We got our 4th Nor’Easter in 2 weeks on Wednesday and this one had to be the worst of the lot. It started off relatively tame, but then dumped snow over night to many people’s surprise. We have an extra car here too, so Thursday started with digging my wife’s car out since we couldn’t fit on the driveway. Not that I had to take my son to school. He was off on Wednesday, which I expected. Thursday was a second day off that I didn’t see coming and it almost made me cry. We did have fun playing in the snow for two hours, but that was really draining and I barely had the energy to begin with.
The source of my exhaustion was that my main goal was to finish the first draft of War of Nytefall: Lost. The original plan was to finish it Friday afternoon and rest until Sunday when I could start a final edit on War of Nytefall: Loyalty. It’s going to be a rough job since my son starts his Spring Break on Thursday and then there’s Passover starting on Friday. With all of this in mind, I factored in Wednesday being a snow day and worked hard accordingly. I didn’t expect Thursday, which threw everything off and forced me to pull a longish night on Friday. Some people around here kept talking to me as well, so I had to work with no back support and in a room that is starting to make me feel very drowsy. I managed to get the first draft done though, but I do fear that I may have rushed the ending. The last section is only a page that I had more planned for, but may work better as an ominous teaser.
Needless to say, those invisible anacondas (panic attacks) have been working overtime this week. I’ve kept them at bay until I try to go to bed. Then, they show up and I keep fearing that I’ll fall asleep and never wake up. This fatigue and fear compounds itself over the week, which gets slightly undone by some extra sleep on the weekend. Not that I’m getting that this time, so we’ll see how long I last next week. Editing isn’t going to be a tough thing since I already went through it a few times. This is to put my mind at ease and make sure I didn’t make any continuity mistakes with the second one. That shouldn’t set off any really bad panic attacks and I’m going to minimize my news watching again. I fell off that wagon because it felt so much was happening.
As far as the next release goes, I’m still aiming for early April. My hope is for the 7th, but that’s the end of my son’s break and my birthday weekend. Things might get a little shaky during that time, which is why I’m hoping to get more volunteers to help promote this book. I put out a call for guest post volunteers last weekend, but I’ll probably have to do one on a weekday too. Weekend traffic is very lacking. I’m having trouble thinking up good topics since I used so much for my blog, so I have an option for a standard html if I can’t think of anything. Feel free to volunteer here if you want.
That’s really it. I’m gearing up for the Spring Break period, so I’m just trying to clear the big things off my plate. My extended plan is to take the week after my son’s break to relax and recover (if people here will let me). After that, I’ll be editing Quest of the Broken-Hearted and preparing to write War of Nytefall: Temptation. At this rate, I might be able to finish this year’s releases and the final Dawn Addison story before my son hits summer break. Considering he doesn’t have summer school this year, getting that far would be amazing. Then, I can spend July and August with him and only having to worry about blog posts and some outlining. I’d ask what could go wrong, but I think we’ve established that something will go south.
So, what are the goals?
- Edit War of Nytefall: Loyalty
- Prepare requested guest posts
- Work a bit on June blog posts
- Continue reading Dragonball Z. Just got to the first two androids and waiting on the next volume to come in
- Start playing Lego Indiana Jones with kid on his break
- Brace self for Passover and lack of pizza
- Maybe find a way to get a little extra sleep
A side thing: Shannon Thompson put up a really interesting post on Ageism in Publishing. I really recommend reading it. In fact, it got me wondering about the ages of authors when they finally made it. This infographic came up, so take a look:
Yahoo Image Search
Legends of Windemere 
I know what you mean about “some people around here keep talking to me”! H wondered what’s I had done around here all day when I took the day off to just write…not much since I was constantly interrupted.
You’ve got a lot on your plate Charles. ~Elle
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Thanks. I get asked that a lot since I’m the stay-at-home. Seems to just ignore all the stuff I do.
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They would be lost without you. I keep telling myself that…
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I’ve tried to explain that, but nobody believes me. Never given the chance to test that theory either.
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Sounds like quite he week for you, I hope the weather starts behaving for you. Good luck next week.
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Thanks. Weather looks a little better, but it’s going to be tough to get the editing done. I might have to put in a few late nights after spending a day wrangling the kid.
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Good luck with that, late nights can be hard to do, at least for me.
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Same here. Not as young as I used to be.
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Interruptions are killers of productivity. I did well today though. I’d blog about it, but a new review post is nice to leave up. As far as that graphic goes, I’m already over the hill. No breakthrough for me apparently. Remember the deadlines are ones we set ourselves. I need to write some blog tour posts and haven’t even started. We talked before, but I’ll do whatever you want for the release. Let me know if you want to do something special, send me something, whatever you like. I can always recycle Lisa’s Windemere poster too.
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I’m sure there are some authors that made it big after the final age on the graphic. One thing I’ve noticed is that modern writing seems to favor the ‘young prodigy’ for some reason, which is rather frustrating. Very true about those deadlines, but it’s still frustrating to have them go astray. Mostly because it feels like whenever one goes down, it takes weeks to get back on track and other things fall apart.
I was thinking of doing a Lisa interview soon after the release. Still trying to decide between Mab and Clyde. I’ll have to think about the Windemere poster since this is vampire as well as fantasy.
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Don’t have to recycle it at all. Just an option. I really need to get writing some release posts. I’m sure once I start it won’t be that tough. I just don’t want to give up productive time on my new project.
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I’m with you on the productive time. Trying to decide if I want to finish the guest posts or dive into editing. Always feels like a battle between two priorities.
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Yup. I can work on interviews, work on promo posts, or work on my story. Can’t do it all at once.
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I’ve tried and it just leads to failure across the board.
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Oh, the dreaded interruptions. As if writing wasn’t hard enough without them. Anyway, loved the infographic. Very interesting to see where everyone’s career took them.
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It really does make it look like the ‘young author’ thing isn’t the norm. Wish more people realized it takes a lot of hard work and time.
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Sorry the anxiety issues have been so bad, and that you didn’t get as much done as you’d have liked to… Including sleep.
Good luck with next week’s goals.
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Thanks. I’m trying to hold onto hope that I can get the editing done before Thursday. The beta readers told me that the story and characters work, so I might just do a spelling/grammar run. I think a lot of this is still new series jitters. Been far too long since I was in this position with a core Windemere series.
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Very interesting chart, Charles. Lego Indiana Jones sounds terrific. Lack of pizza not so terrific. How many snow days have you had? More than 5?
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2 in a row this week. Might have had about 2 others this school year. These were the worst because they hit when I was running a tight writing schedule.
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And when they hit back to back it’s much worse. Best to you, Charles.
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Thanks. I’m just hoping to get most work done before spring break on Thursday. Not really positive on that.
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Oh that’s right. The rest of the world has March school vacation. Up here in New England we get a week in February and a week in April. Hope you have time to work before the school break.
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We have the February and April one too. I wouldn’t mind so much if I didn’t have so much to do. On the plus side, the cover for the new book might be done early enough for me to do a reveal next Sunday.
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That will be exciting to do your cover reveal. Fingers crossed. Looking forward to Sunday.
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Thanks. Me too. 😀
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😀
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We’ve gotten the occasional and unexpected snow here in the south, but it mainly melts by the next day – I have friends in MA and they have kept me apprised of the snow woe! I’ll bet some of Spring Break will be taken up with makeup days…Beware cabin fever!
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The schools here factor in a few snow days, so they aren’t going to cut into the break. It would cause a lot of trouble too. Take from the beginning and you go into Passover, so Jewish students will be taken out anyway. Take from the end and you have the kids go back on a Thursday or Friday, which feels oddly cruel.
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