bible is going to have literally everything. It's going to have how long it takes to get from one place to another; for my book, it would be how long it takes to get from one kingdom to another so that I have that consistently throughout all four books. Physical features and attributes. It's also going to have scenes, like you're setups and payoffs. Maybe you put something into a room that was supposed to mean something, so there's something on the wall, there's a sword on the wall.
Ariel: Oh, I Chekhov's gun.
Skye: Yes, so it's there, but why, why is it there and you forget about it, so that's gonna be in your series Bible to remind you, hey, you need to go back to that point and make sure that there's a reason that that was there. So it's really just like all the details that you don't want to forget in your book, but it's also very similar to the style sheet which would have a lot of other details as well. Writers like to be creative and make things more complicated than they are.
Ariel: I love making style sheets. The coolest part to me of the style sheet is the timeline. It's just saying, you know, we're in chapter one and here is the time of day or the day of the week and here are the main things that happen. It's kind of like a reverse outline.
Skye: Right.
Ariel: And then you can use that to see where things got wonky, where there's inconsistencies.
Skye: Yeah.
Ariel: I find it just really fascinating to track details in that manner.
Skye: And it's really helpful just even having a timeline so even if you... you don't have the full stylesheet, even if you just had the timeline of what was happening, it keeps you on track, and that's something that's really important especially in the self-editing process. When you get into self editing and working through that, the murk, as I call it, then you really need to start, you know, outlining your timeline and outlining what's happening in your book so that you can make sure that it makes sense because like you said sometimes it just gets wonky, you don't know what's going on. How did I get from point A to point B?
Ariel: For the authors who work on their series, I'll pull up the previous timeline and that'll be a really great reminder of what happened in the last book because, you know, it's probably been a few months or a year since I read that last iteration.
Skye: Right yeah and especially as an editor, I'm sure, because it's not like you went and bought this book and you were obsessed with it. You're doing this for work and you got to remember all the other books that were came between it.
Ariel: I mean, don’t get me wrong, there are, there are a few that I’ve bought and am highly obsessed with. I have some definite favorite author clients.
Skye: Aw, that’s sweet.
Ariel: I don't even know how I got so lucky as to be able to work on their books. So the last question is: Any last words of advice?
Skye: Don't edit as you go. Since we’re talking about editing. It's funny because I am a cofounder on Instagram of the Writer Community, which is... it's a community of writers that, you know, helping each other get through the self-publishing process and the traditional publishing process, working on craft and becoming better, especially during COVID because obviously everything's locked down and you can't go to writer conferences, so we kind of did this in view of that. So I get a lot of questions about, you know, well how did you... how did you publish so quickly and how, how did you get so many books out so quickly, because I did a rapid release. My word of advice is you know don't edit as you go. Like just write your story, tell yourself the story, and then go back and edit and self-edit and then hire your editor and your cover designer, and just take it step by step because that's how you're going to actually get it finished, and I feel like a lot of people say I'm writing a book and then they never finished the book. That is the most important thing to me is that I finished that manuscript and then editing is just gonna make it better. So, I get to do that later but at first, I'm just telling the story and I'm doing what I love and because I'm a storyteller at heart that's what it is. So my advice is, you know, make sure that you write the whole draft without editing, then self-edit, then hire your editor, and definitely hire one because they are going to be able to see where you made mistakes, and where you could be better, and they're going to make you into a better writer, and I love that. I love telling people that my editor makes me a better writer because I feel like I owe her so much.
Ariel: Aw!
Skye: Yeah and to not be so hard on yourself, because obviously writing a book is a huge deal and it's impressive. I think it's really cool to be able to say hey I wrote a book. And not a lot of people get to say that and then to have it you know show up as an Amazon bestseller. That has been the highlight of my month this month.
Ariel: Yeah! The last portion of our program is hot and wholesome gossip corner. Are there any other writers or creators doing something that you're excited about? Any shoutouts you want to give or people you want to lift up?
Skye: Yes, absolutely. Because I would not be where I am today without so many amazing other authors in my life. One who stands out among the rest is a friend of mine. Her name is Tenaya MKD and she has a book coming out in February, her first book, and I mentioned earlier that I am a beta reader. So, a beta read her book New Identity. She is incredible. So it's a new adult superhero novel, and I had never read a superhero novel before, I mean I'm a huge superhero movie fan. I love superhero movies but I never actually read a novel that was super heroes. And I was blown away. That was before she even sent it to her editor. I was just beta reading. So I am very excited for her book that's coming out and I definitely recommend checking her out on Instagram, @tenayamkd as well.
And then I mean there's so many people that I have been able to connect with throughout this past year since I published my book. I have a writing coach who I work with Rami Vance, and he's been amazing, and been able to, you know, walk me through the self-publishing process because he's a bestselling author on Amazon and he sells thousands of books, every day, and it's been an honor to work with him. So he has books on Amazon as well which is Gone God World series, it’s a mouthful. That's another piece of advice I have is if you're writing a book, connect with other authors because that's the best way to get your book out there and to get feedback on your book, and those are just two examples of people that have shaped me as an author, so I'm very grateful for everything that they've done and all the support they've given me.
Ariel: I love it. If you want to check out Skye’s work, you can look for the Kingdoms of Faerie series. The third book is out now. And the fourth is set to release in early 2021. You can find Skye at SkyeHorn.com, and be sure to sign up for her newsletter, and she's on Twitter and Instagram as @skyehorn_author. Thank you again for talking with me Skye.
Skye: Thank you for having me. This is so much fun.
Ariel: If you loved this episode of Edit Your Darlings, why not share it with a friend? Remember to rate and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts fix. For show notes go to edityourdarlings.com, follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @editpodcast, or I'm @arielcopyedits. Until next week, cheers!