May 5, 2021
Day 212, Week 30
- Words: 76,927
- Revised Words v2: 32,963
- Campaign funded: 56%
- Ego Size: Do I even have an ego?
- Emotional State: Brain dead
The Book
The book is still going well. Week over week, I’ve only moved the word count down by 32 words, but I’ve refined and updated each chapter so that the good stuff remains (or gets added). I hope.
However, the last two revised chapters were not my best work, for two entirely different reasons.
Chapter 13 has a scene between my MC and her aunt. And it’s the pivotal midpoint false victory scene – the ultimate I get what I want moment, but not what I actually need. It’s a critical scene. And I found my first few rounds of it…lacking. The dialogue felt jarring and stilted. So I revised it. I wrote the scene from the aunt’s perspective. I revised it again. And I’m still not happy with it. But eh, my editor will tell me if it sucks.
Chapter 14, however, is bad because I didn’t think it was on the schedule for this week (oops) and I didn’t get it done over the weekend because I focused on gardening, house cleaning, haircutting, stress baking, and drinking. And then, my writer students backed the truck up and dumped on me a lot of words. A lot. And the words just keep coming.
Don’t get me wrong, I love that they are all writing – it’s a really good thing. But it leaves ZERO room for my own writing, social media, or anything else. So I revised Chapter 14, minimally, and just decided to let it go and worry about it on the next round. But I’m disappointed about it.
Life & Marketing
This leads to my brain dead state. I am fried worse than an egg on a hot sidewalk. I can’t remember what I’m thinking mid-sentence, like I had to re-read the previous sentence to finish my thought.
And that means I’m not doing much life or marketing. My campaign to fund my book has been extended for another week and with the exception of what I set up this weekend, I’ve done nothing. Nada. Barely on Twitter, barely on other platforms. I’m exhausted when I’m done working and talking to everyone, so I end up doing cross-stitch.
But hey, my cross-stitch is getting done a bit quicker now! I’ve only been working on it for about a year, but it’s massively large (16×21) and has a lot of colors (too many). Someday it’ll be done (it’s 1/3 of the way done).
In other news, for some reason I’m obsessed with my garden. I hate gardening. So the whole ‘obsession’ is bizarre and I’m going to chalk it up to the creative process. Or something. I’ll have the evil English ivy removed from my backyard and fun colorful ground cover planted something this year. Pretty timely considering we’ve lived here for 3 years. (ahem.)
The Preorder Campaign
As mentioned, I didn’t make my goal of $5k in the 30 days I had, so it has been extended 7 days. So there are FIVE days left to preorder my book. And you should go do that now. Because I don’t think I’ll be doing much to push it (see book & life). I’m already up 13% from last week, so there’s that. And I’m so very grateful for everyone who’s contributed.
I will make the goal. I will publish at the end of August 2021. Everyone who has supported me will get the book and will also get to see some of the behind the scenes stuff and fun stuff. And that’s all that needs to be said.
As long as I can keep up with revisions.
To read more of my weekly whine fests and writing journal journey posts, click here.