October 7, 2016

  I'm late with my post today for one main reason:  I wanted to get the corrections done!
  Hallelujah!  I have achieved Nirvana... I think.
  Because I like numbers, here's the breakdown:
     50 Chapters, 274 pages
     Ironically, 274 total corrections therefore one per page or an average of 5.5 per chapter.

That's too high.
Phhhh.  I'm going to have to reread it.

     Necessary Changes:
        Doubled verbs - two
        Formatting -
           Dashes that I doubled but Word didn't convert - three
           Too much space inside a chapter break - two
           Soft return creating a double tab on the next line - nineteen
        Punctuation (mostly dashes, ellipses issues and adding/removing commas) -
           twenty-nine
        Capitalization (these are words that need to be capitalized in the setting of my book
           and not real life) - eleven
        General typos - sixteen
        Spelling - seventeen
        Lay vs. lie - seven
        Cot vs. bed - thirteen
        Changing words/sentences because they NEEDED changed (counting the missing five
           ending sentences of chapter 48) -  thirty-nine
        Misc. - fifteen

     Unnecessary Changes (words or sentences that didn't need fixed but sound better now):
         Changed - seventy-four
         Eliminated - seventeen
         Punctuation - ten

  I had six chapters that didn't need any changes at all!  I was so happy to have those.  There were more fixes in the front half of the book than the second half.  When I didn't find the last portion of chapter 48, I was mortified.

I am SOOO glad I bought the book proof

 

  There's too many errors to ignore the fact that I need to read it again.  Sad, but true.  But that's okay, I think.  Like I said a few posts back, this book will last longer than me.  I'm SO grateful I didn't just say "Oh, it's good.  Let's hit 'accept'."  This is embarrassing.  It would have been more so with a published book.

  I am not ordering another book proof, however.  Because of the issues with the text being wrong on the front cover, I've already made those changes and uploaded a new cover.  I ordered new proof book last week to be certain the book looked right with the fixed text and it does.  It is WAAAYYY better.  As far as the interior, I'm going to upload the cleaned up manuscript today and when they come back with the approval, I'll download a digital copy and print it off at home.  I'm going to make sure all the indents are correct, the odd page numbers are on the right hand pages, that I don't have any orphans or widows and then reread it.

  It'll be fine.

  Yesterday, I had an awesome day writing.  I got three chapters done, half of which was new material.  The chapter I wrote from scratch yesterday took off in an unexpected direction so now I'm all fired up to write again!  Yahoo!  Note:  that will mean more changes in the future and the farther I get away from this point, the farther I'll be from the draft that's already written.  Isn't writing exciting! Wahoo!

  I still need to upload stuff to CreateSpace and Smashwords so I better get to work.  Check in with you tomorrow.

Look what came in the mail! September 22, 2016

The proof copy is in!!  I'm excited!  This is so cool!  AAAHHH!

Look what I have!

  Okay, let's rejoice for a moment, shall we?
    Me - It looks like a real book!
    My hubby -  It IS a real book, honey.
    Me - ........... I guess so............

The windows go up the center!

  The cover is a matte finish.  My hubby really likes it because it makes the drawing of the cover art look like you could touch it and smudge the graphite.  I'm so happy the windows go up the middle of the spine!  I only had to upload that four times before that was finally correct.

Chapter 17?

  Okay, so, nitty-gritty.  I ordered this book proof so I can see what it looked like, hold it in my hands and read it to find any errors that needed fixing.  I like the feel of it.  It's really cool.  (I want to do another one!).  It's almost like holding your child for the first time.  It looks awesome inside.  (There's that 'it looks like a real book' thing again.)  I'm kinda in la-la land right now.  I have it here, I can read it, touch it... smell it.  It still doesn't seem real.


  So, now that I've had it for eighteen hours, what have I found so far?  First, it was TOTALLY worth it to buy the proof.  Originally, I wasn't intending on purchasing it, I was going to hit the publish button and go with it.  Well, the font on the title isn't correct (how did I miss that? - It's right in the mock-up).  Since I'm going to reload the cover, I'm going to blow up the art a little bit and eliminate some of the white on the sides of the front and back.  I read the first three chapters last night and I found four errors.  One is major, I went in to change the verb and didn't erase what I had in there (Dur).  One is a formatting error, I put in two dashes to make an 'em' dash and it didn't.  I forgot a period after a set of ellipses. And, I have a comma where I should have a period (Still a complete sentence, it just reads better as two).  The last three aren't a big deal and I might have left them if I hadn't found the first.  But since I did, I'm going to fix the tiny stuff too.  Might as well, right?
  I do have another pair of eyes looking for stuff.  Maybe between the two of us, we'll catch everything.

