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Writing Wednesday: I finished a book!
It always strikes me, when I use that phrase, “I finished a book,” that I usually mean something different than 99% of other people do when they say it. Possibly 99.7%. I, of course, generally mean I finished writing a book, as opposed to reading one. (Although let me tell you, there are times anymore when finishing reading one seems like as much of a triumph…)
Anyway, so on Monday I finished the (oh my god so very) rough draft of REDEEMER, which has been hanging over me for what feels like forever. It came in at 104K, which is about where–in the past couple weeks, anyway–I thought it would land (previous to that, 120K still didn’t seem out of the bounds of possibility). It needs more work than my manuscripts usually do when I finish the draft, which is sad, but that’ll teach me to try to do like three different difficult things in one manuscript. @.@
On one hand it’s a huge relief to have the book done. On the other, finishing it triggers the rest of the production to-do list, and that looks like this:
Redeemer Wars (Redeemer) To Do:
–get cover art done
–finish manuscript
– revise manuscript to fix notes, descriptions, language, etc
-submit to editor
– revise to editorial specs
– resubmit to editor
– do line edits
– submit to copyeditor
– submit for cover design
– submit for page layouts
– get ISBNs
– submit for econversion
– deliver to kickstarter backers
– submit for possible audio book
– submit for reviews
– submit for self-publicationObviously this does not all happen at once, but it’s a REALLY LONG LIST and I’m almost certainly forgetting things. So I’m glad to have the book done but AUGH SO MUCH TO DO NEXT. This is why writers like traditional publishing. @>@
Anyway, none of that is happening this week. It’d be nice if none of it was happening even in February, but I’m already horribly late with the book and need to move on it more quickly than not. Still, I need a few days away from it, at least.
In the meantime I’ve reached 41.4K words written for the month of January and it seems like sort of a pity to not push it up to 50K. Sadly, the thing I really kinda wanna to work on isn’t likely to give me that kind of wordcount, not unless I do a great deal more of it than I could reasonably expect in the next five days (so what am I doing instead of working hard on it right now? Writing this blog post!), whereas writing a new Old Races short story would give me close to the wordcount AND get a new story ready for the Patreon crew and is therefore what I obviously *should* be doing.
I’m prolly gonna do the other thing anyway. :) I have a–well, let’s face it, an unrealistic–goal of getting a book out every other month this year, and getting going on this thing might make that possible. Yeah. YEAH. So THERE. SEE?!?!
…or something. :)
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2016 work schedule
Want to know what I’m doing this year? Or at least, what I’m trying to do? Here. Let me tell you!
Publishing MAGIC & MANNERS
I’m in the very last stages of getting MAGIC & MANNERS out into the world–the last bits (the ISBN bar code, mostly) are being generated for the cover, it’ll be handed off to a professional to convert it into e-books, and it’s the first book I’ll be publishing through the Ingram self publishing system, which will theoretically make it order-able in bookstores all around the country/world. Official pub date is February 16, 2016, and the audio book will be out right around then too! And I can’t STAND not showing off the cover, so this post is also a Cover Reveal!
(SQUEE!!!! Cover art by the magnificent Tara O’Shea at Fringe Element!)
Finishing REDEEMER
That means finishing the draft, revising it to get fix all the NOTE:s left in it (which include things like description, slang, word repetition, just all sorts of things), then sending it to my editor, who will tell me everything that’s wrong with it. Then I’ll fix it, send it back to her, give it to my parents to beta-read, get line edits/polishing details, do THOSE, send the manuscript to the copy editor, do THOSE, get the book laid out and e-files made for it, get the cover art finished, get ISBNs, get it out to the Kickstarter backers, perhaps see about submitting it for proper reviews, and finally get it out into the reading public’s hands.Revising BEWITCHING BENEDICT
which involves everything listed above from “fix it, send it back to her” and goes on pretty well through the end of that paragraph. Perhaps not review copies for that. Maybe not even print copies right away, IDK.Revising IMMORTAL BELOVED
closer to REDEEMER than BENEDICT, except it needs to go through two pre-editorial revision passes, for Reasons. With luck, the revision process on both of these books will be something I can do while REDEEMER is with Matrice.Writing SKYMASTER
which is the last of the YA quadrology I’m writing for my nephew, and which may turn out to be a Kickstarter project, which entails everything under the ‘Redeemer’ header except for for FOUR BOOKS AT ONCE.Writing KISS OF ANGELS
the Grace O’Malley novella, & another 8 or so Old Races short stories (get them HERE first!), and overseeing production on one, possibly two (depending on how the short story project goes) Old Races short story collections.Writing
the 2nd Walker Papers/Skinwalker crossover novella with Faith HunterRevising
the epic fantasy proposalWriting
the climate change series proposal.Writing
if I have _time_ after all that a sequel to either REDEEMER or MAGIC & MANNERS or BEWITCHING BENEDICT ahahahahahaha -
I hate revising.
I hate revising. I particularly hate it when I’m going over a manuscript that, when I finished writing it, I thought was REALLY BAD and probably needed to be totally thrown out, and six weeks later when I look at it again I’m like “this appears to mostly work and i can’t tell if it actually works or if it’s just this HUGE GAPING BLIND SPOT OF DENIAL.”
Even more aggravating is that the last 3 chapters of my printed manuscript mysteriously disappeared and so I was left in the lurch and still don’t know if the book ends all right or if I’m stuck in this HUGE GAPING BLIND SPOT OF DENIAL. And I had a whole hour of work time left.
Fortunately I had a book with me. :)
Anyway, I have no idea if the book is awful or not. It probably is. An editor would probably see all the flaws and make me rip out the second half and fix them. Which I would do myself, if I could get past this HUGE GAPING BLIND SPOT OF DENIAL. Unless it’s actually not that bad. Which is possible. Unlikely, but possible.
*headdesk*
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whoosh!
MAGIC & MANNERS is off to the editor. I’ve lined up a copy editor, the cover artist is working on the cover art (as she can; poor woman broke her arm!), and I’ve got a couple people I need to talk to about book layout. I also need…to think about what I’m doing with ISBNs, and I need to grit my teeth and delve into the Ingrams system, as I don’t see myself suddenly being flush enough with cash to hire someone to deal with that for me, much as I’d like to.
I see that my prediction three weeks ago was that the next month is going to be full. of. revisions. MAGIC & MANNERS, a straight-up Regency, an Old Races short story, and my nephew’s book all need revision. Between revising I’m going to be writing the detailed synopsis for the second Regency and for REDEEMER, which I had hoped would be my March writing project but which is realistically going to be the April-May project.
Well, I’ve done the REDEEMER synopsis and I’m really happy with it. I’ve decided I’m not dealing with the straight-up Regencies right now, neither revising the first nor synopsising the second, because there’s essentially no profit in it at this red-hot moment. If I’m smart–if I remember–I’ll revise that Old Races story tonight and send it off to its commissioner.
I *do* intend to revise my nephew’s book, because it’s over a year late now and I haaaaaaate that, but if I’m really lucky it’ll only take 10 or 12 days and I may actually be able to start on…oh, no, I won’t. Not really.
I was gonna say, maybe I can start on REDEEMER before EasterCon, but no. There’s 2 days off from school next week and 2 weeks off at Easter, so realistically it’s not gonna get started before the 13th. Not unless my nephew’s book actually only takes a handful of days to revise, instead of the more likely couple weeks.
Well, that’s fine. Man plans, God laughs, all that. If the revision takes a couple weeks maybe I’ll go ahead and write the second Regency synopsis after all. :)
