Thursday, December 20, 2012

Birth of a Novel and the End of the World

Let's cover the end of the world tomorrow first. My 15 year old is SO excited about this. She's made all kinds of crazy plans for fun. Such as:
  • walking our dog while wearing her Phantom of the Opera cape
  • falling down "dead" in the middle of the sidewalk so she's ready when it happens
  • posting "still here" on facebook every 5 minutes
  • generally being annoying so that we hope for the end by the end of the day
Will any of us survive???

And now...
Last Week's Goals:
1. Work really hard on Fade Into Me. I'd like to add another 10K. Current word count is 24,267
2. Finish another 5 tour posts.
3. Contact those who offered to do Author Interviews and see if they will send the questions (Thank you to those of you that already have!)

I get a giant F for all of those, however it isn't really my fault. The day after setting those goals my computer refused to come on. Then on Saturday I received my galley to look over. Major stress out! How could I do what I needed without a computer?

Monday I dropped my baby off at a computer repair shop and hoped for the best. In the meantime, I tried to keep up with email, blogging, facebook, twitter, and read through my galley on my hubby's computer. Can you see why that wasn't very fun?
Somehow I survived and even managed to finish my read through and send my notes to my publisher.

A strange thing happened with this final read. I'm now terrified! This was my last chance to make any changes to my book before the general public gets access to it. Although I still LOVE my story, part of me wanted to rip it to shreds and start all over. I've learned a lot in the last few months since turning it over to my publisher. I know I can do better. But I'll always want to tweak and improve so it's time to let it go and put all this energy into the  next book. Make it better.

Holy cow it's crazy though. I didn't think I'd be such a wreck about people reading The Magic Wakes, but they are going to judge me by this story. If they hate it, they'll never give me another chance to show how I'm still growing and improving.

I think I'm going to need to join Alex's next Insecure Writers blog chain!

Okay, okay, new goals, or a second chance at the last ones.

This Week's Goals:
1. Work really hard on Fade Into Me. I'd like to add another 10K. Current word count is 24,267
2. Finish another 5 tour posts.
3. Have a wonderful Christmas week with my family

What are your goals? Or are you taking a break until January?

11 comments:

  1. If the world ends tomorrow, I wasted a trip to the dentist.

    *love your daughter's ideas, btw. HA*

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If the world ends tomorrow, I'll be REALLY ticked off. I worked 4 hours yesterday on typing up my galley notes for Karen. After all that work, I'd like to make at least a dollar or four. ;)

      Which reminds me! WiDo has 2013 titles available for pre-order at a reduced rate and free shipping. My book is one of them. Check out their Pre-release Specials.

      Delete
  2. Please join us!!! You need some support and encouragement.
    Don't worry - you've done the best you can and I'm sure it will rock.
    Hopefully you and your daughter both survive until the end of tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete
  3. love her plans for the end! christmas/holiday stuff trumps goals these last 2 wks of the year! dont worry, you'll get it done!

    ReplyDelete
  4. What was wrong with your p.c.? If it wasn't hardware, it's a waste of money to take it to a repair shop.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was hardware--reflow of solder on the video chipset and built new heatsink. I have a bad habit of sitting with my computer on my lap and it overheats a lot. He suggested I get a cooling pad for Christmas.

      Delete
  5. Good luck with it all, and hope you survive the end of the world! To be honest, I'll be rather disappointed if nothing happens. I mean, I don't want humanity wiped off the face of the Earth, but something interesting would be nice!

    ReplyDelete
  6. All I was planning to do tomorrow was to buy boxes so I could wrap my hand knit Christmas gifts.

    It sounds like you have the finished panic. I think it's normal. The book is all done. That part of your brain that was devoted to working on it now has nothing to do, so it goes into freak out mode. Ignore it. It's so used to working on the novel that it doesn't know what to do with itself.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So true! Hopefully that part of my brain will eventually switch over to the next book. However, I have like four ideas bouncing around in there making it hard to concentrate on any one thing right now. Silly brain!

      Delete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.