Happy Monday, everyone! Hopefully the horrible heat wave has ended in your neck of the woods. I know I could use some cooler weather! Still, the heat does make it appealing to sit in my darkened, air-conditioned office with the ceiling fan going full blast while I plug away at my latest manuscript.
What I’m working on: I'm in the middle of final edits for my Creators manuscript, with a targeted release date of July 21st.
This time around, I had the idea of putting a rough copy of my manuscript and editing on the Kindle, and I was very happy with the results. This not only gave me a feel for how the formatting looks, it also helped me to spot some additional errors. I can only stare at my PC screen for so long before small things begin to slip by me. With the Kindle, I could highlight the problem areas and make comments on the fly. Bonus: I could do editing while lounging on the couch!
I also found a link to a great program called SmartEdit. It's an amazing tool that analyzes your document and then gives you a report detailing things like how many cliches it found, how often you use adverbs, which words you use the most, etc. This is a real boon as it's sometimes hard to notice these things in your own work. Best of all, it's free! I highly recommend checking it out, even if you're not a creative writer. It would also be great for analyzing papers, work reports, etc.
What I hope to achieve: I hope to put the finishing touches on Creators and finalize the cover design. I'm also hoping for a few more reviews of The Eye of the Beholder, and I certainly wouldn't mind a continuous uptick in sales!
What are my challenges: I'm continuing to work on how to best market my novels. I've been really inconsistent with my blog, and I'm determined to try to make better use of it. Overall, I really just need to get more organized. It would be great for me to establish a schedule so I make the most of my writing time without allowing marketing time to dominate my days.
What freaks me out: I'm still dreading negative reviews but, overall, I'm feeling really positive. Though I am by no means a best selling author at this point, things have been going better than I expected, and that's always a good thing!
What’s making me happy today: I'm really excited at the thought of releasing two more novels. Every time I check Goodreads and see that someone else has added my novel as "to-read", it's a thrill. Ever since I was a kid, I've dreamed of becoming an author and having people read my book, and I can honestly say that the reality is better than any fantasy I ever constructed.
Teaser for Tuesday: Tomorrow's post will offer one last preview of Creators. It's a prequel novella to Contributor, a YA trilogy set in a postapacolyptic/dystopian future.
