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Agony Aunt
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Today I mostly wrote ... the word count thread.
It is incredibly frustrating - and typical - to have to deal with the body and mind problems of ME/CFS to even be able to write.I keep trying to tweak the sleep/food/exercise/meds knobs to have any time in which I can think.
I've been working on this trilogy for 21 years now. Should have it finished before another ten are up.
Having standards makes it hard - it also makes it worthwhile. No one other than me can write this one.
But it is expensive.
Brilliant going Alicia. I’ve written a blog post this week and managed to run through the editor’s comments on the new one, sort them out and send it back to her. I also had a bit of a go at some of the formatting and stuff I’m having to do on the other books so it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Mum is looking up which is a bonus.
Hugs to your mum. Give her an extra one from me. You know why.
Alicia wrote: "Hugs to your mum. Give her an extra one from me. You know why."Bless you 🧡
Yay! I have a properly built epub and word documents for Smashwords and anywhere else who needs one. I also have started building the paperback so I can soon get a cover with the right spine width off the designer and get that done. Working hard to get it all done by the start of the week.
Realizing that my problem is way too much material - requiring selection - and not not enough.Plugging through it trying to sort it into appropriate scenes.
Some progress today - but not the actual scene-writing yet.
The brain fog has been heavy.
I'm calling it progress.
Alicia wrote: "Realizing that my problem is way too much material - requiring selection - and not not enough.Plugging through it trying to sort it into appropriate scenes.
"
Ditto. Hope the fog clears.
Thanks.It's 5:47am here, and I haven't managed to get to sleep - probably won't catch up today.
But I keep poking at it, and it WILL come together, and act as if it was there all along.
Does anyone here have a subscription to The Telegraph?I'd prefer not going through the whole song and dance of a free subscription which I will then cancel to get a look at the review:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/b...
and just want to know if it includes any primary information on Miss Mary Prickett, Alice and other Liddell children's governess. Or even gossip.
If there is any, I can possibly buy the book itself.
I have no other reason to read there, and probably will not find anything I need in the review, so I would appreciate help if you are a subscriber. Thanks!
I cannot find it in the hard copy version and we aren't subscribed to the online version (or maybe we are but we've never bothered taking up the subscription because we've had friends who were bombarded with spam from paper and advertisers
Jim wrote: "I cannot find it in the hard copy version and we aren't subscribed to the online version (or maybe we are but we've never bothered taking up the subscription because we've had friends who were bomb..."Thanks for looking.
Alicia wrote: "Does anyone here have a subscription to The Telegraph?I'd prefer not going through the whole song and dance of a free subscription which I will then cancel to get a look at the review:
https://ww..."
Mum takes the Telegraph (sometimes she buys it too, badoom tish!). Was it an article about Lewis Carol? I couldn't really see anything but what I believed was part of an illustration from Alice in Wonderland. If you can get me a headline for the article, I will try to remember to have a look for it and photograph it for you.
Thanks. Please don't put a huge amount of effort into this, but if your mum has the online version included with her subscription, it would be a quick copy/paste - just put it in this thread, and I'll find it.The headline is
The Looking Glass House by Vanessa Tait, review: 'extensively researched'
I can buy the book, but I don't want to be influenced by it - I have my own ideas to put into NETHERWORLD, and am always careful to avoid plagiarizing by keeping track of where I get any information. So I won't read the book, but reviews are more public, and I'd be very interested in reading this review.
Pride's Children PURGATORY is at 49 ratings (most have reviews), and I'd dearly like to have 50.Let me know if you'd like an electronic ARC and might consider writing a review (I don't nag - completely optional).
Tantalizing.
Alicia wrote: "Thanks. Please don't put a huge amount of effort into this, but if your mum has the online version included with her subscription, it would be a quick copy/paste - just put it in this thread, and I..."Hellooo Mum gets a paper copy delivered every day so I’ll see if I can find it. :-)
Managed to finish off all the production and the book is ready to go. Woot. Now having a bash at learning how to do things in adobe illustrator. Just cause ...
I think the word I'm looking for may be 'masochist,' or it could simply be learning a new skill you will use again and again.YMMV
Worked on the edit some more. Getting closer to being able to do one big file for a read through, but still trying to make sure some small continuity points are correct.
