Year: 2015

I’m at 90% on my Kindle location bar (and have gone from 32 page-swipes of notes and highlights to only 5!) so 90% really isn’t that far from 100% and I’m so excited to be this close to the end of this edit!

It wasn’t a long night after all, but not because I finished quicker than I expected. Oh, no. If you thought so, then you obviously haven’t been reading this blog long enough. :D

I gave up early. I estimated the time it would take today to finish (best case scenario I’ll be done at 11 pm tonight, worst case, tomorrow at 1 pm, haha) and then I assumed I’d hit the best case scenario and went to bed. :D

I’ve been editing today for 1 hour 40 minutes, and I’ve added 558 new words during that time while editing. This makes me really chafe at how slow I’ve been writing lately. There’s no point in it. I can write faster.

Ah well. Thoughts for another time. I need to get back to that copy editing. I’m finally at 50%. ;) (1 hour of the time was writing the new material, the 40 minutes was writing some new material but mostly progressing from 47% to 50% on the Kindle progress bar for my book. At that rate… Ouch. I don’t even want to think about it. I’m hoping it’s not true.)

47% is still a long way from 100% but that’s where I’m at now. It’s going to be a long night. :(

That’s how far I am on my editing—40% done. Supposedly. I happen to know though that a huge part of the “needs work” stuff is yet to come.

I took a break at lunch and never went back but now that supper is over, I’m going to have to put my nose to the grindstone and work, work, work! :o

I started editing the book last night. Yesterday I worked on cover stuff and I’m certain now that I’m going to take a week this year and spend it learning as much as I can about image editing and design. I use GIMP, which I’m quite happy with, to be honest, but design isn’t something I’m that comfortable with. I can repair old photos, which is the first thing I learned to do on Photoshop over 15 years ago, but that certainly doesn’t help me create a vision for a book cover and then translate that into an actual cover.

I’m excited that I got that stuff out of the way though, including the cover copy for the book, listing out my keywords, etc, so publishing will go smoothly.

Then I started the edits. Since this book is going to require an unusual number of edits from me, I made a copy of the draft specifically for the purpose of comparing it at the end of my work using Word’s compare feature.

I want to see what I’ve changed, but mostly I just want to feel comfortable making all the changes. Since I work in one doc, I don’t want to have to rely on going back to one of my many (many, many) copies if something goes wrong, but I also know better than to use the track changes in a doc I plan to turn into an ebook.

Track changes will kill your formatting and create a mess to be cleaned up. My suggestion is to never use it if you can help it. If you send a doc to an editor or readers for comments, just read off it and manually make your edits in your original draft.

I’ll just do a legal blackline compare at the end and make sure everything looks good.

Now, it’s time to finish those edits. I have a lot to do, and very little time to do it in! :D

Looking back, I can see quite clearly that yesterday’s decision to work on my Calibre library was nothing more than a classic case of avoidance. I spent a significant amount of time on that project, with very little to show for it. I think I deleted about 40 books from my main library while I deleted a ton of books off my Kindle and my Nook. :o

I finished reading my book today. The section that caused me so many issues day before yesterday still dragged (I reread it). It’s terrible. I know it is. But once I got past those couple of chapters, the story really took off again and I really enjoyed the rest of the book.

So yes, maybe I will have to do a bit more work on the story which is a little unusual for me once I’ve finished a book, but maybe not as much work as I was worried I would have to do. :) Whew.

Now I need to get back to it because I have quite a lot still to do today and it’s already 6 pm. I actually have to finish the fixes and the copy edit tonight. No choice. It has to be done. Woo hoo. :D

After a glance at my calender where I’ve been keeping up with my activities the last few days, I’ve just realized I haven’t actually been reading slower at all, it just felt that way.

I’ve been noticing ever more often just how flawed my perception is of the passage of time.

According to my logged times (because why not, right?) I’ve only spent about 2 hours and 37 minutes reading my book. That’s not bad for 49% of about 50,000 words, while making highlights and notes along the way and catching typos too. I took a break at 1:00 and then a break at 3:00 and I haven’t gotten back to it yet.

I can tell from looking at the calendar that these times are right, and yet … it makes no sense to the rational part of my brain. The times don’t match up to my feelings of how long I spent reading.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a new thing. I should be used to it by now.

I should probably try to improve my perception of time but is that even possible?

