
The end of the road is coming into view. A few more twists and turns and we're at the destination. Let's just hope I don't run out of gas.
So, for anyone who's been following along, I've self imposed a deadline of finishing the second draft of this book by the first week of November. There's a few reasons for this. First and foremost, the editor that I want to work with has an opening near the end of November that I'd like to be prepared for. If I finish this draft and secure that spot, it gives me a few extra weeks to self-edit it at least once to catch all the blatantly obvious things that need fixing. Secondly, it gives me the motivation to actually get this thing done. I was so excited about the project when I started, and the first draft came together smoothly and gracefully. After realizing the problems with it and having to rework the entire thing, the interest dwindled and I struggled for a long time on finding the motivation to work on it. The discovery process was over, I felt like a failure, and the magic had worn off.
But I want to get it done. I want it to be out there for people. I still think this is a story that people will enjoy. I dare to say it will be one of the best. At least that's what I'm hoping.
So instead of caving in on the project and giving up, I've found ways to push myself through the hard parts. This self imposed deadline is the most recent, and it's been working so far. Yesterday I crossed 42k words, and hopefully I can hit at least 50k by the end of this week. The ultimate goal is 60-65k, and I have a feeling I can get there. There's still a fair amount of story to take place, and I've found myself focused on character development a lot in this story - more than in the past - so I think I have the content for it. I just need to get the words out onto the page.
The other goal with finishing this and getting it to the editor is that I can start working on the other aspects of getting this thing published. Which leads me into going to get legitimate author photos taken yesterday!
My ex-roommate has always been into photography and recently has been practicing it a lot. He's good. Like, professionally good. He offered to take some photos for me and I jumped at the opportunity. Every author photo I've had on the other books has been a self-shot last minute addition, doing the best with what I have at my disposal. The author picture I used for Psyconics was literally taken the day I pressed publish on Amazon.
In the continuous effort to make each book better than the last, this is another one of those steps. We went to a park in town and easily took 400 photos. He's working on the editing right now. Needless to say, I'm excited. Generally I hate pictures or videos or anything where I can see myself, but in this case, some of the previews I saw were actually fantastic. I can't wait to share them with you all.
I'm also thinking I need to start getting work on the cover done sooner than later, so I can have that ready before publication as well. The last two books were all very last minute things, and I'd like this one to be planned out and prepared in advance. Yet another reason I'm working so hard to try and get this finished and sent off.
As I've mentioned before, this will be the first time working with an actual editor as well, and I have a feeling there will be plenty of changes that need to be made which can take time as well. The long term goal is still to publish by late February/early March of next year, so I need to plan accordingly. Just based on the sample edit I had her do though, I'm so excited to see the final result. I want this book to be amazing.
That's all I've got for right now. As soon as I get the pictures back, I'm sure I'll be sharing them on Facebook and Instagram and wherever else I can think to share them, so be on the lookout for that. I've also starting making little random videos on TikTok, so if that's your thing feel free to check me out there.
Here's to finding the end of the road.
-Dave
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