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Redeemer ho!
I got REDEEMER into Scrivener today, did some edits (there’s a thing I’m trying to do with it which will almost certainly take seven thousand edit passes and I will still not entirely succeed), and actually wrote a thousand words, which is pretty remarkable, because I am no Alexandre Dumas; I do not finish one book, reach for a fresh sheet of paper, and begin writing the next.
Except I truly do have an extraordinary amount to do by the middle of the year to reach the (far too ambitious) goals I have, and would like to try to continue to make actual writing progress while trying to do revisions and write thingies. Synopses.
There’s basically no chance of it actually happening, as new words, revisions and synopses all essentially use All My Brain, but I’m trying to catch up with a friend of mine who’s written well over 120K already this year and if I stop forward motion I’ll never catch up. :)
Anyway, it was nice to dip my toes in a little, and if I can somehow manage even just 1k a day I might get some momentum going, which would be great. :)
ytd wordcount: 77,100
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Stone’s Throe now available!
My pulp fiction novel, STONE’S THROE, is now available for general purchase direct from the publisher! It’ll be up on Amazon and other locations soon, I expect, and I’ll let people know when it is, but if you want it hot off the presses, you know where to go!
Oh! Oh! Oh! My former editor at Harlequin, Mary-Theresa Hussey, has launched a freelance editorial service, so if you’re in a position of looking for an editor, I can recommend her highly!
AND on that note, I have engaged her services for the editing of REDEEMER! I’m very excited about this, because I’ve, uh, worked with her on like 17 books, and I think she’s the perfect editor for that project! So *happy dance*! And actually that means I’ve got the whole production team lined up for that project, so all I have to do is, y’know. Write it. :)
Speaking of which, the goal is to start work on it in March. I’m within spitting distance of done with MAGIC & MANNERS (where ‘spitting distance’ means ‘god damn it this book is going to turn out to be 120K after all’), which will go through a quick revision process later this month and then go off to my other former editor who now runs an editorial service, and then I’ll be revising the hideously overdue 3rd book for my nephew. If all goes according to plan (which it won’t, because next week is a week off from school) those things will take the last two weeks of February, after which I’ll launch into REDEEMER.
My *plan* for that project is to go back through the synopsis and develop it to a much greater degree so that I have a really clean road map to follow. That’ll probably take a couple of weeks, but should make the actual writing a six to eight week project. My hope is to have a draft for Matrice by the middle of May, although that may be slightly too ambitious. I guess we’ll see. :)
ytd wordcount: 52,900 (woo broke 50K!)
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oh my gosh.
The Redeemer Kickstarter closed out about an hour ago with 428 backers and €12,251 in funding, which hit the cover art stretch goal with a wee little bit to spare.
That is *well over* a third again the number of backers I’d first dreamed of. It’s nearly *half* again the number I first dreamed of. It’s only 90 backers fewer than NO DOMINION had, which, holy *crap*, that was so far beyond my hopes I didn’t even go there. And I just now at this moment noticed that there were, at the end, 300 e-book backers, which is the number of backers I’d hoped for *entirely*, at the beginning.
I am overwhelmed, grateful, exhausted, and so very very happy right now. Thank you all SO MUCH for your enthusiasm, signal boosts, and patience while went on about it endlessly over the past month. <3 Someone said I should say thanks just by posting a picture of my smile right now, so here you go:
And now Twitter is full of messages that say, “Congratulations! Now get writing!” so I guess I’d better get back to work…especially since I’ve just arranged with Octocon for a REDEEMER book launch party there next October. Come one, come all! ♥
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WE HAVE COVER ART
One of my Loyal Readers, known in these parts as Hataroni, commissioned a short story, and then someone else put us over the top! WE HAVE COVER ART!
But Hataroni didn’t just commission a story. He’s asked me to ask YOU for story ideas that he can choose from, because he’d like to see what his fellow readers would like, too! IS HE COOL OR WHAT?!?!
So please post your story ideas here, and I’ll make sure he sees them (well, he will anyway, but I’ll make sure!)
Hataroni has also mentioned a fundraiser near and dear to his own heart, and I must say that even aside from him asking for a signal boost, this looks really, really interesting: Can sleep patterns change gene functions? So check it out, especially if you or anyone you know suffers from insomnia…!
And then because I’m CRAZY, we have a NEW STRETCH GOAL because WHAT THE HECK IT CAN’T HURT TO TRY!
At €13500, I will COMMISSION ART for the hardback spines and ALL backers will get a thank-you postcard with the spine art!
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20 hours & counting. O.O
Today I have made lemon curd, marshmallow creme, chocolate fudge, vanilla fudge, and coffee fudge (well, okay, I haven’t made that YET), roasted a chicken with carrots & baby potatoes, and I will shortly bake some biscuits.
Displacement activity, anyone? :)
The REDEEMER Kickstarter is just over 11K with 20 hours left. 387 backers, which is fast closing in on my revised-revised dream number of 400. Lindsey Look cover art is less than a thousand euro away. I feel faintly as though I’m living in a dream state. :)
I don’t know if I’ll update again before this whole shebang closes out tomorrow, so I want to say this now:
Holy moly, you guys.
My first Kickstarter, NO DOMINION, did spectacularly well, but–if you’ll forgive me the arrogance of saying so–it was kind of always going to. I mean, I didn’t know it was going to do *that* well, but it was the Walker Papers, and it was Gary, and people had been asking for his story since URBAN SHAMAN was published, so there wasn’t much chance of it being a flop. Not really.
REDEEMER, though. REDEEMER is untested waters. It’s not a spin-off or a continuation of anything; it’s a brand new book, potentially the first of a series. I love the idea and the social aspects and the highlighting of an era we don’t see all that much about the women in, but man, I hadn’t even talked it up before launching it, and I genuinely didn’t know how people would respond. Maybe nobody else would be as excited about the idea as I was; maybe *some* people but not enough would be; maybe *just* enough would be.
It turns out more than ‘just’ enough people are excited about it, and that is…amazing. It’s–I mean, I realize I’m going to be writing a book for you, that this is a system of exchange, cash for product, but…you have no idea how much of a *gift* this feels like. Your trust and enthusiasm is humbling, and I’m overwhelmed.
Thank you all so very very much. I’m going to gnaw my knuckles through the last 20 hours, and then I’m going to write you the best book I possibly can. ♥
