Today marks my first time doing an author takeover for a Facebook book-release event. I was a little apprehensive about what kind of content to post to get the attendees revved up about my new friend’s book, but then I started reading a copy and, wouldn’t ya know, she’s got a character named Eli, too! I thought it was so funny that I immediately came up with a game/contest to run during my hour of “screen time”: Who Said It: Eli or Eli?
I’ve still got Abnormal bookmarks left over from Tucson Comic Con, as well as a few copies of Abnormal, so I’ll give away a few bookmarks and a signed copy of the book for those who participate. It was fun searching the two books for quotes that could potentially have come from either Eli.
My time for the takeover isn’t for a few hours still, but I have my posts scheduled and a lot of stuff to do around the house, so I don’t mind the wait. I will have to set a timer so I can interact and live-post in between scheduled posts…I’m likely to get caught up in laundry or cleaning or sewing and forget! Lol
I have that kind of wound-up, keyed-up, pent-up feeling right now…like I need to do something totally unnecessary. I want to sew something new; I might do that. I kinda need new fingerless gloves for keeping the ol’ hands warm (yet still giving me that all-important phone access). They might come in hand-y at Estrella, too, even though they’re not period. They’ll work when I’m out of garb and still freezing. 😉
Yeah, I think I’ll do that. Or make a bag/purse of some sort. Or…or…or…
I’ve done it to myself again. Gotten too many projects on my plate for the coming month or two. Sure, I’ll get them all done, but until then I have to start buckling down and prioritizing.
Projects pending (in no particular order):
1- I have to finish the embroidery for the Atenveldt royals. Of which I am less than a quarter of the way through. Deadline: about a month.
2- Persian garb for my husband and myself. Can probably step this up to get it done in time, with patterning help from a friend. Deadline: Jan 4.
3- Gift bags. These were a cute idea, but due to unforeseen circumstances no longer really truly needed. Deadline: eh, project’s scrapped at this point.
4- Embroidery for the Baroness of Tyr Ysgithir. Solid black boar about 5″ big. Deadline: Estrella War in February.
5- First official round of revisions on Escaping the Light. Giving myself a few days before diving back in. Deadline: no official deadline as of yet, but I don’t want to procrastinate too much on that.
6- Commission cross stitch for the “Boss Lady” at RhetAskew. Actually making some $$ off this one, but I’m not charging much. Deadline: none really given, and she knows I have some other projects going.
7- Non-Rus Viking garb pants for the hubs. He doesn’t dig the Rus style, so I have to find some magical time to get those done. Deadline: Probably Estrella War?
8- Finish the embroidery I started on hubby’s Viking hood that I made for him. More than halfway through with this one, but the royal embroidery took precedence (ha! SCA pun!). Deadline: Estrella I think. Hoping to crank it out as soon as I get Project 1 done.
9- Read an ARC of a sci-fi novel that I’m going to help promote. Need to know at least a few quotes from it for a game I’m going to do when I do the author takeover. Deadline: Oh yeah, this Saturday.
So yeah. I may have bitten off too big of a chunk. It wasn’t until I started putting the sewing projects on a spreadsheet to keep track that I realized what I’d gotten myself into! I can do it, though. I work better under pressure. Right? Yeah. Right.
I just can’t right now. I can’t look at Book 2 again. Not right now.
It’s not that it’s bad. It’s not. But I’ve read and reread and re-reread ad nauseum at this point, and I just don’t think I can read it yet again.
My biggest problem is that the word count is suffering, and I need to bump it up–but I’ve looked at it in such detail for so long that I can’t see the bigger picture. I can’t see “here’s some telling that I can expand by showing instead” or “this dialogue can be beefed up” or “kill that adverb and make the sentence more descriptive in other ways, with stronger verbs and adjectives” etc. I’ve stared at the doc until my eyes damn near bled.
Perhaps I’ll give myself a few days “off” from revisions. Relax. Do some embroidery or whatever.
I made a cute little card holder today. That’s a thing I did to procrastinate.
See? It matches Abnormal. I had fabric left over from the bookmarks I made, so I used it to make a little mini-wallet for myself. Yeah, I got the top stitching too far in and had to seam rip, and yeah, you can see a bit where I zig-zagged sew-in interfacing instead of waiting until I could get stiffer fusible interfacing…it’s just for me, so it’s not like I’m trying to sell the thing. 😉
Yeah, I think a few days off from revisions are in order. Maybe with some “fresh” eyes I can see what needs to be done where.
