What the other half was doing...

Ok, Lisa posted on Monday about her really good conference performance. What else was going on during that week?

Well...


Thanks to taedh7 for the video... but serious folks...

First off, the Kickstarter ended. In an ironic twist of fate the Kickstarter not funding turned out to be the best possible option! I got it up. I did it. I finished it. Someone contributed. But, not enough contributions to make it go.

Now this is good because 1) I re-evaluated and solved my problem with the ebook version (which will net me higher royalties (think 2-3 times the royalties at half the price to the customer!) 2) I got a contributor in the background who came through with funds for the test kits without contributing on Kickstarter. This got the project going without the fulfillment and tax issues that would have come with the timing of the Kickstarter. The book will be out (to a test audience at least) by the end of the year and in a general release next April.

So what does that mean? (you know besides the obvious I'm a professional author now...) What did I do with the rest of the time ('cause the failing up part didn't really take that long...)

First I'm planning the questionnaire to go with the test version of the book.

Second...( Thanks to Akinius for this one...)



But seriously again...
There are a few thrilling heroics... I'm currently doing a Nanowrimo (national novel writing month) project...
Here are the current stats

I am currently at 34,207 words out of a 50,000 word minimum goal for the month. If things go on track I will be cracking 40,000 on Friday. Basically if you think of it in terms of thinking and page count I've been writing a Masters Degree Thesis a week for the past two weeks. I will write another one this week and probably another one over Thanksgiving week!

After I write the whole thing I will be ignoring it for at least a month and then get into the editing in earnest. Hopefully that part is over by the end of February so I can get the final edits on the Chainmail Bottle Carriers book done in March (Note: I'm not taking December off... I have a short story collection and a diabetes book that are on hold so I can do the nanowrimo thing...).

Now... I'm about to do something here that I've never done here before...
As far as I know nobody except for Lisa has seen this one yet...
An excerpt from my upcoming novel Johnson Farm...

John couldn’t quite put it into words, but he was sure the words he’d read were a special thing, a holy thing. It was the only book she kept on the little desk. It was the only thing she kept among her treasures.

John stopped himself. It wasn’t the only book. There were the little books on top, what did those hold? He almost, almost got distracted by a slab of variegated tigers eye, blue mixed with gold and somehow green. It lay right next to the books and was so beautiful. But the books still called to him. He reached past the stone and pulled out one of the books.

The little hard backed notebook had a worn cover, the ink that looked like a date had run enough that he couldn’t read it. The first couple of pages were water damaged as well. John flipped further back into the book.

Ephraim got a letter today. He says someone named Ezra wrote him about his father. I guess Ezra was a friend from Ephraim’s past. He doesn’t talk about home much. He says that Ezra wrote about Ephraim’s father being sick. I asked Ephraim if he wants to go home. He said he would think about it but he wanted to pay another visit to the quarry before he went anywhere. Who knows when we will be this way again?

“Diaries? Are those all diaries?” John flashed his light side to side across the row of books. “Maybe this is what Ezra meant about answering questions.”

He slid a couple of the little books into his hip pocket and looked longingly down at the desk top. Sure enough there were slabs of every kind of tiger eye; the golden, blue hawk’s eye, red bull’s eye and the variegated. There were several of those, but only one with the green.

The sound of the front door opening alerted him to trouble. John had just enough time to relock the door and hide the flashlight before Dad came around the corner.

So, a little less gun play and a little more word play (note: guns do come up a few times in the story and the John probably would crash the spaceship if he had one...)

That's it for this week.
Lisa will post next week if she wants to and hopefully I will be back and unreasonably cocky in two...(then again I did just write a whole novel so maybe it won't be unreasonable!)