I’ve definitely been dreading this whole re-editing process because it means a whole lot of tedious work. So today I put it off as long as I could until about 30 minutes ago. Yet I’m already done with three more chapters and I’m kinda speed reading my book at the same time. Unexpectedly, I like it too. I’m enjoying my own book. Who knew? I definitely didn’t want to see it for awhile after I got it published back in January mostly because I was super sick of it. You can only spend so much time on the same thing before it gets boring and annoying after all. Now though I’m seeing it with fresh eyes. And I like it. I still don’t think it’s the best thing ever. Far from it, but I like it again. That’s definitely heartening. I can also see where my second book is better than this one. That’s a real boost to my motivation. Book one was definitely the prototype. No better than a beta. Now I’m extra anxious to finish this first trilogy so I can make the first book free.
Monthly Archives: July 2014
Fun with (Re) Editing
Managed to finish up the formatting for POD with Induction. It was looking damn sexy. I’d always thought the font used in most print fiction was Times New Roman but it turns out to be Garamond. At least that’s what the templates I’ve received from various sites use and it looks very nice indeed. Had some fun (not really) setting up my Table of Contents in Word. The best part of that is that it’s tied to the chapter headings so even if future edits cause page numbers to change I can just update the TOC and it will automatically fix the numbers. This was my first time setting that up but it was pretty easy. Much like computer programming it takes more work up front but the end result is greatly increased efficiency and accuracy. Things I’ve always appreciated.
So I’m done right? Ready to upload the file and get on with the printing process! Woot! I did one last quick look over the whole thing and realized something was missing. A lot of somethings. It turns out that at some point my Google Docs master copy of the book lost ALL of its italics formatting. This is a huge deal for the book since I used italics to denote thoughts for the main character and a few others. Just re-reading the prologue was confusing because the thoughts are written like dialog but are placed within the paragraphs at the exact point the character is thinking them. Without the italics formatting they are horribly out of place and confusing. The worst part is this is the version currently on sale in electronic format. Yikes! So my main focus now is to re-apply all of the missing formatting in the print version and then make a copy to re-format back to ebook. Le sigh.
I looked at the revision history hoping to find a recent copy with the italics but nope, it’s been this way for months and I just didn’t notice. That’ll teach me to have just one master copy. I’ll check some of the downloaded ones before I get too far with the re-formatting to make sure I don’t have a local backup, but I’m not holding my breath. Ah well. Live and learn.
In the meantime I’m taking a break from the editing spree to slap on the last two coats of whiteboard paint on my office wall. Super excited about that. The first two coats are already on and it looks very promising. Once these last two are done it’s a three day wait for the stuff to cure. Then I get to see if the time and money I’ve put into this was even worth it. This paint has very mixed reviews after all. Here’s hoping!
Progress
I’m up to Chapter 18 now. The main character just met his love interest’s father for the first time. It was a brief encounter but fun. For me anyway. I thought I was closer to the end of the story for this book than I really am but it turns out there’s still a bit more to go before we reach the climax. That will likely put this book at almost exactly the same size as the last. Not really my intent but pretty cool regardless. I’m very ready for this book to be done as it’s taken me much longer than I wanted. Some of the delay was definitely life related but the rest can be chalked up to pure old laziness and letting my inner critic get the best of me.
My office/work room is coming along slowly. I’m prepping the wall for the white board treatment. It’s not nearly as smooth as I would like it to be. It was definitely painted with a mild form of stucco at some point. I freaking hate stucco. It’s not attractive and I always manage to bump into it and hurt myself. Thankfully this stuff has either worn down or been painted over so many times the wall is mostly flat. I’m hoping this next coat will make it even smoother. From the reviews I’ve read the best surfaces are flat as you can get it. This may end up as a failed experiment but hopefully not. It would be awesome to have most of a wall as a scratch board. Plus the other wall for my over-sized calendar.
Of course the most exciting bit right now is almost being done with book 2. That will mean being two thirds done with my very first trilogy. It will also mean being able to write something else. Probably a couple of somethings since I have some short story ideas I really want to get down. All in good time though.
Back from the Break
The move is done though we’re not quite done unpacking everything at this point. I have to say that moving an apartment full of four people’s things with just of those people is not a whole lot of fun. I did some counting and discovered that this was something like my 17th move in 14 years. Yikes. I have to say I’m getting pretty sick of it too. I guess that’s what I get for volunteering for the service but I’ve definitely learned my lesson. Never again volunteer yourself! 😉  Anywho, on top of the move we had a road trip to the east coast for a family visit as well as a stop by some friends to say hey and pick up the last of my things. (There were three crates or so I couldn’t fit in my car when I left the coast.)
Now that all of that is done though I’m diving back into the second Shroud novel and I must say I am super happy to be writing again. I don’t know if other writers experience this, but every time I stop writing for a week or more I have this fear that I’m never going to write again. Pretty irrational really but there it is. The worst part about this fear though is it makes me feel really intimidated by my plans for what I want to write and accomplish with said writing. Silly really since I don’t have to magically write ten books in the next ten days or anything. I haven’t managed to write as much as I wanted to in the first year but I’ll definitely have the second book done and published before my first year of writing is done. That’s not bad at all for a noob.
Oh, I’m also really excited about having a room to myself to do my writing in. It’s playing the role of temporary storage until we finish unpacking but I have some awesome plans for it. I picked up a white-board paint kit to turn two of the walls into a giant white board. I’ll be using part of the space as a calendar so I can set and track my writing and publishing deadlines. The rest will be scratch/idea space. I may be a super computer geek but even the larger screens of today just don’t hack it for presenting and working with a whole lot of ideas at once.
Just about done with my writing for today and I actually surprised myself by a sudden turn in the story I had no idea was coming. Two of my main characters were just having a small alone moment together and my plan was for one of them to bring up an uncomfortable subject. Instead they just started making out. I was all, “Whut? That’s not what I meant to happen.” Still, it’s an amazing experience to be writing something, letting the flow come, when BAM! Surprise, your story is going somewhere else. I’m happy with this sudden change though. It’s high time these two got things out in the open.