I might actually outline Book 3 before I start. Well, re-start. I kinda had a chapter or two going, but I think I need to scrap that and start over. I don’t like where I began the story as far as timeline goes. Need to back it up a bit and not just skip ahead months and months to make it easier.
Now, it may sound like I’m putting the proverbial cart before the trilogy, but hear me out. Publishing is a process; it takes time. I can’t just wait for Book 2 to be released before I start on Book 3. I have to keep ’em rolling so long as there’s story to be told. My Facebook memories are reminding me that I had Book 2’s first draft started before I even had Abnormal submitted to the publisher, and I have to keep that going. Get Book 2 ready, but start Book 3 while Book 2 is in edits.
Book 4? It’s going to have to wait a while. I have a tentative title, but I need to have Book 3’s first draft finished before I am 100% certain where it’s going. Even though I might try planning Book 3 more than pantsing, the characters still take over from time to time and tell me I’m wrong.
They’re living the story, so I guess they know better than I do…..
The holiday season is upon us, and whatever you celebrate, a great gift for those sci-fi/dystopian fan friends of yours is Abnormal, by yours truly!
Check it out! A simple, easy-to-remember link for Kindle…and the great thing is, if you want to gift a paperback copy for someone, Amazon has those, too! Available by December 13th for Prime members (as of this morning)…so think about that, too! And there aren’t a whole heckuva lot of AJ Mullicans on Amazon, so if you search AJ Mullican on there you’ll find me lickety split, and the paperback of Abnormal is there as well.
Abnormal makes a great gift for the sci-fi or dystopian fan in your life. It’s got action, drama, romance…all the things!
This has been your holiday post for the week. 😉 Now to our regularly-scheduled postgramming.
I’ve almost finished the first run-through of revisions on Book 2, which means soon I’ll be moving along to the first round of final revisions before it heads back to the publisher for their standard line edit tear-apart. I think there won’t be as much for them to fix, because I learned a lot from the line edits for Abnormal. Fewer gerunds, fewer adverbs, etc.
Work is not making it easy to get the revisions done, though. I had to go to our satellite office last Wednesday, which was supposed to be half dedicated to me working on laser chart prep–can’t do that in the satellite office, especially not last-minute with no warning. That means today I have to go in early today to get today’s charts ready before today’s patients show up. Ugh.
I’ll get the revisions done, though. I’m not overly worried about it, just annoyed at hiccups in my “master plan.”
I had started on Book 3–a short start, but I’m glad I hadn’t gotten far. I don’t like the start I started with, so I have to restart my start once I have the revisions in at RhetAskew. I know the general direction Book 3 is going in, though, so it’s not too bad. Who knows–maybe I’ll actually, y’know, outline it beforehand. Or something. Lol
Guess what, ladies and gents? It’s December, which means it’s officially the holiday season! Whether it be Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Solstice–whatever holiday you or yours may celebrate–it’s a great time to buy ABNORMAL for those friends and family members who may not have gotten the chance to get a copy yet!
Think about it: Not everyone can afford to get their own copy of ABNORMAL this year. Why not gift it? Bonus tip: You can discuss ABNORMAL with your friends and family after they’ve read it!
Okay, so my motives may not be entirely altruistic…but c’mon, if you loved the book, they might love it, too. You know you want to share the excitement, adventure, and romance. 😉
In other news, first quarterly report came back. Barnes and Noble needs to get to stepping with their reporting/payments! Of course, by now it doesn’t matter; I won’t see any of the “first quarter” hard copy sales until the second quarter at this point. So much for the hopes of a teeny tiny bit of holiday spending money. I was hoping to at least get myself a Frappucino or something. Oh well. Gotta pay the bosses for all the work they did to edit and design.
I’d write more, but I have a certain Rory-cat who is very needy this morning–and kneady. I don’t know what the hell he wants, but he won’t leave me alone. Lol
Yesterday I started working on some notes to get my “lesson plan” ready for my embroidery class. Yeah, yeah, I have almost three months in which to get it done–it was on my brain, so my brain went with it.
I figured out which stitches I’d try to teach, what subjects I want to cover, what supplies I’ll need, etc. I’ll bring as many examples of past embroidery projects that I’ve done as I can. And I might even download and print out some simple line drawings that either are period designs (or ones that look close enough for government work).
