You know the old saying, “She doesn’t do things by halves?” Well, apparently I do…at least this week.
I am halfway through my edits of The Curse of the Pharaoh’s Stone. I’m moving pretty fast because this is a polish of a manuscript that has been edited multiple times. A tweak here and there, but nothing major.
The first chapter had more issues, as will another later chapter, but even those are relatively straightforward. Hopefully I will send it to my co-author early next week to settle on the final form.
Then we will decide if we want to try the traditional route again, or go straight to self-publishing. We have submitted earlier versions of this book to agents before, but not this version. The last time we tried was several years ago, and it’s a much different world now.
My other half-accomplishment has been the public release of my mother’s genealogy book, The Campbell Family of New York City, New York, and their Ancestors. The paperback version is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, if you search by title on their websites. I am hoping that after a few more days it will pop up on Google searches or under my author name. At the moment neither listing has the cover, either. So I will check back on that in a few days.
The hardback version of the book is not out to the public yet. I am having technical difficulties with the distribution. The algorithm is flagging it as a duplicate title, rather than a different version (paperback vs. hardback) of the same book. I have never had that issue before. The other issue is that I want it to be US distribution only, but it is insisting on being worldwide (which I do not want to pay for). I have also never had that issue before. I am working with their tech support, so things should be resolved soon.
My projects are halfway done. Hopefully by next week both of these will be complete and I will be on to something new!
Enter August–CoronaLife Day 873
August has arrived, quietly, with little fanfare. It rather snuck up on me, honestly. It seemed so far off, and then…here it is.
This week has been pretty quiet on the writing front. I have been taking care of other business, mostly my Board of Education duties as a new school year approaches.
I have also completed the first (and hardest) part of a photo project I am working on. The rest will be both tedious and meticulous, but not really difficult.
I am digging into my Irish genealogy again, trying to put some pieces together. My current frustration is that people that have my supposed family in their tree are not DNA matches to my mother, while people who are DNA matches do not have that family in their tree.
I have tried a tool called Auto Clustering for my mom, and I will see if it yields any clues.
I am hoping to use this week as prep time, so I can spend the week my daughter is at camp focused on writing. Sort of a mini-writing retreat, only I have to drive her a half-hour each way every day.
The class before my daughter’s at swimming is the infants. They are infinitely adorable as they learn to navigate this new medium. They of course don’t swim yet (they can’t even walk), but they are learning not to be afraid and to have fun.
I see a metaphor for writing there. Most writers dove in because it was fun. As we slowly mastered the new medium, it became more technical, harder to float. The deeper we got, the more often we felt close to drowning.
Sometimes we need to stop flailing and take a deep breath. Fly through the water and trust all that we have learned will hold us up. Find the fun.
Happy August, everyone!