Springing Ahead

Posted on by Nathan 11 Comments

May was a challenge month and I definitely didn’t reach my stretch goals.

Cape Grace:
This poor book has been through the mill. Twice. As I said last month, I’ve started stripping it down to the bones to find the real story behind all the verbiage. The big problem is that the earliest drafts were dated in 2010. I’d already abandoned all the work from 2008 and 2009, but little pieces kept cropping up.

I couldn’t seem to get it in the right order. Chapters had scenes with characters who weren’t even in the story any more. Chapters had the wrong conversations and even the wrong places in them. Even after I got it stripped down and started adding new pieces to fill the holes, it just wasn’t working.

Then somebody mentioned Scrivener. Again.

I’ve had a kind of love/hate relationship with Scrivener since I got my first copy back when NaNoWriMo gave a half-price coupon for winners years ago. I tried it but my ADHD just wouldn’t let me use it effectively. This time it’s different. I’ve got the book and I need the tools that Scrivener provides. I’m on a new 30-day free trial but I’m cautiously optimistic that the stuff I have now is right and that the direction we’re going is good. The structures in Scrivener that I found so distracting before now fill the need I have for overhauling this manuscript.

It’s probably going to be shorter than my other novels but I’m still pushing close to 70k words now and will probably break into the 80k word levels in the next few days.

Jesse Young is still working on the final drafts for the new covers. I’m really liking the rough sketches and looking forward to the finals.

In Darkness Forged:
Yeah. No progress on the paperback there.

Tanyth Fairport:
No news on the audiobooks for this yet.

SFWA:
This month SFWA has been both blessing and curse. The Nebula Weekend in Burbank gave me a break from the mundane life but also stripped me of every bit of reserve energy I had. After a week in Burbank, it took me the better part of the next week just to begin catching up on sleep.

Emily Woo Zeller and Nathan Lowell at the Nebula Weekend 2019, Burbank, CA
I got to meet Emily Woo Zeller – the woman who’ll bring Natalya and Zoya to life for the Audible versions of the Smuggler’s Tales.

Bottom line:
I’m behind on my goal of four books this year. I’ve been tempted to chuck Cape Grace a couple of times but the longer I spend with it the more I like it and feel the need to push through this mushy-middle and get the story to where it needs to be.

Mid January Status Report

Posted on by Nathan Lowell 2 Comments

January In ProgressJanuary’s about half over and after being a prat about my work load the other day, I thought I’d share some of the stuff I’m doing.

This image is what I’ve done this month.

The circles around the dates are for my daily walk/podcast. Red means I didn’t walk. Green means I walked and did the podcast. Blue means I walked but the podcast file failed.

In the boxes are what I did. For the first week, my word counts were zero. We were still on Holiday Schedule here with family home and kids under foot. HLW in red means editing. I published it on the 12th. (Green box.)

The red box is “No School” day. It’s MLK Day and everybody will be off.

The good news for today is that I finished the markup for Half Share’s paper edition and I’ll be loading those changes in over the next few days. That’ll be one less book in the pile.

I’ve also taken care of a lot of “back office” business this week. I finalized contracts for foreign translations on Korean and Japanese editions. I paid my estimated taxes to state and feds. I shipped a bunch of stuff out to Dark Overlord Media for a benefit auction for CosmoQuest.

It’s been a hectic month and I’ve not done any of the things I planned, but I think I’ve done the most urgent things on my list.

I still have a lot to do. Luckily, tomorrow is another day…