Ah well. Getting back to it now! :)

It’s 6:30 and I’m about halfway through reading my book. I’ve been reading it on my Kindle so I had to stop for a while because the battery started to die on me; it wasn’t fully charged when I started. According to my Kindle location bar I’m 49% through the book. Everything was going really good until the last two chapters. I’ve made a lot of highlights. The writing there’s either rougher than the rest or I just became more critical, knowing what I know about the ending. Honestly, I think I was becoming more critical because I expected problems so the low battery was probably good timing.

Regardless, the reading is taking longer than I expected, and I don’t know if it’s because I’m reading too slow and too picky or what. But it usually does. I never get the time estimates on this stuff right. When I read one of my books for fun, I can read it in the same amount of time I can read any book. But when I read it critically, it takes me three or four times as long. (Even though this time I was supposedly trying not to read critically, because I just wanted to figure out if the book worked! However, I should have expected otherwise, because I can’t bring myself not to mark up things I want to fix. :D

A lot of writers say that you can’t edit your own work but I don’t really believe that as a blanket statement. I think it’s true for some people, and I think some people can edit their own work just fine, kind of like the way some people have no idea how off key they’re singing, and some people (like me) have no problem noticing at all how badly they sound when they try to sing a tune. ;)

I do think a second set of eyes for continuity issues is usually helpful although I don’t actually use a second set of eyes. The truth is if I knew someone who liked my work and would read it in a fairly timely manner I’d probably be willing to send it for a second look, but usually I’m in a hurry to publish once I’m done so I’m okay with taking a chance that I’ll miss something.

While waiting for my charger to charge my Kindle I watch two episodes of Syfy’s Z Nation. It was corny and it was mostly a gore fest but I enjoyed it anyway. One of the characters—the sandy-haired boy—I remember him from an episode of Stargate SG-1 in which he played Jack’s clone. He was much younger at the time but I remember that face. :) I’ll have to go look it up on IMDB but I’m pretty sure I’m correct about that. Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis were a couple of of my all time favorite shows (still are really). :)

Anyway, I bought Dragon 13, but it sucked so bad I gave up within 2 days and deleted it off my computer. I’m using the voice recognition on my cell phone to speak into Evernote for this post, which I’m going to copy and paste here (which I did). Of course I’ll have to edit it (yep, I did) but frankly I think I should have just stuck with this if I wanted to do any dictating because it tends to do a better job than Dragon. I’m sure if I did more training or something, Dragon could have worked but it really didn’t like my computer and I didn’t like it on my computer so I got rid of it. I don’t do dictation well at all, but I do occasionally have a thought that could turn into a bit of a scene that might actually get me a few extra words here and there. :)

And now my phone’s about to die too so I think I’m going to swap it out for my Kindle and get back to reading my book while my phone charges. :D I’ve got 39 minutes left of the first episode of Hinterland. Maybe I’ll finish it first. ;)

As you can no doubt tell, dictating isn’t necessarily great for me because I ramble quite a bit. :)

It’s a paradox, I tell you. I don’t take days off, and yet, I take a lot of days off. :) I guess I should just admit that it’s not that I don’t take days off (because clearly I do), I just don’t have dedicated work days like I used to have when I had a day job, so every day is a possible work day, just not a probable one at the moment. I’ve been taking more days off than I’ve been working this month. Ack!

I don’t like the week/weekend lifestyle and I never have. With this career, I don’t have to force myself into it and I really love that. Now if only I could finish these books I’ve got going so that I don’t have to worry about having to trade this job in for another job at some point in the future. Sooner rather than later, truth be told—writing and publishing is a bit like construction work, either feast or famine. I had my feast a few months ago. Famine’s on the way. ;)

Which leads me to a confession: I haven’t even started reading my finished novel yet. What to do? And why do I keep putting off the reading of that book?! I assume (1) I’m scared of what I’ll find, (2) I think it’ll get better if I wait, (3) I won’t be so hard on myself if I give it time, and (4) I just don’t want to do it right now.

Ah well. It’s time I get over all 4 of those possible reasons and get started. It’s 10:50 am right now. I’m going to start reading that book no later than 11:30, no matter what else crops up before then, and I’m going to finish reading it by 5 pm. I can do that.

The book I started reading to chase away my inner critic was pretty good … until it wasn’t. It was a big book, and after eight and a half hours of reading time I’d made it about seventy percent of the way through the book. But, today, thinking about sitting down to finish that book—I just can’t take it any more. I should have picked a more interesting book, but I’ll say in my defense, I really expected better from that particular book! I won’t be finishing it.

