Writing Update
1. Work on Ghost has been progressing with way more speed over the past few weeks. I even managed to get serious pages done when my husband and I were visiting family for a few days, which is pretty impressive once you know how easily distracted I can be. I'm in the middle of the big finish now, actually. I've just got to wrap up this huge, complex, crucially important scene, and then I'm off to a resolution and an epilogue. I am looking forward to it so much, you have no idea. The closer to the end of a book I get, the more hours I tend to put in so that I don't lose track of the million threads I'm trying to pull together, but oh man, does it get mentally exhausting in the last strides. I need a day off to watch bad Netflix in my jammies.
There's still a ton of revision, obviously. I have a bullet journal for fiction projects, and like, four entire pages of my Ghost section are composed of what I call go-backs. See, sometimes in the middle or end of a book I'll realize something awesome is unfolding out of nowhere, but that I haven't set that event up so far in the book. It's just this thing that leaps out of nowhere and makes no sense without some kind of context coming before. However, because the idea is very new and I'm not sure how best to use it yet, inserting an introduction and substantial set up to make sure the new element works would be both time-consuming and--should I realize the manuscript was better off beforehand--potentially wasted, so I just make a note in my journal to do a go-back later once I've figured it all out. I've tried to come up with a better name for these go-backs, something not so obvious and blah, but what it lacks in poetry, it makes up for in accuracy and lack of effort, so I've never bothered to go through with it.
The sort of revision that go-backs require is, unfortunately, a major part of writing without an outline and following your id into random, dark corners. But hey, considering how much better writing Ghost's book has been than writing Tobias's book was, I'll take an expanded revision process with pleasure.
2. Have you heard that Bookbub has an author recommendation thingie now? I haven't looked into it, but I got an email suggesting I recommend books to you guys on their site. I'm not sure how realistic that is, since I've haven't updated anything I've been reading on Goodreads in months, but I thought I'd bring it up. Do people do that now? Is that a thing, following authors on Bookbub for recs? Am I out of the loop again?
3. Hard Line is coming out in less than two weeks--woo!--and so I'm trying to ramp up the pre-release stuff. I'm not good at this part, though, seriously, you guys, the marketing angle does not come naturally to me. I feel like I'm mostly throwing tag lines and incomplete quotes from reviews at people and then running away before they notice how awkward the whole process is, and that makes me worry that I'm being a jerk and interrupting people's busy lives like a bad radio commercial. I've been putting up excerpts on the blog the last few weekends, which isn't a hard thing to do, although choosing a section of text isn't always easy. It doesn't help that I've been using sort of long ones, and it's hard to find sections that don't have spoilers or will be confusing out of context. I don't think I've picked too badly, but they've all had a fighty, angsty, enemies-to-lovers tone so far. I think for the last two excerpts I'll go for something a little more intimate--sweet or spicy, maybe. :D
4. Still plugging away on that side project that I can only refer to with zero specificity. Planning to go great guns on it next week, though, if I can get Ghost out to my betas this weekend. Cross your fingers!
5. Oh, and guess what? Hard Line is a RT Book Reviews Top Pick!