  I made a small advance in my floor plan drawing.  Freehand circles suck.  I should just break down and go buy another compass, but I don't want to go to the store.  :/  I only got 368 words written yesterday.  Yes, you saw that right, 368.  I think my creative tank is low.  Time to read something else.  I started reading The Maze Runner last night.  Halfway through the first chapter, I was thinking "That's what I'm doing wrong...."  After that, I read the first three chapters in my book.  I'm not doing anything wrong, it's just I'm in rewrite mode, so I think everything I've been writing is crap. 
  That's just how it goes.  The first draft (or fourth for that matter) is crap and it's ugly and it's full of grammatical issues.  It's not until you sit down and look at it and say "Okay, I've used 'irritated' seven times in this six page chapter," or "I have WAY too many adverbs in this section," that you actually turn something that's okay or good to something that's captivating.  It's part of the process.  I've been dealing in the muck this last six weeks, and so from my point of view, all I can see is yuck.

September 20, 2016

  Good Tuesday to you.  Thanks for stopping by.
  Okay, here's the update on yesterday.  I finished the night with 5,080 words.  It wasn't as big as Friday and Saturday, but it was still a good day.
  I struggled a little bit yesterday.  I was writing a kissing scene but my husband was in the room.  I was self-conscious the whole time.  And because I was going back and adding this chapter by quite a few, I felt like I needed to write it first, so I had the right frame-of-mind for those characters in the chapter I that I would be working on next.  Therefore, I lagged for about an hour until my husband went to work.  Then I spent the next hour re-writing what I worked on while he was there because I hadn't pulled myself into the scene and therefore wouldn't have pulled my readers in.  Sigh, the difficulties of writing (I say that with a smile.)  
  Honestly, I really do write my best when I'm alone.  I haven't figured out why yet, but I've found it to be true and I have to work around it.
  I'm fired up about working today.  I went to the NaNoWriMo website because I got a newsletter in my email and couldn't open it.  I knew it would be there in my mailbox.  Sure enough, it was.  They're reaching out, trying to get their authors psyched about the upcoming competition in November.  (If you want to join, now's the time!  Actually, you can join anytime up until Nov. 10th, but the earlier the better.  Just go back and click on the link and they'll help you out!)
  Anyway, I was able to go back and add stuff about the novel I worked on last year, Construct 11 Part 1!!   I loaded up a cover, put up the synopsis, stuck in an excerpt and updated my author's bio.  Now, I'm all stoked.
  I'm working on another permanent page to go along with the "About Construct 11" page.  I'm envisioning this page to be about the building itself.  I have some sketches of technical drawings I made last year in a book that I carry around with me EVERYWHERE (except church... it stays home then).  I scanned them into the computer yesterday and then realized I needed a better drawing.  So, I'm working on that a little today.  I hope to have that page up and running by Saturday.  Eeek.  Better get working.
  Thanks for coming.  See you tomorrow!

September 15, 2016

  Good morning.
  I received my approval back from CreateSpace again.  My letters on my spine were .02" too big.  So, they resized it and moved the spine so it was centered.  Uh, yeah.  It's off.
  I know why, I had my overall measurements for the whole cover a 1/8" too small (as opposed to 1/8" too big yesterday).  Therefore, my centerline was off.  As far as my lettering being too big, I don't think I changed it but maybe I did.  Anyway, I'll have to fix it and upload the file again.  So, I won't be able to order a proof book until tomorrow, if everything meets muster.
  Yesterday, I managed to get some re-writing done, about 4000 words.  I feel more accomplished when I'm able to do that.  I realize formatting by text and getting my cover just right is progress, but for whatever reason, I feel I need to be writing everyday.
  Because of that, I've changed how I'm organizing my day.  I'm treating it like it's a job and I'm devoting at least eight hours a day to it.  I'm getting ready for work every morning, like I would if I were leaving the house, make-up, earrings, etc.  I'm dressing like I would be in a casual office, no more t-shirts and shorts.  And I'm taking breaks every two hours, two 15 min and a lunch.
  The first two hours of the morning, I take care of business type stuff, answering emails, blogging and calling people if I need to.  Whatever I get done during that time is what I get done.  If it's still there after two hours, it goes on tomorrow's list.  Two hours a day to work on things like corrections, editing, covers, formatting, etc.  Four hours to do creative things like first draft or re-writing.
  I see a few difficulties with this, like on days when I need to go to the store or when there's an activity the kids need me to go to such as a cross country meet or back to school night.  So, I'm planning on doing this six days a week.  The kids will have to help clean the house (they should anyway) and I'll go do mom/wife things when I supposed to.  I'm hoping this will still allow me to get forty hours of work in a week.  I'm guessing it will be more, because that's how it's been.
  I'll check in tomorrow.  Have a good day!

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