Saturday, July 27, 2013

The Latest and Greatest

Once again, my lack of posting astounds even me.  In my defense, though, I've been working.  Like, actual writing working, not Real Job working (though I've been doing that too)

So, what's been going on?

Well, I took the entire month of June to do edits on Peacemaker, and turned those in two whole days early.  Go me!  And just this week, I got an email back from my wonderful editor saying that those revisions have been accepted, so Peacemaker's almost a finished product, and that's a bit of stress off my mind.  Granted, I've never had revisions NOT accepted, but a little part of me is always fearful that she's going to come back and say "this is the suckiest thing in the history of sucky things that suck, do it over".

Right now, I'm working on JJD4.  I'm about 11K words into it, which doesn't seem like very much, 'cause it isn't.  But I've been writing almost every day, even if it's just a little bit, and I'm really starting to sink back into the world again.  It's kinda comfy there, like a big pillow.  A big, fluffy, demon-infested pillow.

I'm still struggling with a title for it.  I thought I had one, months ago, but the more I think about it, the less I like it, so it's back to the drawing board.  Figure, if I'm self-publishing it, I can come up with a title whenever I feel like it, right?

Been learning a lot about self-publishing over these past few months, too.  It's starting to not feel as daunting as it once did.  Ideally, if I can stick to my own self-imposed timeline, I hope to have JJD4 up and functional by March.  All of this contingent on me actually finishing it, of course, and cover art & editing schedules.  My intention is to do ebook on pretty much all platforms, and maybe do a print edition through Amazon's Createspace.  It won't be the same size as the first three books, because they don't offer a mass-market paperback size, and I fully admit that this makes me a little crazy.  They're supposed to match, dammit! Ah well, we take what we can get.

My lovely agent has read The Musicbox Girl, and given me some really great revision notes on it.  She's completely right in everything she said, I just have to wrap my brain around how to fix it.  Right now, that's not going to happen, because I'm trying to work on JJD4, and quite frankly, the writing is different enough that trying to do both at once might scramble my last two brain cells.

I've also sent Muse to the lovely agent, mostly to see if it's something she'd be interested in trying to sell, or if I should just start pondering self-publishing that too.  Honestly, I read through parts of it again, and the whole thing still gives me chills.  It's still one of the best things I've ever written (in my admittedly warped mind) and I'd like to see it available someday.

And, in case you missed it, Peacemaker is up for pre-order on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  It's also up on Goodreads, if anyone wants to add it to their to-read list. No cover art yet, of course, but I'm hoping soon.  Do you realize that we're actually less than 6 months away from release on that one already??  Time flies when you're having fun.

Remember, Peacemaker will be ebook only at first.  If sales are good enough, they may release it in print later.  I've had several people lament that they don't have a Kindle or a Nook or whatever, but remember if you have a smart phone or a computer, the Kindle app is a free download, and you can read my book right on your phone!

So, current timelines are looking like this:
Autumn 2013 - copy edits on Peacemaker (actual deadline unknown)
November 1 - finish JJD4
Nov/Dec - editing & cover art for JJD4, and revising MBG
January 21, 2014 - Peacemaker release!
Jan/Feb/Mar 2014 - drafting Arcane West #2?
March-ish 2014 - JJD4 release!
Summer 2014 - drafting JJD5?

After that, everything's a moving target.  Heck, half the stuff ON the list is still a moving target.  Ah well.  This is the good life, right?