On Roadblocks, Stepping Stones & Scrooge
A recent flurry of Christmas festivities have forced a dramatic slowing in my social media activity. Which is just fine. Real life beats cyber life any time.
Little Wonder Boy has been singing and swinging his adorable self at about four Christmas hot spots a week for the last three weeks. That's in addition to the events we're actually invited to as guests rather than entertainment. Oh and there's the multiple birthdays and an anniversary. December's a happening place at our house.
Amidst all this partying, I've been using every spare minute to get ExtraNormal polished and ready for release.While the manuscript is just about there, I'm amazed and mind-blown at my to-do list. Make swag, prepare blog tour, send out ARCs. I'm not complaining in the least. This is a great journey that I'm on. But I have hit a few bumps in the road in the last week that have me wringing my hands and wiping my brow.
Most of these bumps are small--like yesterday when I naively clicked a button that I didn't notice made major changes to all 202 pages of my manuscript, then clicked the save button, then spent the next two precious hours repairing those changes. Sigh.
There was also the matter of a one-star review. Every author has to be prepared for bad reviews. They do and will happen. Because humans are blessed with a variety of tastes, even the most highly-acclaimed works of literature receives an occasional bad review. Thank goodness, or we'd have to write a story about our messed up dystopian society where everyone thinks the same. And while I personally don't write reviews or rank stories that I don't like, I realize that some folks consider it a public service to warn others away from bad writing.
With all that said, however, I was not expecting a one-star ranking from someone who has not even read the book. I can't even come up with the thought process of someone who would just look at a cover and blurb of a book and decide that the world needs to know that they think it stinks. But I would hate to live with their Carma. I'm guessing this might be the same person (or kind of person) who flips one off while cutting them off in traffic. Or maybe the person who jumps to the front of a long line at amusement parks. Or maybe the infamous baby candy stealers. It's a scary world out there. But I must feel pity. Anger takes up too much energy.
Which leads to the big stumbling block that I crashed into last week. (Still cleaning up the road rash.) This post is all ready too long, so I'll give the quickie version. A book was released last week with essentially my same cover. And while imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that, I kind of like the idea of my book being unique. Cause it is. So after much of that hand wringing and brow wiping, I have decided that the cover needs to be revamped before the release. This has made me very sad, because I love the cover and have received great feedback.
But as of yesterday I'm getting excited again. The cover that's in the works blows the old one out of the water. That's right! This road block is turning into a stepping stone. I love when that happens! So watch for it - a new awesome and incredible cover release - coming out very soon!
Now if I can just put a positive spin on that one-star rating scandal.
Little Wonder Boy has been singing and swinging his adorable self at about four Christmas hot spots a week for the last three weeks. That's in addition to the events we're actually invited to as guests rather than entertainment. Oh and there's the multiple birthdays and an anniversary. December's a happening place at our house.
Amidst all this partying, I've been using every spare minute to get ExtraNormal polished and ready for release.While the manuscript is just about there, I'm amazed and mind-blown at my to-do list. Make swag, prepare blog tour, send out ARCs. I'm not complaining in the least. This is a great journey that I'm on. But I have hit a few bumps in the road in the last week that have me wringing my hands and wiping my brow.
Most of these bumps are small--like yesterday when I naively clicked a button that I didn't notice made major changes to all 202 pages of my manuscript, then clicked the save button, then spent the next two precious hours repairing those changes. Sigh.
There was also the matter of a one-star review. Every author has to be prepared for bad reviews. They do and will happen. Because humans are blessed with a variety of tastes, even the most highly-acclaimed works of literature receives an occasional bad review. Thank goodness, or we'd have to write a story about our messed up dystopian society where everyone thinks the same. And while I personally don't write reviews or rank stories that I don't like, I realize that some folks consider it a public service to warn others away from bad writing.
With all that said, however, I was not expecting a one-star ranking from someone who has not even read the book. I can't even come up with the thought process of someone who would just look at a cover and blurb of a book and decide that the world needs to know that they think it stinks. But I would hate to live with their Carma. I'm guessing this might be the same person (or kind of person) who flips one off while cutting them off in traffic. Or maybe the person who jumps to the front of a long line at amusement parks. Or maybe the infamous baby candy stealers. It's a scary world out there. But I must feel pity. Anger takes up too much energy.
Which leads to the big stumbling block that I crashed into last week. (Still cleaning up the road rash.) This post is all ready too long, so I'll give the quickie version. A book was released last week with essentially my same cover. And while imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that, I kind of like the idea of my book being unique. Cause it is. So after much of that hand wringing and brow wiping, I have decided that the cover needs to be revamped before the release. This has made me very sad, because I love the cover and have received great feedback.
But as of yesterday I'm getting excited again. The cover that's in the works blows the old one out of the water. That's right! This road block is turning into a stepping stone. I love when that happens! So watch for it - a new awesome and incredible cover release - coming out very soon!
Now if I can just put a positive spin on that one-star rating scandal.
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