Life

I’m Alive! With Photo Proof and Everything!

/ Author News, Life, Writing

I’m alive, I’ve just been super busy trying to crank out as many words as possible on book two. I’m behind schedule, but I’ve had three good writing days in a row, so I’m taking a short break.

Polaris Rising continues to move through the publishing steps. Most recently, I received feedback from the proofreader that I needed to address. So now it’s been looked at by me, agent, editor, copyeditor, and proofreader. I think we might be done at this point, but I thought that after copyeditor, too, so it’ll be a surprise one way or the other. :)

Because we’re inching ever closer to release, Voyager needed an author photo of me for their catalog. If you’ve seen my social media photo, you’ll notice it’s a snapshot of me that I ran through a Prisma filter. Not exactly professional enough to use in a book catalog. …

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A Stardew Weekend

/ Games, Life

My husband and I bought Stardew Valley a year and a half ago because we thought multiplayer co-op was “coming soon.” It’s still not here completely, but we spent the weekend playing the co-op beta and it’s awesome. I finally see what all the buzz eighteen months ago was about. :)

If you haven’t heard of it, Stardew Valley is a Harvest Moon-esque game where you start with a run-down farm that you have to fix up by clearing the land, planting crops, and tending animals. And fishing. So much fishing.

Because we’re playing co-op, I took over animals and fishing while my husband deals with the plants. Every day I go pat my chickens on the head and they get happier and produce better eggs. …

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Book Two Title Redux

/ Book Rec, Life, Writing

The working title we decided on for PR book two has to change because it’s too similar to another Voyager book coming out next year. So it’s back to the drawing board.

Boo.

I like for my titles to have a deeper meaning, even if I’m the only one who will get it. It’s one of the reasons naming things takes me eons.

The verboten title had that extra layer of meaning, so I bid it adieu with some regret. And now I can’t think of anything else I like as well. Partially that’s just my brain being stuck on what it can’t have, and I have some time, so I’m giving my subconscious a chance to mull it over.

I passed 20k words last week, and while I’d like to be closer to 30k (or, let’s be honest, 90k), I’m at least off to a solid start. This is also where doubts tend to assail me and I start thinking that the beginning is all wrong. However, there is no time for doubting. I must forge ever onward. If it really is wrong, I’ll fix it later. …

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The Quest for the Perfect Pen

/ Life

For years my favorite pen has been a Uniball Signo DX in .38mm. I have it in a rainbow of colors and it’s glorious. It’s precise, doesn’t smear, and doesn’t do that annoying blob of ink thing some pens do. Here’s an example of writing long-form with it. Ignore my chicken-scratch handwriting and the rough draft nature of the content. :)

Signo DX Example

But, in a case of putting the cart waaaaay before the horse, I decided maybe I should start thinking about a pen that would also be good for signing books. After all, it’s only nine-ish months until Polaris Rising comes out, barring any schedule changes, and at least one of my friends will want their book signed, right? Right? Hello?

And possibly because I like nothing more than procrastination. :) …

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Busy, Busy

/ Life, Writing

Copyedits for Polaris Rising are done and turned in! As part of the copyedits, I wrote the dedication and acknowledgements sections. That was fun and only mildly nerve-racking, especially because it came after the copyeditor looked everything over. If there are typos in those sections, you’ll know why. :)

The book-making machinery keeps inching forward. I wrote my author bio and now we’re brainstorming ideas for the title of book two so we can include an announcement in the back of PR.

Titles are hard for me and usually come at the very end, after the book is written. My Scrivener projects are saved as scifi, scifi2, and serial. That’s PR, PR2, and TQG. Authors who can title a story before they start writing are like wizards to me—amazing and possibly imaginary.

I also signed up for the RWA conference yesterday. I’m an introvert, so conferences tend to be exhausting and/or terrifying, but I am looking forward to meeting people and attending the workshops. As a new author, I’ll take all the advice I can get.

Now I must get back to making words happen on book two while I wait for title inspiration to strike, because clearly I am an artiste.