I didn’t get a chance to ask my future Laurel to look over what I have, but I haven’t fine-tuned it yet. I haven’t put the topics in a logical order or written up, well, any narrative to go with it. I haven’t made it all pretty and nice looking. Should I include WIP photos with the handouts I make, or should I just include photos of finished projects? I feel that the WIP photos would be more beneficial to beginner embroiderers, so I think that’s the way I’ll go. I should also probably embroider one or more of the tunics I have to have something to wear to the class to display seam treatments in action. Hmm…. It’s a thought, but I’m already bogged down with projects.
Writing on Book 2 is still stalled. So frustrating, but I just can’t get my head in the game with it. I need to ask my Creative Director for advice. The sad thing is, she’s given me advice already, but it’s just not clicking as to how to implement said advice. I get to a certain point in Chapter 18 and just freeze. It’s really grating on my nerves. I feel like I should be farther along on the revision process than I currently am.
That being said, it’s probably high time I did the daily Twitter writing hashtag events before it’s time to leave for work. Then, if there’s time, maybe I can work more on my “syllabus.”
I made it through Thanksgiving weekend, despite my stomach and esophagus rebelling against the copious amounts of food I had each day. Now I have to buckle down and get back to work on Escaping theLight, among other things.
There’s still the original Super Sekret Projekt for embroidery that needs to be done, and the current projects I have lined up. There’s making gift bags for the Christmas holiday giving season. There’s embroidery that the Baroness of a nearby Barony asked me to do before Estrella War. There’s my husband’s Viking hood to finish. There’s two full Persian outfits to make before January. There’s a lot.
In addition to going back to my old writing and crafting habits, I have to create new eating and exercising habits. I’m tired of being fat. I’m tired of feeling sluggish and miserable. I’m going to go back to exercising with my friends, but I worry that I won’t be able to get back into the routine or keep up like I used to. They have never once made me feel bad about not being on their level physically, but my own tricksy mind has. I mean, I used to kind of be able to keep up. Now, on the rare occasions when I’ve gone back, I am far, far behind while they all have increased their stamina and endurance. It sucks.
Today I have my annual physical, too. So I have to tell the doc about the weight issues and other concerns I have…like the aforementioned reflux that has been eating away at my esophagus and is in no way healthy. It can be damn dangerous if I let it go, actually, so I need to make sure I get some kind of prescription for it. I can take OTC meds, but there might be something stronger or better for it that he can prescribe. Maybe.
The breakneck pace of constant SCA events and other running around has slowed some, but not much. I’ve got a dyeing class that I’m going to this weekend, a household meeting (we’re finally officially members of House Sable Millrind!), next weekend is Christmas shopping with household members, the weekend after is the work Christmas party, the week after that is pre-Christmas at the in-laws’ house, the week after is…something, I’m sure. Maybe that’s a weekend off–I don’t know anymore.
Amidst all of that I still have to find time to exercise, to practice rapier more, to write/revise…
…And to goddamn sit up straighter. Geez, I didn’t even have anything overly spicy or irritating for breakfast, but because I’ve been slouching I can feel the acid creeping up inside my chest. Yuck.
The good news is, the Christmas tree has been up for a few days now and no cat destruction has occurred. They’re mildly interested from time to time, but aside from sniffing it or maybe nibbling on the plastic branches, Rory and River really have been good with it. Mostly leaving it alone. Hopefully I won’t lose too many ornaments this year to feline antics.
I still have a couple of Doctor Who ornaments to put up, but they’re fragile and important to us because they were gifts, so I’m waiting until I’m 100% sure they’re at least relatively safe from the cats.
I guess that’s about all for now. Life moves on. The wheels keep turning and all that. But I’ve got at least some semblance of a plan for keeping myself in better shape and for getting things done.
A lot can happen in a year. You can move, change jobs, cut your hair, gain weight, lose weight, start a new diet…
…You can sign with a publishing company…
That’s right: it’s been a year since I signed with RhetAskew Publishing! What a whirlwind of a year it’s been, too! Edits and revisions and frustration and a trailer and marketing and promotion and cover concepts and decisions and book launch and signings and Tucson Comic Con–whew! Now my second book is in the hands of the great people at RhetAskew, and I can’t wait for my next round of edits–and my next year of publishing.
The whole thing is still pretty surreal. I mean, I have a published book. In bookstores. Online. At a con. I have a sequel in the works. A series in the works.