Thrilled. Two new ratings, one a 5* with a review. Thank you, Peanut, whoever you are.Finally hit 50! I dunno - it's like a magic number. Determined to get NETHERWORLD finished THIS year.
Top stuff everyone. I've redrawn my new logo in Illustrator, just cause I can. Now to do the letters saying HUP at the bottom.
Worked on the continuity some more then started the process of creating and tidying up the consolidated file to do the readthrough.
Finally got my research for this part of NETHERWORLD done, printed it out (20 pages), carved it up for the freezer, and assigned everything to one of ten scenes - and dumped about 550 words of new text for the actual current scene - after a couple of weeks of a logjam.Turns out my subconscious was confused - so it couldn't write.
Hope to report progress in finished scenes again very soon.
Feels good.
Yay Pam and Alicia. Launched a book and am now getting that lovely feeling of excitement that comes when your thoughts turn to a new one. Need to write another in that series and then possibly something new and non-K'Barthan that is an easier sell - maybe just sci-fi humour rather than science fiction fantasy action adventure (planet based) with a dash of romance but no squelchy bits.
This beast is now slain: 1700 words, polished, listened to, and put through Autocrit about thirty times.The best part, though, is that the research that was necessary because I hadn't finished it before will support me through about the next 10-12 scenes - as I take each meat chunk out of that metaphorical freezer to thaw, and then make something of it.
This is as happy as I get writing - until the publishing end. Phew!
That's brilliant Alicia, nice going. I have vertigo today I think it might be down to an arthritic neck I did the Epley manoeuvre anyway and it hasn't worked as well as I'd hoped. Although it seems to be both sides so I suspect I'm just putting one side in and tipping the other out. Ugh. Never mind. Great excuse to sit on my arse and write.
Oh dear, sorry to hear that M.T.Had to put aside the book to tackle crits for my online group and some real world stuff. One done, four more to do.
Oh dear Pam, never mind, if it's any consolation, I didn't write a thing. The real world interfered. I had to go and collect McOther unexpectedly from the garage. Poor guy, they'd told him they'd do it while he waited but when he arrived told him they couldn't. It's 35 miles away so it was a bit irritating of them. Then he needed lots of documents scanned.On the other hand I've been having fun working out how many books I need to sell each day to make a decent amount of cash. It's not as many as I thought, but I need a lot more people to see them. Never mind, I'll keep on keeping on.
M.T. wrote: "That's brilliant Alicia, nice going. I have vertigo today I think it might be down to an arthritic neck I did the Epley manoeuvre anyway and it hasn't worked as well as I'd hoped. Although it seems..."Thanks!
But if there's one thing you didn't need it was vertigo. Did you do the maneuver on each side? It seems odd you'd set both off at the same time.
Any new meds?
Alicia wrote: "M.T. wrote: "That's brilliant Alicia, nice going. I have vertigo today I think it might be down to an arthritic neck I did the Epley manoeuvre anyway and it hasn't worked as well as I'd hoped. Alth..."No new meds but it’s almost gone after five days on the hay fever meds so it might have been sinuses rather than the ears giving me gyp! :-)
Amazingly, I wrote some new stuff today, and typed up some of the stuff I’d hand written having decided where it should go. So that was about 1.5k of cheats words!
I'm on a very rare roll: Finished a 1,514 word complete scene yesterday - all the way through the final polish - and have written almost all the way to the end of the next one, 1,316 words, today.This never happens. Cross fingers - I really want to finish this book this year. Or early next, of course.
Good job, MT - feels so good, doesn't it?
Must be something in the hot tub: another 550 words today, considerable fine tuning and editing, listening several times, and another scene is finished and in the can.Can't believe it. I keep thinking reality will come crashing back.
Looks like there's something in the air - even I managed over 1,000 words on my last writing day.Well done to M.T. and Alicia :)
Been busy keeping up with the blog tour and putting books on Draft2Digital :-)
Jim wrote: "Been busy keeping up with the blog tour and putting books on Draft2Digital :-)"Yay! Go Jim. Then you can tell everyone that they can borrow your books from the library. All they have to do is ask their librarian to get them in - and with ebooks that’s a lot easier. I make a surprising number of library sales and though they are very small, for short books, especially, that’s well worth it.
