June 15, 2022
Week 88
Emotional State: Superpowered Zombie
Books
I’m chugging along on edits for the cozy mystery. It wasn’t in horrible shape, but I do need to shore up the mystery and make sure the clues and red herrings are in place. I also wanted to update the personality of my main character, Jenna, because it was lacking.
I found some of her thoughts and statements to feel younger than she should sound at forty-two. And then I realized that how she thinks and talks is a little like me and I don’t think I sound like I’m 49. Or maybe I do and I just write young. Or maybe I don’t and I should, but if you haven’t heard me say it before, I’ll say it again. I’m GenX and I’m all out of cares about how I dress or sound.
Anyhow, the edits are going well and I’m full steam ahead on publishing with Vella. I think I’ll really like the characters, including the talking animals, the more I work with it. I’m already jazzed about them, so that’s something. I’m even managing to buff up the romance a bit more, since it’s total weak sauce in round 1.
Speaking of oomph, for some reason I’ve just launched a new superpower of only sleeping five hours a night. This means that I can get all the things done, but it also makes a really long day, since it starts at 6 am and ends around 12:30 am – without an alarm. Yeah, I didn’t plan to be this sleep deprived, it’s just happening.
Of course, this means I’m a zombie midway through the day and find it challenging to focus on all the work and projects. And if I have a choice between chilling out or doing some editing, you can guess which way I lean.
And I also have decided to maybe, but not definitely, go back to drinking coffee. I’ve been yearning for it recently. It probably doesn’t help that both my characters in my two series love coffee. Maybe the writing is subliminally influencing my brain and that’s why I crave it. Or maybe I’ve denied myself for too long and that’s why I crave it.
Who knows with my brain these days.
Other Projects
I’ve continued to crank out the stitches on my cross-stitch project and the face has come alive. It’s a little freaky how lifelike it looks, and it made me wonder if the people who designed screens and pixels had cross-stitch in mind when they did so. It’s become my bastion of nighttime activity when I get tired. It’s easy to zone out to a basic TV show while I fill in little squares with thread.
In other news, I have some big projects to tackle over the next few weeks, most of it around books and publishing. Besides finishing the edits on Space Between series Book 2 and on the Merryton Mews Cozy series, I also need to sort out the website, a reader magnet for the cozy, an automated email series for the Cozy, Book 2 formatting, Cozy formatting, covers, nonfiction posts for Medium, reading, etc. etc.
For the website, the big question remains as to how to combine the two series since one is urban fantasy and the other is paranormal cozy mystery. Do I do a separate book page? Have a separate author’s page within the site, since I am using a variation of my name to keep the genres separate? Mix and match? Not worry about it?
I’ll see where it shakes out. Website updates can be painful, and I won’t have a proper cover for the cozy yet, just the image I’m using on Vella. I guess I could create a book cover from that image.
I’ll add it to the list. Sigh.
For the cozy reader magnet, I know who is going to be the main character – Trudy Milne, my protagonist’s aunt – but I’m not sure what mystery she’ll solve. I think I’m more excited it’ll take place in the ’80s than anything else. Oh nostalgia. It’s going to be so much fun to write about rotary phones, roller skates, station wagons, and all the great music.
I’ve also continued to crank out the stitches on my cross-stitch project and the face has come alive. It’s a little freaky how lifelike it looks
Once I get to it. I still have all the edits and two other books to edit and a novella to write. So, yay. Projects. Guess I really need that 18 hour day after all.
And the coffee. I definitely need the coffee.