However, now when I read my own book, if I don’t like it better, I’ll know I have a serious problem on my hands. ;)

I was going to work on paperbacks today but I think I’ll just start reading my book. I want it done as quickly as possible. It’s been a year since I started it; it’s time it was done. Then I’ll publish it, finish formatting the paperbacks so I’m caught up, and then turn all my attention back to writing.

But I think I’ll have a nap first. :D

After that, maybe I’ll see just how fast I can get all these things done. I’m ready to move on, and getting it all done this weekend would be a huge score for me! I doubt I’ll be so productive as that, but it isn’t going to hurt to pretend I have a chance. ;)

I’ve already finished reading what I’ve written of the story I’m going to be working on next. I got a few copy edits out of the way, which is nice because that’s the part I most hate at the end. I wasn’t quite in the same spot at the end that I thought I was, so picking the writing back up might be trickier than I expected.

I’m writing this because I needed a few moments to decide whether I was going to read the finished book now or take some time to get started writing the other book first. It’s a dilemma. If I start the other book, I’ll probably be wallowing in the wrong tone for the other book, and if I read the other book now, I’ll probably think it sucks and have trouble getting into it. I had trouble getting into the unfinished book. I can’t decide why because I’ve read it before and loved the same parts that are now making me feel kind of blah.

I’m going to trust my gut though and assume the blah feeling is coming from my work on the other book. They’re very different stories, but mostly I’m just in a critical, problem-solving frame of mind right now because of my concerns about the other book.

Hmm. I should read someone else’s book before I read my own. To get me back into a less critical frame of mind. Possibly even read my unfinished book again, after reading something else first.

Ha! I think I’ll give it a try.

I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m not done with the book I finished today. I’ve revisited it several times, adding little bits here and there and I still have the feeling that it’s just not done, that I’m forgetting something really important.

I want to read it, but I sort of don’t, because I’m afraid of what I’ll find.

On the other hand, I do want to read the book I’m about to get back to, the one I left off at 13,146 words in the middle of a major action scene, meaning it should be easy to pick back up.

I’m debating the wisdom of reading the unfinished book first, and then the finished one, so I can have a bit of distance. Then again, what’s distance really good for when you’re just looking to see if the story is satisfying?

And why doesn’t it feel done? What does it need from me at this point … besides another 10,000 words that I’d rather not write on a book I already know isn’t going to sell? This was a book written for me, and it’s supposed to at least make me happy.

… a few minutes later …

I added another little bit to the book. Now it feels more complete. I’m still not exactly happy but it’s better.

Anyway, I closed the document so I wouldn’t be tempted to touch it again until I’ve read it. We’ll see now what I think after I read the thing. :)

Which is great news. I’ve ended up with 1,183 words this morning. My timer’s sitting at 3:04:13.9. I’ve been writing since about 8 o’clock this morning but breaks eat up a lot of time. I get stiff if I sit too long and I know it’s not good for me so I can live with that. :)

I’m sending this to my Kindle and I’ll be reading it later today or tomorrow (in between the paperback formatting work I’m going to do instead of write), and today I’m going to keep going on another book. I’m hopeful the ending will turn out to be good enough as is. If not, I’ll add another short scene, but I’m not doing that until I can read the whole book and see how I feel about it! Why do the extra work only to realize I’ll need to cut it out later?

 

I should stop making predictions about my days because I invariably get it wrong. Yesterday wasn’t a good writing day, not because it couldn’t have been but because I just didn’t get much written.

Today is going better, but a bit slow. I’ve managed to make it to 325 words in about 2 hours, after deleting bits and pieces here and there in the last few chapters. I actually think the story in this book is done. I’m just having trouble wrapping it up so it feels done.

I needed the break so I wrote this, but I should get back to it. I’m hoping when I come back to the blog it will be to say I’m done.

I really want to get back to one of the other books I’m writing. I’m about 13,000 words in on the one I’m most anxious about and I’m far enough from the end that the writing should go a lot faster than the writing I’ve been doing on this one.

I’m ambivalent about yesterday’s success. I wrote over a thousand words, but I know I could have done more. And even though I’m no longer using my calender to schedule my time, I’m still doing some tracking. I put in entries for what I’ve done versus what I’m going to do.

What I’ve discovered over three days of consistently tracking this time is that I stay busy. I jump around a lot, doing a lot of little things throughout the day, and when I look at my calendar, I see a need to avoid a lot of these little things in favor of an extra few minutes writing. Because as I’ve said before, getting started is the hardest part for me. If I can get started more often, I’ll have more blocks of writing time, and I’ll be hitting 6 hours of writing each day before I know it.