I wonder what the next year will bring… The sequel, of course. More cons? Maybe, maybe not. Tucson Comic Con was close to being worth it, financially speaking, but not quite. I still have books in the back of my car that I need to sell. There’s a smaller local con in February that I need to talk to my husband about. It’s much cheaper than TCC, and it’s close to home, but I don’t know if the logistics would work out.
There’s also the possibility of another TCC. I’ll get an offer of the same table rate as this year because I was already a vendor, but again, it’s a matter of logistics. I want to try to get into TusCon, which is a sci-fi-specific con, but I’m afraid to even check the prices on tables for that. It’s gotta be more expensive than TCC was. Still, it would be a good opportunity. Hmm…
I still gotta work. Still gotta do all the things. Laundry, grocery shopping, bills, etc. Life’s not going to become all sunshine and roses and unicorn farts just because I’m signed with a publisher. It would be nice if things worked that way, but nope. Not quite. Lol
RhetAskew has been great to me this past year. They give great advice, and they listen to their authors. I don’t really feel that I had to really sacrifice anything to get Abnormal published. The book is great. The cover’s great. RhetAskew really does whatever they can for the author. They even give marketing and promotional advice–something I would have been lost on before!
I suppose I should get back to Book 2 before I have to go to work. I’m a little bit stuck, but I’ve made progress in the last week or two. Not as much progress as I’d like to make, but progress is progress. Who knows? Maybe next year I can add “NYT bestseller” to my list of annual accomplishments…Lol
Hemingway has some great quotes about writing. But revising is, in my experience, kinda somewhere between writing and editing. So how did Hemingway handle it? I’m not planning on getting drunk today, but it makes me think regardless.
Writing drunk I get. You’re less inhibited, and some of the best crazy ideas that you’d never put to words sober come out of hiding. It’s pretty fun, too. 😉
Editing sober makes sense too. You want to catch as many errors as possible. Hard to do that when you misspell spoken words. Lol
Revising, though? It’s kind of a grey area. You’re taking out “errors” so to speak, because you’re cutting some stuff that doesn’t fit or doesn’t need to be there, but you’re also writing new stuff. When I’m revising, I often end up writing thousands of words’ worth of new material.
Like I said, I won’t be drinking today. So I won’t experiment with the sobriety level of revisions. But it makes me think.
I don’t have any profound words on writing yet. Maybe some day I’ll be quoted like Hemingway.
But will those words be taken from a serious interview, or will they be drunken ramblings overheard by a lucky individual?
Now that the con is over, I have to focus on Book 2 again. I did some figuring, and overall I made a few hundred bucks at the con selling books. Not quite enough to fully cover what I paid for the books, and definitely not enough to make up for the money I spent on the table reservation for the con itself, but enough that I’m quite happy with it.
Will I go next year? I’d like to. I’d like to go to TusCon, which is a sci-fi-centric con, and I might even like to do a small con at the local community college. That one would be cheaper than Tucson Comic Con was for a table, and I’d hit that sweet college student market. I know some college students, especially the kind who would attend the con, like to read. Voraciously. And a New Adult sci-fi/dystopian novel would hit the college market nicely, I think. We’ll see. I have to discuss with the hubby before I commit to anything on that end.
Phoenix Comicon–er, I mean Phoenix Fan Fusion–is probably not going to happen. Tucson Comic Con just wasn’t profitable enough, and PFF is more expensive and harder to get into. No, it’ll be a few years before I can get in there.
I started back on Book 2 revisions this morning, but it’s an early day at work today, so I didn’t get much done. A few lines, enough to move the story along a bit and get me some momentum for later on, but definitely will need to zero in on that here now.
I’m very excited for Book 2 now that more people are reading Abnormal. Maybe I’ll gain a new fanbase–I certainly had enough middle-aged and older men buying the book this past weekend. And at least one eighty-something grandma. I hope she doesn’t get a heart attack reading the racy bits…I kinda didn’t warn her about them. I mean, I didn’t even think about it until she was walking off with book in hand. Eh, I’m sure it’s nothing she hasn’t read before. I hope.
Speaking of new fanbase…I’ve really got to get back in the habit of reaching out to book bloggers and other influencers every day. I have been slacking on that as of late, and I can’t just leave it to the publisher; they’ve got a lot of new projects on their plate, so I need to pull my considerable weight and get more eyes on Abnormal.
That will have to wait until at least tomorrow, though. Today I have to work. Silly day job, paying the bills and all that.
