Heading out to LTUE today and probably part of tomorrow, hoping to network a little, meet a bunch of new people, pass out some cards and bookmarks, that kind of thing.
I made up some bookmarks to tease the new book, so we'll see how that goes.
Revisions languish, but I think I still have a sightline to get them back to Lanternfish by the end of this long weekend...
Buenas suertes!
I have successfully dived into revisions and am having a great time. No really, I know everything I say sounds a little bit sarcastic...it's the family curse.
But yes, revisions are proceeding apace, and I hope to have them done and back in the editor's hands by "mid February" as agreed. By which I mean, before the end of the middle third of February, which I calculate to be 4:00PM on the 19th.
Also, I designed and ordered prints of a promotional bookmark to pass around at LTUE next week. Trying a new online printing service - I'll report how it looks once it gets here.....
This is a blog post about not yet having started working on revisions.
At least not in any concrete sense. I seem to spend some time internalizing the editor's notes before I dive in. My editor's name is Christine. We worked together on the previous book, and now we're working on this new one.
<<Interruption to break up a fight among the cats>>
Here are the challenges to jumping into revisionating:
1 - finding more than five minutes of uninterrupted time to focus on it. Revisions take the same amount of focus as any other draft. More, in a way, because we're smoothing out lumps in the tone, and filling little plot holes with putty and Plot Spackle (tm). Which means one has to - in a matter of speaking - hold the whole work in one's mind, the entire construct hovering over the work of the moment like a big circus tent while one tries to get the littlest dancing poodle to wag it's little tail just the right way. That takes a minute, at least for me. I need to sit with the manuscript for a bit so the whole thing is sitting in RAM like a movie I've watched a dozen times.
2 - getting past the pouty response to anyone finding anything at all wrong with the manuscript, because I worked REALLY HARD on it, and not only is it just fine the way it is, but I'm kind of sick of it and don't want to think about it any more. That feeling only lasts a few moments, and I'm getting better and breathing past it, but it never really goes away. At least not yet.
3 - fear of messing it up because I'm nowhere near as smart or creative as I was when I finished the draft a few months ago. I actually really enjoy the collaborative process of turning a manuscript into a book, and I'm definitely the amateur in the room when it comes to making an actual book happen.
4 - Also, I keep getting distracted by the vision board I put up for the next project. Gonna have to take that down...
So with that all said, and having used this very post to distract myself some more, I guess I'll get going.
What did we learn?
I don't know...three cats is too many...
