A Busy Author is a Happy Author

I’ve been a slackersaurus about updating my blog this week, many apologies! I’m sure the ten of you who read my blog regularly are terribly disappointed by the radio silence. What have I been doing? you ask. Where have I been? Well, I’ll tell you:

Revising. I sent first round revisions of Bai Tide (book #1 of the series) off to my editor a week or so ago and I’ve been working as fast as I can to whip Take the Bai Road (book #2 of the series) into shape well enough to send it to my beta readers. I’ve been promising to send book #2 to them for months at this point but there just isn’t enough time to get everything done so it gets shunted to the back burner more often than not. Revision is not a fast process. You have to sit with each sentence, each word, really, tearing it apart and putting it back together until it lands against your ears the way it should.
Planning. My best friend is having her first baby in January and I’m throwing her a massive baby shower next month. I’ve been planning, coordinating with other people, and getting invitations and ideas together. We’re having a blast but it’s a time-consuming labor of love. It’s going to be a…Wait for it…MURDER MYSTERY BABY SHOWER, with a roaring 20’s theme where guests get to solve the murder of the stork to win an awesome prize. I’m so excited. Trust me, this is the perfect shower theme for my friend. It’s going to be a hoot.
Hiring. I finally, after much searching and follow-up, found and hired a book publicist to help me spread the word about Bai Tide. Book promotion is a tiring, relentless, time-consuming process. If you can find someone fantastic to help you with it, you’ll be much happier for it. I hired Authors, Large and Small to help me out and so far I’m thrilled. I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of magic they can work for me.
Podcasting. My friend A.C. Fuller has asked me to put together some short segments to put into his podcast, Writer 2.0. I’ve been working on putting those segments together and it’s going well but is, as you may have guessed, time-consuming (noticing a theme, here?). They’re one-to-two minute segments I’m calling Amuse Bouche Inspiration, and each segment explains how a famous writer got his or her start, and what we can learn from them. I like how they’ve turned out and can’t wait to hear them on air, so to speak.

As you can see, I’ve been busy, just not busy blogging. If you’re an author and you can say you’re busy, you’re lucky. I should be getting round two revisions from my editor for Bai Tide this week, which will mean no more revisions for book #2 and I’ll be under deadline again.

By the time I’m done revising Bai Tide and Take the Bai Road, I’m pretty sure I will have completely forgotten how to write new material. When the time comes to write book #4, I’m going to feel like a newb again!

Thanks for sharing!