Cover flats!

This is what I came home to, yesterday! Cover flats for my book!



For those who don't know, a cover flat is basically the book cover, without the book inside. It's used for promotional purposes, and has a section attached for book buyers (at bookstores) to know how to market said book. It's supposed to help them know how many they might want to order for their particular store.

And yes, if you can make it out, there is a blurb from Simon R. Green on the front, and blurbs from Anton Strout and Rob Thurman on the back. I'm giddy!

I've only got three, so I'm not sure what to do them. I know some authors do signed cover flat giveaways, but I wasn't sure if there'd even be an interest in that for mine. May be something I need to ponder.

In the meantime, it's snowing, my car window is stuck in the down position, and we have no groceries. It is possible we're eating ramen noodles today. Happy winter!

Pneumonia is bad, m'kay?

You would think this would be a fairly obvious to most people, but as someone who had never HAD pneumonia before, I didn't truly grasp the HORRIBLENESS that is pneumonia.

And it's horrible. And a little scary.

I wasn't even sick. I mean, I had no cold, no cough, I just woke up one morning last week and got hit by a freight train. And then I got pneumonia. (see what I did there? I kill me.) My chest hurt so bad, I was googling heart attack symptoms. What do you mean, I should have gone to the hospital? That might have made sense or something! Geez...

On the upside, the antibiotics are working, and I no longer feel like I might keel over any second.

The downside being that I am further behind on Book 2 than I wanted to be. Which seems to be my normal state of being with this book, so maybe if I adjust my internal schedule to match what's actually happening, I'd be a happier person.

But I did get some writing done today, and it was even funny. Not like the joke above funny, but really funny. I swear.

As soon as I get this chapter done, I get to start cannibalizing some previously written stuff, so my word count will skyrocket, albeit in a cheaty sort of way.

Wish me luck!

Copyedits, oh my!

So, I spent three days (well, ok, two and a half) working on my first ever copy edits! For those who aren't familiar with the process, that's when a nice person with a red pen (or in this case, with "track changes" on) makes notes about things like punctuation, capitalization, and other slightly questionable details. Then I as the author go through and either agree with them (leave them alone), disagree with them (change them back), and otherwise add anything that might be missing.

This is my LAST chance to make big changes. (big changes being anything more than a typo fix) Or, rather, it WAS my last chance. 'Cause I turned those bad boys in this morning!

I also got the chance to do my dedication (that I've been planning almost since the beginning) and my acknowledgments. My greatest fear right now is that I've forgotten someone in the acknowledgments, and that's just gonna kill me.

Things I learned while doing copyedits:
The word "Realtor" is actually a trademarked term, and should be changed to "real estate agent" when possible.
I use a ton of commas where semi-colons would do.
The word "T-shirt" should be capitalized like that.
Proper grammar sounds SO freakin' wrong, in a lot of cases.
Per The Editor, in first-person PoVs, voice trumps proper grammar. (I was so relieved to hear that)
Contrary to the little doubting voice that creeps in now and then, this story isn't half bad!

Had a great chat with The Agent tonight too, he was just calling to check in since we hadn't talked in a while.

My goal is to have the first draft of Book 2 done by the end of March. Hopefully, this will give my beta-slaves plenty of time to check it out and get it back to me before I have to have it in to The Editor.

I'm excited!