Writing / Publishing – Page 17

Overwhelmed by People Stuff

The last two weeks have been packed with people. From both work and personal perspectives, I’ve been inundated with human interaction. It is starting to put pressure on me. As the upcoming week’s schedule is also packed with people, I’ve decided to take today off and be by myself.

My husband had already decided to have sushi lunch with friends, so this works out well from a timing perspective. Sushi is one of the few food styles that I will usually pass on – surprising for someone from the Seattle area, I know – so it is no hardship to skip this lunch for leftovers at home. It leaves me with plenty of time to just exist and take care of internal tasks.

I do have a few goals today. Two of them are must-do items, while some are in the time-allowing category. My self-assigned, mandatory tasks are to complete the “read-alouds” for our D&D session this week and to finish my edits of book one. For D&D, I’m not sure which directions the party will go at this point. They could potentially reach the end of this level in either direction, so I want to have all the level one commentary completed in preparation. I can wing it at need, but I find I forget more details that way, and I prefer preparation that gives them all the initial information they will need to make decisions.

For the book, I only have the epilogue left. I need to edit what exists right now and add one perspective to it as recommended by an alpha reader. I should complete both of these today since the epilogue is shorter than a full-length chapter. With this timing, I’m also posting my beta reader request for a couple more readers today. I want them to focus on plot or character disconnects or areas that pull the reader out of the story rather than line edits. With those items as the focus, I’m hoping to have the book back from them within two weeks.

The timing becomes tighter now. I’m going to schedule a copy editor and will need to finish any edits before that deadline. While I’m going to have some buffer planned in the sequence, any beta reader delays mean less time for my side of the polishing work. I also need to work on the administrative tasks, but I will do that once the book is out with betas.

As for the optional weekend tasks left for today: one is related to how much effort I want to put into cooking dinner tonight, the other is canning some pickles. I purchased some pickling cucumbers the other day, and I want to turn them into pickles. We will see if I can dredge up enough energy to fit that in today or if I procrastinate until a time when it is either “do it now” or “they go bad.” Wish me luck!

Introvert Power

When we were all going into the office every day, I preferred people set up meetings with me ahead of time rather than just stopping by my desk. That is because I had to psych myself up for every interaction. It is not that I dislike people. They simply drain my energy levels. The bigger the group, the more the drain. Even dinner out with my husband requires some level of energy from me.

Working from home for a year has helped me mellow a lot, as I can spend my energy in a more focused manner each day. I feel more productive, happier, and less stressed overall. The one concern I had over the forced isolation is whether I could push myself to interact socially again.

I isolated myself in my younger years, safe in my little bubble, not going out with anyone unless I had at least a week’s notice. That usually meant staying home all the time. A friend eventually broke me out of that habit, and I realized how much I needed that form of interaction in my life, even if it was a little uncomfortable or draining. It was worth it.

Now I need to remember that value and push myself out of my cocoon of comfort again. I need to watch how often I decline invitations or talk my husband out of inviting others over. Fortunately, he is extroverted, so the latter is much less likely at this point in my life. I am already easing into society again with soccer games and Dungeons & Dragons. Slow and steady, we will all get back out there safely.

As for writing, I believe I have overcome my editor’s block for the moment. After the long weekend, this edit is back on track for my target schedule. I hope I can find another beta reader or two for this version to see how well I fix some of the (thankfully few) early issues brought to my attention. Now I need to poke at my alpha readers on book two, so it is ready for me when I get to that point.

Tonight, dinner with friends. Tomorrow, more editing. Progress on all fronts!

Mid-Year Changes

Happy 4th of July, everyone! I hope you are all able to have some fun today. We hosted my family for grilling burgers and dogs. S’mores fixings were brought, so we also dusted off the propane fire pit to toast some marshmallows. The weather turned out a perfect mild, sunny day after that heatwave we had last week.

