Since revision this time digs right into the foundation structure of NewBook, a post on where the revision is at the moment seems a good time to discuss the kinds of problems a book’s underpinnings or foundation–the deeper structure–can have, and strategies for fixing same. This is not a problem I have often, but it’s Read More…
Category: Progress
NewBook in the Home Stretch (I hope!) And Soup.
NewBook shed several thousand words when I pulled out the stuff that was on the wrong track, and the stuff that didn’t belong in this book at all. There may be more fossils to be removed but…several thousand new words have come along and are about to make connections that flow back through the other Read More…
NewBook Still Going…
I know I’ve said this before, but here it is again: every writer finds a process that works for *that writer*. Then writers try to describe their processes to normal humans who don’t write, and use metaphors and analogies and make funny faces and gesture with their hands, and say “It’s like….” a lot. And Read More…
Words, Words, and Word Software
My traditional lament for the demise of Word*Star and spot of loathing for MS Word: o waily woe (lament) and grrrr (spot of loathing.) Word*Star did not lose files or parts of files unless you made a really stupid mistake with a dot command. Which I did, once. (Once was enough! That whole unversal action Read More…
Busy With Nothing (Not)
The number of balls in the air varies from day to day. Basic maintenance (at which I’m not as good as some people) always includes some cooking, some barn chores, some “land” chores, some business chores (email, mail, etc.) and some writing. Of the writing some is work on the book, some is work about Read More…
Thirty Thousand…Words
NewBook has thirty thousand + words now and had several slowdowns that didn’t kill it, so…it still wants to be a complete story. It’s being VERY SLOW at letting its chronicler know what it’s really going to be…it’s clearly a Vatta book since we have Ky, Rafe, Stella, Helen, and the twins in it, but Read More…
Progress and Regress
There’s good news and bad news. The good news is that the new Vatta book has hit 50 pages, and though it’s going slowly, it’s still alive so far. Ky and Rafe and Stella sound like themselves, and the twins are a hoot. The bad news is that Audible has gone bananas, peanuts, and crazy-cake Read More…
Copy Edits!
Copy edits arrived this morning. The work space is set up now, with dictionary and Chicago Manual of Style at hand, and several sharp pencils. This is the *next to last* step for me (checking page proofs is the last) and one that’s very important. Even so, if you find a typo in the final Read More…
Is It Done Done, or Half-Done?
Only the Editor knows for sure. But I hope it’s done done and gone, because after a time a book being worked on has definitely lost its savor for the writer. Sent it off yesterday. There wasn’t dancing in the street, because I was stiff from sitting at the computer for hours a day and Read More…
Audio Book & Other Stuff
This week I learned that Brittany Pressley will be narrating the audiobook of COLD WELCOME. She emailed me about characters, pronunciation of names, etc. , and I may have drowned her with information (writer of long novels. Not really good at the elevator pitch.) I also heard from Audible’s Author Care, which has suggestions about Read More…