Blimey Alicia and Anna, nice going. I think I’ve added about 3k to my long term manuscript since Monday, but I need to start a new K’Barthan not so long extra so I’ve something to publish around September time. Then there’s the Christmas Story, which may, or may not be in an anthology - if it isn’t I’ll publish it myself at Christmas. Otherwise it’ll probably be New Year before I publish the book after the September one. Ideally, having done three shorts and a long in the middle I should probably do three more shorts. However, I suspect that may not be the way it’s going to go.
Mwahahahargh! Can’t win ‘em all.
So today I had to edit the 1,000+ words - takes ages. So I only wrote 345 words today. And...!!! the supermarket delivery arrived nearly an hour early, smack bang in the middle of a good run. Kiboshed it completely. I'd fended off kind friends and relatives enquiring about Easter with 'back soon' comments and the jolly delivery driver arrives. Tomorrow is another day. It does help for me to feel obliged to tell you how many words I've written - I'm not at all competitive (missed out on that gene) but I don't like to feel I'm not pulling my weight!
Well Alicia - you can console yourself with the thought that you will always have a better word count than me!
M.T. wrote: "Jim wrote: "Been busy keeping up with the blog tour and putting books on Draft2Digital :-)"Yay! Go Jim. Then you can tell everyone that they can borrow your books from the library. All they have ..."
I'll remember that trick :-)
Been silly busy today, whenever I've got to the computer there's been endless emails from Goodreads. I published my brief (Or Tallis's brief) eulogy for Sue Vincent. I'd written it when she told me she'd been given a week to live. I sent it to her because I wanted her approval.
So far my blog has had 290 views, 99 likes, and 82 comments, plus I'm not sure how many shares.
I've tried to answer every comment, if even to only 'like' it, and obviously I've responded to comments made when its shared.
People's honest grief needs and deserves acknowledgement.
Rosemary (grooving with the Picts) wrote: "Well Alicia - you can console yourself with the thought that you will always have a better word count than me!"I only count finished fiction; the other stuff - in massive quantities - is helpful, but doesn't get me any further toward the published novel. I could probably do research a lot longer than I do, and keep track of what I found, and where, but at some point my muse gets bored.
Anna wrote: "So today I had to edit the 1,000+ words - takes ages. So I only wrote 345 words today. And...!!! the supermarket delivery arrived nearly an hour early, smack bang in the middle of a good run. Kibos..."Those words did not exist until you wrote them. That is indeed progress. Great job.
Jim wrote: "M.T. wrote: "Jim wrote: "Been busy keeping up with the blog tour and putting books on Draft2Digital :-)"Yay! Go Jim. Then you can tell everyone that they can borrow your books from the library. A..."
Shit! I missed that. I enjoy dropping into her blog sporadically. How grim for her.
we were swapping emails backwards and forwards organising the current blog tour.She commented how she missed the North.
I said, "Tallis Steelyard keeps muttering in my ear that with four good lads and a two seater sedan chair we could have you out of there and on the road north to civilisation."
Her answer, "My bag is packed."
Your posts always bring a smile, Jim. Thanks.About 1,300 words today. Would have been more but many of yesterday's had to be rehashed. As ever!
So thanks, Alicia, many of those words that didn't exist, then did, are now once again, not existing!
Right, got those crits done, revised two chapters and did a "story so far" for the next crit round which is a month away but it will allow me to send my submission to my group on time instead of a few days late as usual. And did a crit on a late submission which turned up yesterday. So should now be able to get back to the other book I'm trying to finish!
Anna wrote: "So thanks, Alicia, many of those words that didn't..."Ack! Don't discard necessarily, but save the ones that might have further life, even as an example in a blog post!
Alicia wrote: "Anna wrote: "So thanks, Alicia, many of those words that didn't..."Ack! Don't discard necessarily, but save the ones that might have further life, even as an example in a blog post!"
Saving the words - a good thought, thank you.
Jim wrote: "we were swapping emails backwards and forwards organising the current blog tour.She commented how she missed the North.
I said, "Tallis Steelyard keeps muttering in my ear that with four good lad..."
Love it. Doubtless she did too!
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I'm currently working through the second draft of The Truth About Trees. Hoping to be half way through by the end of the weekend."
Good news :-)