The long weekend is a great way to start the second half of 2021 and head into some changes. I will be starting a new job in the middle of this month. A big driver for me looking so soon after a job change last year is the commute factor. You may have heard some horror stories about Seattle traffic. After working from home for nearly eighteen months, I did not think I could personally handle a ninety-minute commute in each direction when we go back to the office, so I decided to look around.

It worked out for me and happened faster than I ever thought it would. The new job is at a company that sounds like it has a great culture that I will enjoy, it is part-time remote even after we go back to the office, and the office is only about a ten to fifteen-minute drive away. Maybe this one will take me to my career as an author!

That is the other change as we head into the second half of the year. My goal of publishing before year-end means several key steps pick up over the coming months. I recently shifted this site over to my domain. In July and August, I’m looking into working on some of the business requirements for publication, finishing the book description and frontmatter/backmatter, and looking into the ISBN purchases. September will be looking into the Amazon account and publication requirements and process.

As for editing, I worked through another chapter and a half after work this week. I am targeting another chapter or two tomorrow. If I can keep up the pace, I’m looking at sending it out to beta readers in August, the final edit in September, the copy editor in October, and a final check in November for uploading. That is my rough schedule, and I hope to run a bit ahead of it for all of the stumbles I’m sure to run into along the way. For now, back to editing!

Soccer, Heatwaves, and Editor’s Block

I will keep this week’s post short as we are going through a heatwave in the Puget Sound area right now. To help our AC out a bit, I am trying to keep as many electronics turned off as possible. We are supposed to hit record temps today and tomorrow. This will likely be the hottest we have ever reached here on record.

Even with the heat, I managed to go to two soccer games in Seattle this week with the Sounders back in action after the international break. We stayed hydrated and braved the heat to watch the Sounders win four of six points between the two games. It is exciting to spend time in Seattle again and support local businesses before spending the time in the stands with our fellow supporters.

My niece toughed out a COVID test to make sure she was eligible to join Grandpa and me for the game!

These things are not helping my editor’s block. As far as my book goes, I’m working through the final major edit before it will go to a copy editor and back out to betas. Even before these convenient – but probably not helpful – distractions, I was slogging through it rather ponderously. I have more distractions in store for this week, but I should make some progress in between. If I don’t make progress in that time, I’m promising myself I will dedicate time on the fifth of July to knock out a couple of chapters at least. Maybe that will shake off the dust and regain momentum.

Stay cool out there!

Murder Mystery – Cat Edition

I walked into my living room to see Little Cat’s feet flopping out from under the blanket covering the footrest. My first reaction? Big Cat needs to learn how to hide the bodies better. I naturally took a picture for evidence and went hunting for the perpetrator.

After endless seconds of searching, I found him cleverly hiding in a place no one would think to look. He glared out at me from the Cat Cave, and I backed off to avoid the killer’s claws and fangs. Accepting my retreat, he promptly went back to his post-murder napping.

“I am unamused.” – Big Cat

Do not fear cat-loving friends. Little Cat’s feet twitched chasing mice in her cat-dreams moments ago, and Big Cat’s frighteningly large claws only come out when he is playing with toys. They are still healthy and begrudgingly getting along as we approach Little Cat’s first birthday later in the summer.

In other news around the house, I decided to spend money on an electronic notebook. I have wanted one for some time now. It is frustrating to have writing notes for book ideas scattered around in different paper notebooks and different places around the house. I have trouble finding some of them again, so I wanted something I could easily write in, save, file, and sort.

I went with the reMarkable 2. It has a 30-day free trial, so I figured I was not risking too much if I hated it. No, I did not do a lot of research on all the options available. I did look at reviews and feedback on this one, so I did half the research for my decision-making purpose. So far, I like it. The ballpoint pen option is my favorite style, and the stylus feels pretty natural.

I have not tried the convert to text feature yet. I like it looking like notes, so that might be a situational feature for me. This week we FINALLY have our D&D reboot, so I might get to try connecting it to a screen in that session to share drawings. (I will probably be sharing how the reboot goes next weekend!) Preliminarily it looks good for keeping it, but I will let you know if it angers me and ends up getting sent back.