urban fantasy – Page 35 – Meilo Zaborowski: Author

Goal Update 9/19

GOAL 1) PUBLISH SKOS

My Goal: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
Where I planned to be: Spent at least 30 mins
Where I am: CLOSE!
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Sent the manuscript to Audrey on Sunday and got it back yesterday. I’m very pleased! She picked through and fixed all my formatting errors and typos (or should I say “Texanisms”… I think there were only about one or two true typos), and even pointed out a few story inconsistencies, which was nice. We also connected a bit, I think…

I just kind of quickly looked through to see if there was anything I needed to ask about, but I’ll be going in sometime next week to apply all needed changes, reject any changes to stylistic choices, and otherwise do my final spit polish.

This is it, you guys. This thing is almost done, and I mean DONE done. (Dun dun dun! Sorry…)

Guess that means I need to drop some money on a domain name…

GOAL 2) REVISE SYCU

My Goal: 2 Lessons per month/ 1 Lesson every 2 weeks (except L17 and L21, which get 4 weeks min)
Where I planned to be: Lesson 20, 156 scenes in
Where I am: Lesson 20, 156 scenes in
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Another light lesson. Deceptively light.

I am very uncomfortable.

GOAL 3) SURVIVAL

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 37500 words
Where I am: 37524 words
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
I think Jeremy Clarkson can sum up my current feelings about this quite succinctly.

Goal Update 9/12

GOAL 1) PUBLISH SKOS

My Goal: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
Where I planned to be: Spent at least 30 mins
Where I am: Waiting
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Tomorrow is the day! I get to send my manuscript to Audrey tomorrow. I don’t know how long it will take her to go over it, but I’m excited. I’m getting closer!

GOAL 2) REVISE SYCU

My Goal: 2 Lessons per month/ 1 Lesson every 2 weeks (except L17 and L21, which get 4 weeks min)
Where I planned to be: Lesson 19, finished
Where I am: Lesson 19, finished
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Didn’t do a lot in this lesson. I still feel like something’s missing.

On to Lesson 20, and then comes the type-in.

GOAL 3) SURVIVAL

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 36000 words
Where I am: 36049 words
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Everything’s on fire but it’s fine.

It’s fine.

Goal Update 9/5

GOAL 1) PUBLISH SKOS

My Goal: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
Where I planned to be: Spent at least 30 mins
Where I am: Waiting
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
(Not so) patiently waiting for the 13th. Been too busy with classes/work/the other two books to read over it, but I wrote the description blurb and started poking around the Kindle Direct Publishing site. I’m so close!

GOAL 2) REVISE SYCU

My Goal: 2 Lessons per month/ 1 Lesson every 2 weeks (except L17 and L21, which get 4 weeks min)
Where I planned to be: Lesson 19, 156 pages in
Where I am: Lesson 19, 156 pages in
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Something doesn’t sit right with me on this one. I can’t pinpoint it, and it’s bothering me. It actually makes me want to abandon it altogether, but I think that’s just stress talking. This is a completely different beast than SKoS, and the next two will be different still.

And I know the only way to grow is to push on.

GOAL 3) SURVIVAL

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 34500 words
Where I am: 34566 words
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Better than last week, that’s for sure. I’m trying to work out how to get everyone from where they are now to where they need to be nearer to the end, and I think I’ve got it sorted out? Maybe?

I dunno, nothing makes sense and I’m just winging it at this point.

Goal Update 8/29

GOAL 1) PUBLISH SKOS

My Goal: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
Where I planned to be: Spent at least 30 mins
Where I am: Done with edits for the moment
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
I finished typing in my edits. I kinda want to do a read-through just to check everything over before sending it to my editor, but I’ll see what kind of free time I have next week. Classes are starting bright and early Monday morning. Online, of course, but I’m expected to be in the video chat at 8, so…

GOAL 2) REVISE SYCU

My Goal: 2 Lessons per month/ 1 Lesson every 2 weeks (except L17 and L21, which get 4 weeks min)
Where I planned to be: Lesson 18, finished
Where I am: Lesson 18, finished
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
This lesson is kind of a gimme, since it’s meant to sort out things I… don’t actually have a problem with. I’ve never tried to use language that would make me sound “smarter” or gone “word shopping”. I hate reading purple prose, so why on Earth would I write it? I write the way I talk, and in dialogue, I do my best to write the way my characters would talk. And don’t get me started about commas… I know where they should go grammatically – thank you, useless English degree – but I also will put them where I think a comma should go. Like, where you would naturally pause in a sentence while speaking. So really I just used it to give myself an excuse to read through the whole thing as it stands now.

The story definitely reads better, but it’s obviously shorter. WAY shorter. There are a LOT of pages of just big red X and nothing else. I think I cut way more than I added. Not to mention the stack of pages I didn’t even touch because the scenes on them got cut completely.

There’s at least 100 pages there. Untouched, unread, trash. Or at least, according to my outline. Maybe I’ll find something to put back in.

But it doesn’t feel right to me yet. Something’s missing. I’m not sure what yet.

GOAL 3) SURVIVAL

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 33000 words
Where I am: 33019 words
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:

Goal Update 8/22

GOAL 1) PUBLISH SKOS

My Goal: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
Where I planned to be: Spent at least 30 mins
Where I am: Somewhere
On Target or Behind: Probably on target

How’s It Going:
The bad news is, the copyeditor I was going to use has disappeared off the face of the planet.

The good news is, instead of typing in my edits on Tuesday, I spent most of the morning trying to find someone else and I was… pleasantly surprised at how easy it was. All three of the folks I queried responded very quickly (although one was booked solid until November of next year! and another was… very pricey) and I’m scheduled for the week of September 14th.

Which means I need to have my changes typed in by the 13th, which gives me… 3 weeks. Piece of cake. (I’ve been going backwards so the page numbers stay lined up between page and screen, and I’m already on page 11, so.)

GOAL 2) REVISE SYCU

My Goal: 2 Lessons per month/ 1 Lesson every 2 weeks (except L17 and L21, which get 4 weeks min)
Where I planned to be: Lesson 17, finished
Where I am: Lesson 17, finished
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
IT’S DONE.

Okay, it’s not done done, but this part of the revision is probably the most brutal and time consuming, especially for this book (probably for any book, idk), and I managed to do it in a few weeks instead of…

…years. -coughs-

GOAL 3) SURVIVAL

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 31500 words
Where I am: 31885 words
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
If you’ve ever seen Bob’s Burgers, just imagine the groaning noise Tina makes when she’s anxious.

For everyone else, here’s a clip. (It’s also a… startlingly accurate representation of how I felt the first time I drove a car, except I knew how to turn and I didn’t hit anything).

Everything’s fine, I promise, I’m just… Ehhhhhhhh.