Dean Robertson's Blog, page 17

Day Seven: Completion, Response, Novels and Netflix

 

 

Writers and Readers:

The manuscript went to my publisher on Wednesday, along with all images into a dropbox to which he has access.  A huge relief.  And I already have a response.  John told me to expect to hear from his copy editor, and today an email arrived expressing interest in my general subject matter and laying out the next steps–within ten days, the copy editor will return my manuscript.  I am given two days to do another proofreading and return it to him.  Next step, layout.  Then I’ll have one final, final chance to catch any errors or make any changes before publication.  Anything I miss that last time around will be in the book.

It is very exciting and just as frightening.  This thing is really going to happen.

Meanwhile, life continues to show up.  Isaac is still sick.  His blood and urine tests came back clean, all vital signs are normal.  He’s a healthy cat in great shape.  Except he isn’t.  I know all the signs.  Unless he has a turnaround, I will call and make an appointment for an X-ray.  This is a familiar process as I’ve lived my life with cats, ten years with llamas.  It is never easy.  Isaac is my little anchor to this world and my prayers today are that he be left in my care many more years.

And, speaking of being in my care, I spent two hours with my four-week-old grandson today.  It was the second day in a row that he spent most of our time together screaming bloody murder–not wet, not hungry, just hot, tired, and frustrated.  My kids have a visitor this week and I suspect the little person is simply getting out and about more than he’s used to and getting a bit more stimulated than usual.  He reached that terrible level of exhaustion when it has become impossible to stay awake and impossible to get to sleep.

And on this Seventh Day, on which I think I recall I’m supposed to rest, I dug out all the potential social network connections, book reviews, local publications about women in the area, possible national library publications, AARP, anything and everything that is a potential target for publicizing this book.  And Koehler has a short list of good places to contact for reviews.  If I really have a week off work on the book itself, I can use at least part of it for a different kind of work and get a jump start on marketing which has been on hold for over two months.  This will include plans for travel.  No rest for the wicked, someone once said.

And, finally, I am going to try awfully hard to get to a real couple of days’ break during which I will finish The Buried Giant and Revelations and watch a few more episodes of Season One of “Grace and Frankie,” which I’ve just discovered thanks to a suggestion by my daughter-in-law.

But, one tightly scheduled day at a time.  For today: a big job completed; invitations for the book launch arrived yesterday.  I love them.