News for the Week of 2.28.13: Pushing on Publishing, Wing Stretching, Page Design, and SocMedPromo

Hello, Friends and Readers!

Welcome to the last day of February! Or, for some of you, the first day of March *wave to Pakistan*. Beware the Ides.

Anyway, things are clicking along quite well. I’ve been stretching my wings a bit this week---I sent a short story to a contest, applied to a writing workshop in Seattle, and entered a pitch contest with Nadya. We’ll see what comes of it, but it feels good to be spending more energy pushing on the publishing world.

Interest in Soulwoven has picked up again on Wattpad, and I’m pleased as peaches. At this rate, it’ll hit 200,000 soon and get the coveted bold, shiny red text for its read numbers. I’m very excited about that. Wattpad and I are also working on some social media promotion for it, which should be cool as well. And most importantly, when going back through it to pull quotes for that, I realized I still totally love it.

That matters a lot. It doesn’t always work that way once you call a book finished and move on to the next one.

Speaking! Of! Which!

I’m starting line edits on Nadya. The feedback on it has been overwhelmingly positive and has helped me make a few last tweaks, and I think it’s almost ready to fly. I hope to start sending it around to agents in the next few weeks.

And once that’s done, I’ll get back to work on Soulwoven: Exile, I promise. I have all my ducks lined up for it now, and it’s just a matter of grinding through and doing the revisions, so hopefully that will be ready for mass consumption sooner rather than later.

AND I’ve started doing page design on Three Dances. I have a few technical hiccups to overcome, but I expect the Digital Deluxe Version, with enhanced artwork, to be ready very soon. Which is SUPER EXCITING, because then I can set a launch date and start doing promo work and generally kick things off.

I have another free Saturday this week, so I’ll be doing first-page critiques at 1:00 PM on Wattpad again. As always, the first two slots go to followers, so message me if you’re interested. Or if you have a friend who might be interested, tell them to do the same.

Thanks, thanks, thanks for all your support. This writing thing is going to fly sooner rather than later.

I can feel it.

-Jeff

Writing Wednesday: Manuscripts

Okay, so it's Thursday. But "Writing Wednesday" has such a ring to it, and I meant to post this yesterday but life got busy.

Anyway, for those of you who are wondering what a 133,000 word manuscript looks like when it's printed out, I submit the following:
















Soulwoven is 580 pages manuscript-formatted, which is a fancy way of saying there is a lot of space around the words. I am presently looking at my Christmas tree, wondering if it could make that much paper, and suspecting not.

Manuscript formatting is an interesting thing, because it's ugly. Very ugly. And yet I have discovered over time that my initial reaction to it ("This is an antiquated idea perpetuated by stodgy old people who wish everyone still used typewriters") has changed. One of the ideas I latched upon while learning to write was the thought that it's very important to stand (figuratively, mind you) naked before your writing--to view it without any filters or prejudices and see it for what it really is. Most times that's very uncomfortable, and it's not until it becomes comfortable that a piece is ready for the rest of the world.

Manuscript formatting helps me do that. Courier New font, possibly the most ugly, utilitarian typeface in my word processor, does not hide anything. I see every comma, every letter, every space. I notice the length of my paragraphs and sentences. There is very little between me and the language, and while that can be painful, the whole point of editing is to find the flaws in a piece, not to cover them up.

So that's enough about that. It's beautiful outside. We have about a foot of snow and it keeps falling in big, fluffy flakes that make me wish I had someone to go outside and romp around with (my girlfriend went home for the holidays yesterday). Perhaps I will content myself with doing snow angels on my deck instead.