Still use dark pastels

A couple years ago I wrecked my car, which sucked at the time. It turns out that without any transportation, that summer proved to be the most productive time in my writing life. I finished the draft of a 90,000 word novel in thirty days, my first completed book. Fast forwarding to now glosses over a lot of struggle with the manuscript, mostly over trying to convince publishers that it would, in fact, be an awesome story for readers to discover their way through. Clerical error stretched out its shelf life, in such time I became a much better and wiser author, and thankfully so, because I better see now what it's going to take to push that particular round peg through the square holes provided to me. And I think I'm mostly good with that.

So I think I've turned a corner, and will be able to look back on this time as a decisive fork in the long and winding road, and will smile at my decision. I'm not going to stop working on the series, but after the book I'm currently working on (the third and finale) I think I'm going to actively put the trio of books on the back burner. Going through the editing process got me some really good notes on what I put down and what readers are likely to pick up. I have a good idea of what I'll have to do to marry those two ideas in a way that I'm satisfied with that won't sour me.

More immediately, the writing continues. I even have a plan for how to squeeze in a little extra during the upcoming holiday breaks. I have a goal to be more than 2/3 of the way through before January 1, which means I ought to be able to wrap this up in February, certainly before March. I also find myself looking past even that, to the next release, the promotion opportunities I signed up for, even the possible collaboration projects I ought to have meetings for. Over the past week I've said "I'm really looking forward to what things look like for me this time next year" no less than three times. Picture me excited.

So, not a lot to report, or a little. I'm still holding myself to the deadline of December 1 to get that short story drafted. I haven't done any outlining or sketching on it, so it may very well come down to a scramble at the tail end of some November day numbered in the high 20s. The thing I try to focus on is that I'm still confident that it's going to get done, while ignoring the fact that in the end, what I intended to do will mean less than what I actually did.

Also. This blog needs more pictures. Gonna get on that, too.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Push, and breach

Image
 Nine months. That must be some kind of record for me. If I was the type to read into things, I might note that it's also the time it takes to make a new human from scratch.  I'm here puzzling through the audio book process, wishing I had practiced better organizational habits. As per usual, I'm learning a lot between sighs, as if the despondent air displaces to make room for the more useful knowledge.  Entering the process, my focus diffuses, like the thrust of a good night's rest striking a solid river boulder. I find old pictures in search of cover art, delete some and make mental notes to share others. I find old files in search of manuscripts, and work briefly on book blurbs. I frown and I groan and I thrash.  All of which to say, progress. My cover artist is graduating college, which is a proud moment. Work on the 6th cover has been delayed for a variety of reasons, and ultimately I take accountability for some of it as well. The edits have gone poorly, most notab
Read more

The imparting or exchanging of information

Image
 I talked somewhat about how good the communication has been between my cover artist and myself. That's probably an oversimplification, because his posts on social media really outline how much he works on all aspects of his process. This refers to how hard he works, but also how well. This next cover will be the sixth cover of eight, and I feel very fortunate that we've been able to keep things together for years at this point, given the consistently increasing amount of opportunities that he gets, year after year, as he earns more exposure and recognition. I feel very confident I will be one of those people who might say "I knew him back when," and people may not even believe me.  In regards to process, things were very sloppy for the first cover. Our language wasn't very synced, nor did he have a great idea of what he needed from me to begin producing, nor did I have a way to really understand how my own words percolated into his artwork. I showed a potential
Read more

Let's play a game

 I've discovered there is a point where even Facebook will give up on you.  I last posted in February. I guess around March I was reminded that I hadn't posted in a while. Maybe I got another reminder in April, but even then, I could tell that the robots were fed up. I would've been, too. I wasn't sulking; I might have even questioned what the use would've been, but that would've just been untrue. It's virtually impossible to say why, but for whatever reason I had a mysterious, steady few periods of royalty payments. I got an email from Amazon, then another, then another. I found it all very suspicious, and strangely was too busy with other work to really pay attention. I took a diligent moment to thank my luck, be grateful for readers, and then went about trying not to drown at my new job. I didn't think at all to blog.  And that's not why I'm writing now, either. I'm writing now because a thought I had been gnawing on for months, years, fin
Read more