Earlier today Xchyler Publishing announced the release date of Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia:
October 13, 2013
As you can imagine, I’m hyped. But wait, there’s more! Here’s the cover picture:
I’ll post more news as it happens.
Floods and Book Progress
First of all . . .
To those who asked about how the floods affected us, thank you! We’re lucky, in that our place is on ground that’s a little higher. As such, although there were some problems on the roads, and it looks like the wet got into the electrics in the garage and took the fridge down (fixed by running an extension from another room), we got off lightly. Please spare a thought, though, for those not so fortunate, and make a donation if you can. Right now we have blue sky, but the forecast is saying there’s more rain on the way, and we’re still getting flood warnings on the telly. It’s not over yet.
Book Progress
The last couple of weeks has seen a big burst of stuff going on with Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia, in that a whole herd of different jobs all came to a close at roughly the same time. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we now have cover artwork, back-cover blurb, bio, acknowledgements, and dedication all done. Yesterday we finished the proofreading of the individual chapters—another milestone! The next step, I think, is for those chapters to be compiled into a single mock-up, which will go off to various people for a semi-final reading to spot remaining problems. That should be happening just about now, in fact, if I understand things correctly. I should be getting my copy pretty soon. On the publicity front, I’m expecting the official release date and the cover artwork to be revealed sometime in the next week or two, and there’ll almost certainly be a Facebook release party announced for the big day.
Loose Ends
Which means, by the way, that right at this moment I’m at a bit of a loose end. It’s a bit after 2pm Saturday, and just for once I’m not writing, or editing, or proofreading. After months of spending weekends and evenings on G & B, it seems weird and alien. So, I’m doing what any writer with time on their hands would do: I’m thinking about the next writing project. To be a little more accurate, I’m thinking about five writing projects, and deciding which of them is going to be next. Two of them are definitely not in the running for now. At this moment it’s a three-way toss-up between:
- a steampunk short story for Xchyler Publishing‘s next anthology;
- Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia II: The British Empire Strikes Back*;
- getting back to work on Smoke & Mirrors, the full-length story I put to one side six or seven months ago.
There’s plenty of time to decide; whatever I do, I won’t be starting in earnest until G & B is wrapped up and ready for release.
On that note, I think I’ll whiz out to the store and grab a chicken for dinner. Until next time . . .
* Chance that there will be a sequel to Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia: 99.99%. Chance that it will have that title: 0.00%, even though I’m a big Star Wars fan.
Release Party on Facebook NOW
J. M. Salyards’ book Shadow of the Last Men is released today, and there’s a Facebook party going as I write this. Come and join in the fun!
Expect Big Things
The last couple of weeks have been completely, absolutely insane. At work, the seeds of this were planted a few weeks ago, when one more senior developer decided to move on (for unusual reasons, too: he passed his bar exam, and he’s gone off to be a lawyer). With him gone, that left just one SD in the place: me. And as problems came up on one system or another, I’ve been drafted in to fix said problems. A few weeks ago I worked exclusively on one system; today I’m consulting on two systems, fixing problems on a third, developing a fourth from the ground up, single-handed, and I’m expected to spend half my time on a fifth project starting next Monday.
At the same time, on the Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia editing front, I’ve been spending every evening and weekend working on that. Hence the lack of posts here, since if I had time to blog then I had time to edit, and the editing had to come first.
And it’s all been worth the effort. Sunday I finished a major edit of one scene that my editor-in-chief had pointed out as having serious issues, and then yesterday I finished the last two chapters. So, all I’m waiting on now is (1) feedback from those changes, and (2) proofreading. On top of all this, the editor-in-chief had her own problems—car, phone, and Internet all pfft! gone at much the same time, just when things were getting heavy. Frankly, I’m amazed that everything is still pretty much under control, and—at least from where I’m sitting—apparently on track to meet our deadlines and get the book out the door on the scheduled release date.
Other essential bits are all done, too: the back cover blurb is finalised, as is my Bio page and the acknowledgements. And . . . we have a cover! Yes, the artwork is done. Things are happening; all is finally coming together, and I’ll be reporting developments here.
In other words, Watch This Space and Expect Big Things. Over the next couple of weeks I should be announcing the cover reveal and the official publication date, and I hope to be posting a bit more often in the run-up to the release. Exciting times indeed.
