May 26, 2021
Day 235, Week 33
- Words: 77,388
- Revision v3 Chapters: 8
- Emotional State: Drowning in Words
The Book
The Book now owns me and all my time when I’m not working. I’m beginning to hate it…but just a little. I feel like a hamster who keeps trying to get off the wheel and someone nudges me back on. But there’s no reward, except more words to revise, refine, and hopefully get right before it goes out the door.
I’m sure you’re thinking – it can’t be that bad. At one point last week, I was revising draft 2 – my 10k words a week – while going back to the beginning chapters and revising draft 3 to get them ready for beta readers.
Because while I’d love to just send it to them with all the highlighting and comments from my editor, I don’t think that would be a fun or easy read.
I’ve finished draft 2 now and am just plowing through – like a pickup truck with a plow on the front – draft 3. Okay, maybe not quite that rough, but it’s what it feels like.
I will say I’m fixing – I hope – some of the clunkier wording in the book. But honestly, I have no idea if I am. It’s words, words, words for days and I might just be losing my mind a little.
I’ve shared the prologue and Chapter 1 with my fan group and that was a lot scary than I thought. I’m a lot more numb to the beta readers though. Maybe once the comments come back, the numbness will go away, much like a drilled tooth after novacaine. Or maybe not.
Cover art and cover design was also being managed last week. I had a week to look at all the covers I could, find what I liked, what I didn’t like, do research in my genre, realize the mainstream US covers are a) all the same; and b) not as exciting as the European covers; and put together a mockup of what I would like my cover to be.
It would be exciting if I knew what that was. But I didn’t. I had no idea. None. Nada.
So I found a cover for a series I liked, did a little sad attempt at drawing and it…was okay. I put together my three concepts, all very different. And today, I have my conversation with the designers.
What if my cover sucks because I can’t convey what I want in a 30 minute conversation?
Yeah.
Life & Marketing
Work is killing. I am not just drowning in a sea of my own words, but also the tsunami of my writers’ words. In any given week, I normally have 20 – 25k of words to review.
I long for those days.
This week alone, I had that much on Monday. I’ve since reviewed that much on Tuesday. I’ve still got about 8k to review today…and more is on the way. I can’t keep up.
And that means I can’t keep up on anything else either. Social media, blog posts, Medium posts, interactions, my fan groups, my newsletter. I’m cramming those in like a lego builder with a 1 knob lego – wherever I can and it’s not looking pretty.
But it was my eleventh wedding anniversary on Saturday and my husband and I – GASP – ate out for the first time in 16 months. It was lovely, but not as lovely as I expected. I don’t know what I expected – normalcy? It wasn’t like it was before. Masks everywhere, spaces between tables, paper menus, limited seating time.
We planned to also have a drink at the bar, but couldn’t because that was also seating arranged. If this is the new normal, I’ve got to say, I’m not a fan. But I’ll roll with the punches. Especially since we came home, sat outside in our backyard and preceded to drink 2 1/2 more bottles of fizzy.
Adapt or die. We chose to adapt.
To read more of my weekly whine fests and writing journal journey posts, click here.