The main goal of the week was editing War of Nytefall: Loyalty in preparation of the April 7th release.  I feel about 100 pages short by the time my son’s Spring Break started on Thursday.  The trifecta of this, Passover, and Easter are making this a test of patience and time management.  Convincing an 8-year-old to give you the morning to edit doesn’t really work.  My hope is that I can the lion’s share done tomorrow and then I have a 3 hour period on Tuesday when my son has a martial arts camp.  There’s a public library just down the block from the dojo, so maybe I can work there instead driving all the way home.  Plug in the head phones, hook into the Wifi, and pray I can find a seat.  Going home might be easier actually.

All I can say is that ‘things happened’.  Honestly, I was making good time on Monday until that night became a disaster.  Been battling panic attacks since then.  Feels like I sleep (fearing that I won’t wake up due to the anxiety), get up in the morning, and then work while my frustration over these personal issues grow into another late night trudge through an emotional morass.  This week isn’t going to be any easier since the kid is going to wear me down and he’s become obsessed with Lego Indiana Jones.  This game has bigger levels and is simply harder than Lego Batman.  It’s fairly merciless and makes me wonder if the company made Lego Batman easier as an apology.  I mean, how is an 8-year-old supposed to avoid spike and dart traps?  For that matter, the almost 38-year-old was a disaster at the beginning too.  You get swarmed so often in that game.

For those that noticed this week, the cover for War of Nytefall: Loyalty was revealed and it means I only have to finish my editing.  My plan is to hit publish on Friday night and spend next Saturday morning setting up all the promo sites.  I have some people helping with that, but it’s going to be a challenge.  Just thinking about how Ichabod Brooks and Bedlam had such a problem even though I promoted them the same way as Legends of Windemere.  This is instilling the fear that very few people are interested beyond that series.  I’m already getting lectures and questions about why I’m doing another series since the first one didn’t get me a contract, tv show, or movie.  It’s like people think the only way to help me is to break my spirit and erase my hope.  As if I’ll suddenly agree, put my notebooks away and take on a soul-crushing office job with a smile?  Who really thanks others for crushing dreams instead of helping?  No wonder I sometimes have issues with humans.

As you can tell, I have the pre-release jitters and doubts.  I don’t know how people will take to Clyde’s gang and allies being meaner and bloodier than the Windemere champions.  From what I can tell, many think the vampires will be the bad guys and face mortal hunters or something.  Some don’t realize Clyde is a vampire and think he’s the one fighting them.  All of this is showing me a challenge with the vampire genre.  I think it has the most amount of structured preconceptions out there, so people don’t allow for a lot of flexibility.  You inevitably get compared to a previous incarnation even if you took a little from everywhere or went completely off the reservation.  We’ll see what happens, but I’m betting on a few panic attacks over this.

Considering my son is home all week, I’m not going to expect a lot of progress.  The following week is going to be slow too since it starts with my birthday and I have some meetings.  Might not be a bad idea that I get a break right after publishing and try to do a little more with the promos.  The next project is editing Quest of the Broken-Hearted, which will be a summer release.  Might do an edit on War of Nytefall: Lost after that and then start writing War of Nytefall: Temptation.  I have April, May, and half of June to do all that on top of writing the finale for Dawn Addison.  That will clear up the summer for outlining and family time.  Might work on the next Ichabod collection during that time too since short stories can handle more breaks.  This is the yearly stuff though . . . I still haven’t even decided if I’m continuing Bedlam.  Hate to retire Lloyd and Cassidy, but people seem to enjoy seeing them on the blog instead of buying books with them.  Makes it hard to pay for cover art and promos when people don’t seem to care.  Doesn’t help that I haven’t talk to Jon since January, so I feel like an ass now.

Goals for the week?

1. Father/son time
2. Finish editing War of Nytefall: Loyalty.
3. Publish War of Nytefall: Loyalty.
4. Review War of Nytefall: Temptation outline.
5. Decide if I’m doing anything for my birthday.
6. Read more DBZ.  Up to the Android Saga, but still waiting on Volume 7.
7. Prep June posts if nothing else to do.  Maybe just one or two in order to make it an easy job for my ‘week off’.
8. Passover and Easter.  Guess I should mention those.
9. Show War of Nytefall: Loyalty cover art again:

Cover Art by Alison Hunt