Until next time, gentle reader . . .
Art Failure
Me, an artist? No. All the same, I like messing with image manipulation software for fun. I just added a new page with a few images, which I’ll add to at intervals. Click the ART tab at the top to take a look.
A Crazy Few Weeks, and A Couple Of Shows
No, I haven’t been deliberately neglecting the blog posts. I’ve just been far, far too busy.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, my publisher, Xchyler Publishing, brought forward the release date of Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia by about a month from the original mid-November date. I’m thrilled, of course, but there’s always a downside—in this case, that being the deadlines are now much, much tighter. And so I and my extremely dedicated line editor, Jessica, have been hammering away at getting everything in shape in time. And we’ve done really, really well. The edits of the early chapters were completed four, five or more days past their deadlines, but through sheer hard work we’ve pulled that back in; we’re down to the last four chapters, and from the look of things we have every chance of finishing the job within the next three days—that is, only two days past deadline (and there’s even a chance that we’ll finish only one day late).
Doing that meant pretty much everything else had to go to the wall. Last weekend was twenty-one hours of knuckling down, and since then every lunchtime at work has been taken up, as well as every evening at home. And so, there’s been no time to compose blog posts. This is the first breathing space I’ve had, and it’s only because my editor was out of town yesterday.
That makes it sound as if there hasn’t been anything else. Not true; there has been time taken out for some fun stuff…
A couple of weeks ago we went to see Oleander at Moe’s BBQ and Bowling in Englewood. That was, frankly, a bit weird. I mean, Oleander, people; the band that brought you Are You There? You’ve probably heard it, even if you don’t know it by name. And there they were, playing to no more than fifty people. We were sitting twenty feet from the little stage, and the band members manned the CD/t-shirt sale table in person after the show, and shook hands, chatted, and signed CDs.
Last night we were at the Ogden in Denver to see Seether, who were supported by Eye Empire and Ten Years.
Great show. We saw Eye Empire last year, when they supported Seether at the Fillmore; they were good then, and they were even better last night. As for Ten Years, I’d never heard of them until the day I bought the tickets, but I was seriously impressed, and I’ll be buying their CD next chance I get.
So… it’s Sunday, and I have some down time. What to do, what to do… Tea, I think, and a late breakfast. By this time next week, all the line editing should be done, and (if all goes well) most or all of the proofreading. I won’t know what to do with myself. But I’m sure I’ll think of something.
Until next time…
A Warning For Writers
You’re writing, planning to publish? If so, check this out.
There are a number of companies out there who claim that they’re publishers, but they’re not—they are in the business of fleecing writers. They might throw something out there to make themselves look good, but the chances of your book ever actually appearing in print are slim. The chances of you being charged thousands of dollars for nothing in return, on the other hand, are very good indeed.
A point to note: Real publishers don’t charge. For anything. They get paid the same way, at the same time, that you do—from sales of your book, once it’s out there. If a “publisher” says anything about you paying money up front, clamp both hands round your wallet and keep their hands in sight as you back away.
I follow the Writer Beware Blogs on Facebook; their blog is invaluable to anyone looking to publish, and I recommend checking them out. This blog post was spurred by their latest post, in fact; you can (and should) read it by clicking here.
Fake publishers are a cancer right now, fed by the changes in publishing and hoping to catch new writers who aren’t familiar with the territory. And don’t make the mistake of thinking that “big” names are safe—Penguin associated themselves with Author Solutions, one of the worst offenders out there. If you’re about to go with a publisher, check them out first; check that blog, and also find out what other people are saying about them. We all know that the Internet can be a minefield; Internet publishing is no different. Be safe.
Another Milestone
Followers of this blog might have seen Saturday’s post, in which I moaned and groaned about having no editing to do on Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia, and how it was turning me into a nervous wreck.
I needn’t have worried. Before the day was out, a batch of line edits appeared in my inbox, and yesterday (Sunday) turned out to be a busy day—my changes went back to Jessica, my line editor, and then more came back, and before I knew it, files were bouncing back and forth like tennis balls at Wimbledon. A great day for progress.
And in the middle of all this, something else happened, the significance of which I didn’t realise right away. Chapters 10 & 11—the last two that were with Terri, my copy editor—were approved, and sent through to line editing. It doesn’t sound like much, and it didn’t really hit until Terri sent an email later.
