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Progress Report – Wine Bottles & Broomsticks

Winebottles_Broomsticks

I haven’t made nearly as much progress as I’d have liked after the first full draft was completed. My goal was to have it revised by last week, but that just didn’t happen. Work, side projects and working-out have gotten in the way. This weekend wasn’t any different. Yesterday I spent two hours at the gym, then we did a family day – movies & dinner. After a gentle prod from the twitterverse, I got kicked into high gear again and sat down to continue revising. So far, I’ve written 3 new chapters and extended another one by about a thousand words. Today’s goal, after laundry, shopping, and cooking is to work those three chapters in and finish revising and first-round editing the final third of the book.

Considering that the last book I tried to write took about 10 years to finish and I haven’t even thought about hitting it again for revisions, this is excellent progress for me. For those interested, I am planning a second book and there is a lot of material in this one that will feed into the second. For the second, I’ve got a basic outline, a few scenes have been sketched and there’s a theme I’m working around. So, all-in-all, not much to show, yet, but I’m working on it.

When I get this one buttoned up for a 2nd full draft, you’ll hear me crowing all about it. So, back to it…

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Progress Report

Winebottles_Broomsticks

I feel like I should do this more often, but I’m not sure I’d say too much that was useful. As it is, I don’t know that I’ve had anything to say in a while. All that said, it’s been a couple of weeks since I declared Draft #1 of Wine Bottles & Broomsticks fully drafted. What has been amazing to me in the past few weeks has been the response from beta readers to the book. Not only have all of them actually finished the book, they’ve all done so quickly and provided phenomenal feedback. I spent a half an hour on the phone with my sister this evening discussing character motivation and her general reaction to the book.

Where do I stand right now? First off, I want to say that writing this story was exceptionally fast. The bulk of it was actually written during free time on two trips out of state for training. So, basically 40% of the book was written over the course of less than 2 weeks. With that in mind, I’m aiming (probably optimistically) at having a fully expanded, edited draft ready by the end of the month. This is possible largely because virtually all of the readers thus far have provided feedback that hits the same spots – ‘expand this’ ‘what about that’ and so on. So, now I’ve got a plan to expand the manuscript from just shy of 60K to near 80K. In the mean-time, the channillo.com will continue on with the early draft and probably sometime on Sunday, I’ll turn up the crank to release a chapter a week for a while, then maybe up to a chapter a day. Then, I’ll let it sit out there for a few weeks.

My goal is to have this thing ready for a copy editor roll over it sometime early in February. Then, I guess I’ll see if I can drum up any interest from a publisher. If not, well, I’ve got cover art and the book will have been edited, so self-publishing it is.

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Ending on a high note

IMG_0501Yup, I’m going to do it, I’m going to write the obligatory end-of-year post where I gush about my year. So, bear with me, it’s therapeutic to over-share.

This past year was a good one for myself and my family both in terms of personal victories and family victories. Sure, our son had an appendectomy and we almost had to pay for it out of pocket, and yes I got a layoff notice in June, but here I am on Dec 31 feeling like this has been one of the best years we’ve had in a long time. Long time.

I started the year with one goal – Finish my book, that book being ‘The Fifth Sword’ and I did YAY ME! – except the book generally sucks, so there’s that, but it’s done and I did it and someday, when I’m ready, I’ll go back and rewrite it.

The layoff notice I got wasn’t a sure thing and it didn’t end up coming to pass, but it worried me- a lot. However, as bad as it seemed at the time, it got my ass in gear, with special thanks to a lot of helpful advice and encouragement from friends, family and wonderful folks out on various social media. Now I’ve got a new job, with a lot more opportunity (for both success & failure, but I’m working on the success part every day.)

In August, I did something that I didn’t ever expect. I decided to write a humorous book about witches and fashion and all sorts of things that I find funny. Not that I’m against people wanting to look and feel good about themselves, mind you, I just find there’s a lot of humor around that sort of thing. I love working on the book and it sucks a hell of a lot less than book #1

Interestingly enough, my new job is proving to be exceptionally stressful. Largely because it is new and I don’t know squat about healthcare. I’ve got to lean all my weight against my skills in strategic planning, design and data analysis. Seems to be working. Today, the last workday of the year, I had a meeting that’s been postponed for about a month, which had been stressing me out. I have a deadline after all and I don’t intend to miss it. the meeting went very well. I walked away believing that I’m on the right track and the plan my boss an I have packed together is going to be a good one. It felt awesome to leave work for a long weekend and the end of the year on that note.

That’s not all of it though. This year I really started trying to get into social media, partly to drop myself into an environment flush with other writers more than happy to dole out much needed advice, and who are also facing the same sorts of questions I am: I like to write, but how do I get published? How do I get folks to buy my book? etc… Surprisingly, I’m finding the not-book industry conversation not only entertaining, but also good for the soul – excellent advice and encouragement. I’m amazed every day at how many cool people are out there who are willing to give you a needed kick in the ass or pat on the back. Which brings me to the very last point of this long rambling obligatory post, if you’ve read this far, you may be one of those people out in the universe who have helped to make my year interesting and helped me get through a couple of sketchy moments with flying colors. So, thank you guys, you’re awesome. Happy new year.