Monday, March 20, 2017

The End is Near




Devlin 4: Missing Persons is pretty much done.  Today I will be doing the final formats and then publishing at Smashwords and Kindle stores.

This is another of those books that simply should not have taken so long to edit as it did.  I knew something was wrong, though, so I kept bouncing off of it.  Once I fixed a couple problems, I moved very quickly through the rest of the work.

It happens.  You get to a point where you just know there is something not quite right with a story but you can't single out the problem -- or problems in this case.  I finally got everything to work together, though.

The other problem I am having is with Journey of a Thousand Truths.  It's not a huge problem, just a change in direction, more or less.  I had a certain set of scenes that I had planned for the end of the novel, but I realized that they don't work there.  They have to come sooner as the penultimate section of the story.  That shouldn't be such a problem, right?  But for some reason, my mind doesn't want to move to this part of the adventure, and I'm not sure why not.  This makes sense, story-wise.  I'm happy with it.

Maybe now that I have the Devlin novel out of the way, this one will fall back into place.  I like what is going to happen so I should get happy about writing it.

I also toned down some of the color in the cover that I posted last week for the Devlin book.  It was a bit too neon.  LOL.   

What else?  Hmmm.  So far this year I've come up with an idea for an alternate ancient world book (or series), a new Devlin novel (#10?), and now another book for the Inner World Council science fiction universe.  When I told Russ the idea, he thought it sounded great.  It will require me to do some research on other IWC books I've written (these include the Devlin novels and probably 20 or so others).  I need to trace the appearances of a certain character.  I do have a lovely Aeon Timeline made up for the IWC stuff, so that helps.  I just don't recall all the times the character has made an appearance.

Oh yes, and Amusing Grace, the sequel to Muse, is not moving quickly, but it's been fun so far.  Once I get Devlin out of the way, it should pick up.

Or maybe not.  I do intend to edit Raventower & Merriweather 2: War next.

Yes, that's one of the big parts of being a prolific writer. There is always something more to get done.  I need to do the pre-work on two ideas, the outline on one, finish two first drafts, and edit ... more stories than even I like to think about right now.

Oh, and did I mention the course on reading and writing hieroglyphs?  I'm having a lot of fun with that one!  I just need to find a way to set up my homework on it -- and I think I just realized what I need to do!  Notecards!  I have a ton of them around here somewhere.  I can sort them by letter and it will be far easier for me to find stuff.  I like it!  Of course now I won't be able to find the notecards that have been floating around here for a decade, right?  That's the way it always works for me.  I move stuff here and there and back again, but the moment I actually need it, the cats hide it somewhere.

Busy.  Very busy.  Having fun.

Oh, and it got up to 79f on Sunday!  SPRING!  A week ago, six inches of snow fell.  We could well have snow again.  We've had some incredible snow storms in April.  A couple years ago, it snowed on the first day of summer in parts of Nebraska.  I am ready for spring, though.  We're going to have a few days of cooler -- but not cold -- weather, but you can tell that warmth is on the way.  The big hope is that we don't leap straight into summer.


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