Anyway, I’m not going to drag this out. I’m excited that I made progress yesterday, and there is something about not labeling a day a success or a failure based on some random metric that’s very freeing—invigorating even. I think this way of thinking is going to have long-term benefits.

I’m feeling like an optimist today. It’s going to be a great day. :)

Maybe there’s too much time left in the day for me to say. Without a schedule or adherence to a routine, it’s kind of hard for me to tell.

My timer is sitting at 00:53:09.8, so I’ve put not quite an hour of time into my writing today. I’ve read fiction off and on all morning and into the early afternoon, coming in at about 3.5 hours so far. It’s a good book so it’s been more compelling to turn to it instead of writing my own because I’m at a tricky spot where I’m not sure exactly what’s happening next.

That said, I got to add back a bit of a scene I’d written but deleted a few days ago and then tweak it so that it fit properly into the story. That led to me ending my less than one hour of writing with a solid 948 finished words. I mean, I’m happy with them so the only way I’d be tempted to change them is if something in the story changes and I need to make an adjustment. I certainly think the writing’s strong enough as is and I’m happy with the story.

I just feel like I’m having to be careful not to rev this book up again. The problem is that this is a middle book in a series where there’s definitely an overarching plot. However, this particular book has hinged on a particular event coming to pass and I’m in the middle of writing that event. As soon as it’s over, the book is done.

The tricky part is that I’m not actually sure if the climax has already passed. I think it has. And yet, I’m feeling as if I’m trying to build up to something else happening and if I do, that could extend the book past where I already think it’s going to go.

It sounds crazy to say I don’t know if the climax has come and gone but this book is about relationships as much as it’s about action and there was some definite resolution there that does have the feeling of a climax to it.

Except the event the book is about hadn’t arrived and I couldn’t just leave that out after setting it all up. And now that I’m writing this down, I do feel like something’s coming and I need to write that so that this story can end with a strong sense of satisfaction for the reader. I don’t think what I’m writing now is just the wrap up, or if it is, I don’t have a good handle on it, meaning reader satisfaction is going to be in short supply if I don’t figure this out.

Poo.

I guess I better get back to it. I’d like to get in several more hours of writing before I fall victim to the lure of other people’s fiction again.

I’ve been working on formatting my paperbacks today. I haven’t yet made a lot of progress because today turned out to be household project day. I needed a few repairs done and since I can’t control when my help is available, I couldn’t control the fact that today turned out to be that day.

However, a few projects that needed doing are done and I have only a few more to go. What this means though is that I’m not going to get as much of my paperback formatting done today as I’d wanted. Meaning I think I’ll set aside Friday this week to work on paperbacks again.

I want to finish the paperback stuff so I can turn my full attention back to my writing. Then, going forward, I’m going to finish writing and then do all the publishing stuff for a book including the paperback formatting before I start another book. Some people work well switching between projects that are at different stages and even I do well with this when writing, but I don’t handle this well when doing publishing tasks because I’m not good at switching my focus between different types of tasks.

Let me put it this way, when something has my attention, it pretty much has all my attention. I don’t often have any left for other stuff. It’s just the way I work and working with this tendency instead of against it should keep me more productive and moving forward at a faster pace than trying to make myself work another way.

Ah well. I’ve got just a little bit of time before I have to get back to those projects and finish them up, so I better make good use of it! Blog posts do not format my books for me. ;D

A lot of the issues that have caused my new year to get off to a slow start have been resolved (or mostly so) and that anxiety has eased. I still feel a little out of sorts for some unidentified reason, but overall I’m feeling really good about setting aside the excessive forum and blog reading and the attempt to fit my writing to a schedule (and maybe this change in routine is part of the reason I feel out of sorts—reading those things and playing around with my calendar had become firmly entrenched in my daily routine).

Since I’m not trying to adhere to any specific routine, I read a book this morning.

Now I’m about to start writing the end of that book I’m working on. I’m excited to see if I’ll reach six hours of writing time today. I hope so, but I’m aware that it’s the afternoon already (1:34 pm) and that I definitely feel odd today. Sometimes when I finish a book I don’t feel crisp afterward. I feel disconnected from the real world, if that makes sense. It makes me feel weird and ready to get right back to reading another book so the feeling goes away.

I’ve already had to fight off the urge to read one of my own books when I had a thought about a particular scene. The urge was strong and I had to really resist it, knowing that I really want to work on the end of my current book! Funny how we can sometimes actually, truly want to do one thing and still let ourselves be lured away to do something else instead. Or maybe that’s just a problem for me, but I don’t think so.

Anyway, off to do some real writing.