Copy editing is done. DONE! Another milestone!
But there’s a downside. It means that Terri’s role in the project is at an end. Of course, that’s the way process goes—but I was surprised at just how personally the news impacted me. Terri and I have been working on this book for so long, it’s going to seem strange not having her wit and wisdom for the last stages.
There will be other projects, though, and that’s a good thought.
In other news: the release date for Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia has been brought forward! It was originally slated for November 15, but that’s changed; if all goes well, it’ll be available a few weeks earlier. I have a new date, but for now I’m keeping it under my hat—the deadlines are obviously much tighter now, and I don’t want to say something, only to have to change it again in the event that we slip a few days. But so far, we’re well on track to make it happen. Copy editing is complete, almost two weeks ahead of deadline, and line editing is going well. It’s looking good.
Potential problem, at least for today: I woke up with a fever, headache, and a sore throat. It’s not strep throat—despite the fact that some people at work have had that recently, this is something else. I’ve called in to take the day as sick—but there’s editing to be done, and I know that I won’t be able to rest in bed knowing that I could be doing something, even if it’s only a little bit, to push on. So I’m writing this post as a warm-up. And now it’s done, and it’s time to get some Dayquil and coffee, and take a gentle run at Chapter 4 line edits.
Until next time . . .
Going Round The Bend
For the first time I can remember in something like five months, I actually have no writing work to do—and it’s driving me nuts.
Weekends are, for me, the best days to write. Saturday and Sunday mornings are usually quiet, and I can slam through a couple of thousand words pretty easily, or focus on editing for a long stretch without interruptions and distractions. Recently, I’ve been working on editing Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia, and that’s been keeping me busy pretty much every weekend (except last weekend, of course, since we were at the Salt City Steamfest). It’s been so long since I did anything else, I’ve got used to spending weekend mornings doing that.
Today is different. I looked at the tracking sheet I use to keep up with where things are—and there’s nothing for me to do. Nada. Zip. Of the twelve chapters, two are with my copy editor, and the other ten are with my line editor. Until I get something back from one of them, I’m stuck. I want to move, do something, edit, edit, edit. But I can’t.
As Leon said, nothing is worse than having an itch you can never scratch.
I have other writing projects. There’s Smoke and Mirrors, which is, right now, a half-written first draft that was put to one side several months ago to make way for Gunn & Bohemia. But that’s a big job; I need to completely rework the timeline, for one thing, and then almost certainly rewrite—or at least edit, pretty drastically—every scene that’s been written so far. That’s not something I want to get into until I can work on it exclusively. That means not until G & B is ready to be unleashed. Now is not the time.
There’s the fantasy short I’ve been working on here and there, for Xchyler’s Back To The Future anthology contest. It’s partly written, and submissions are open until the end of the month, so there’s time. The trouble with that one is . . . well, to be honest, it’s boring. The story is complete, and I’m partway through the writing, but it’s too plain. It needs something—a twist, a surprise ending, some whiz-bang. As it stands, everything is too obvious, too easy. I need to think of something to make it stand out. If I can come up with something, perhaps I can really get that one going.
In a little while, there’s Xchyler’s release party for A Dash Of Madness (see my previous post for details and links), and I’m planning on being there at least part of the time. Another Saturday tradition is an hour or so on Skype, chatting with family. And the front lawn needs mowing; I’ll be taking care of that later. This is also the last weekend of the Colorado Renaissance Festival, and we were planning on going—but Kate’s sick with something and not up to the trip. Oh well; next year, maybe.
There are gaps to fill where the editing used to be. Editing drives me crazy at times—but not editing is driving me crazier, quicker.
I think I need coffee.
Until next time, gentle reader . . .
[Update, Sunday morning: three chapters came back from my line editor yesterday afternoon. I am editing. My day is complete.]
Book Release Party on Facebook Today!
Starting at 9am Mountain Time, Xchyler Publishing is hosting a Facebook release party for A Dash Of Madness – a thriller anthology.
From the event page: Come right here to Facebook and meet the eight talented authors who have created stories that explore twisted perceptions and challenge conceptions about right and wrong. Join them as they discuss how they created different avenues for exposing warped cognition and mutilated logic.
Pete Ford 