Hello, my friends and the occasional relative!

I have a formatted version of my book. I have to do the page by page review for widows and orphans (if you know, you unfortunately know), and last bits of tidying up, hopefully without getting sucked into perfectionism minutiae. I was looking through the text and suddenly hated the first line of one chapter. I’ve only looked at it hundreds of times by now, but this time, this time it sucked. Because of course it would.

Sometimes the best thing a writer can do is stop reading their own writing. I had fondly/deludedly imagined that I had moved past any pathological need to correct newly perceived flaws. Nope.

However, I am very happy with this progress! Excitement! Picking at lines here and there is inevitable. If that chapter opener is the only thing I compulsively have to change, I’ll call it a win. I’ve done other necessary prep work, and once I have paperwork satisfactorily in hand I will reach back out to ARC distributors and pre-publication advertising agencies. I’m not breaking the bank, just exploring something new with this book release.

I have also been checking out Publisher Rocket (which I have owned for years as KDP Rocket and not made the best use of) and investigating prospective categories to put the new book into, and which keywords will be the most beneficial. This work does drain my will to live, but I believe Rocket is a very useful tool, (I would otherwise be whistling in the dark with this stuff) and I have identified one spectacularly niche category that should be very useful, with another possibility for a tighter choice and leaving the third to cover my more general fantasy base.

So, my friends, I am advancing a few more steps along the long road to publication. Limbo did claim me for a time, but I managed to open the door, find motivation, and escaped.

I did a teeny bit of structural storytelling learning – and was pleased to learn something I already knew in new words. That was a relief, and meant I covered a chunk of ground at speed, which makes a change. It gave what I knew better form, a simpler shape to remember and use in future. I’m glad I decided to check that out and discover something that made immediate (and I hope lasting!) sense to me.

And now I am weary. Listening to Fallout by Queensryche is helping me wake up. Great song. Not related to the game or TV show. Or at least I don’t think it is!

Time to go make tomorrow’s porridge. My thrilling life. Walnuts and goji berries for the win. Health must be maintained for work, for play, for flights of fanciful imagination.

Until next week, do what you can to stay healthy, and avoid falling prey to the need to correct what has already been vetted many times.