I’m fighting a really bad cold, so we’ll see how coherent this is. Then again, I’m tackling the next editing project after I schedule this, so I might be in better shape than . . . what’s for breakfast?
Seriously, this is when I strive to get Book 8 edited before my son gets a 2 week break for Christmas and New Years. I have 3 weeks to get this done and I might even start writing Book 9 to take some of next year’s edge off. I’ll have the night and weekends to write when the little guy is home all day, but that might get undone by biking and handling the social media stuff. It could be even more chaotic if I have a book debut to do, which might be closer than I think. So this push to get the editing off my plate is ambitious, but there is that wrinkle when it comes to Book 8.
For those who have paid attention, you might remember that Book 8 is coming in a lot shorter than the others. I’ve been told not to worry and people have pointed to Discworld as an example of a series with multiple lengths of books. That got my paranoia settled until I made an idiotic mistake. Two actually. I went to look at the outline to get a refresher and grabbed the original one instead of the one I used. Oops. It reminded me that I cut out 4 chapters of traveling and pointless conversations. That stirred some curiosity that should have remained locked away and I spent some time counting out how many pages were in each chapter. I typically average 13-15 ever since the big introduction of world and character ended. Chapter 6 of this book had 8 PAGES:
Hagrid
So I’m rather paranoid and scared that I created plot holes or a flimsy story. The greedy merchant doesn’t have a greedy bone in her body. The journey through the mountains is only mentioned because it was only to get them to a specific location. Other journeys were removed because it was getting ridiculous for monsters to jump them at every turn without the villains behind it. I might be able to add more to the existing scenes, but Chapter 6 has me skittish. The previous edits have always added 10-15 pages, which is something I’m trying to take solace in. It’s just that I’m not sure why this one came out so small when it has a plot line for EVERY character. I did put most of the ‘adventures’ into a separate chapter with a few spanning the book. I really can’t say much here with spoilers. All I’ll say is that the heroes are split up and have to find their way to each other. Some have an easier path than others.
That’s really the big event here. The son has been fighting a cold and his asthma, which has led to him not wanting to eat. I did a lot of cooking and I’m exhausted. Sales are bad and I’m not sure what to do to change that. I did a few interviews that will appear in mid-December and January. Read Tuesday is really all I have as far as ‘marketing’ in December unless Book 6 makes it out in time. All of the blog posts for the grand finale here are ready. All I have is the editing and a few note-based projects. I did get things settled for Project Phoenix and ran it by someone . . . my ‘Yes Person’ who was distracted, but I have to work with what I have.
Goals of the week:
- Edit Book 8 and not cry or go berserk and ruin it.
- Initial notes for a story when my laptop is being used to catch up on ‘Once Upon a Time’ Season 4.
- Parent/teacher conference.
- Get back to biking since I missed most of this week. Hopefully that happens today.
- Add edits to ‘Curse of the Dark Wind’ as editor sends them. Thank her and apologize for silly mistakes.
- Cook dinners including first attempt at Chicken Marsala.
- Set up ‘Allure of the Gypsies’ for Read Tuesday Kindle Countdown.
- Get file ready for possible cover reveal.
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