Eyes Above the Waterline

This past week was in a word...brutal. I knew that if I made it through the weekend, I could maybe catch my breath a little. A wee little.

The second edit of The Tumbas is returned to its editors (yeah, round 2 of edits came in last week), contract signed, bio and photo sent. They say there will be one more final edit after this. I, therefore, hope to have a release date told to me sometime in the near future. Deadline met.


My two upcoming releases for the Backworlds' series hit a spot end of last week where they both required my undivided attention and a lot of mental power--writing the last couple of chapters for The Backworlds, rewriting some chapters in Stopover at the Backworlds' Edge. And I had to keep going with both of them, knowing once I got past these points with both of them, the drafts/edits would pick up speed.

I have two chapters left to write in The Backworlds, then it's simultaneous 1st/2nd draft will be done. Sometime this week. Third draft begins this week, too. Luckily my crit partners have found no major course corrections in it, which means the 3rd draft will go fast. Phew! I will meet it's deadline to go to the editor end of this month.

Stopover is in third draft phase already and it will go much faster once I get the next couple of chapters straightened out. Then there's a few bumps later on that need some ironing, so my crit partners pointed out. I got scolded for keeping people awake. It's nice to know they found the story that exciting. I did contact its editor and pushed the deadline back one week, same day as The Backworlds now. I feel confident about getting it done by then.

And although I wanted to scream and bang my head against a wall on Saturday, I didn't. I powered through everything that needed to get done. Got guest posts written, emailed out and other projects done, too.

Is this enough for me to do? No. I've been thinking about the 1st draft of The Augmentation of Hetty Locklear, knowing it's up next--taking it from first draft to a pretty polished second draft. I think, hey, she needs a freebie before the novel release, too. What will I write about? Hmmm. Think, think, think...got it.

Anyone know anybody who works at Renaissance Fairs? There's one in Southern Oregon in May that I plan to attend and scope out. But some behind the scenes stuff would be great. I went to the one in Maryland once years ago, but feel I need some more updated information. Maybe I can track down some of those jousters online. There's a profession you don't hear folks mention often.


What do you do?

I'm a professional jouster.

What fun things we get to run into as writers.

Plus! That's right, there's more. I'm giving the presentation at my local writers guild meeting in April. Yup. Folks keep asking me about platform and building a blog, so that's what I'm going to teach. So, I have to learn powerpoint, make a presentation and some handouts and all that kind of thing. But I'm not going to worry about it until I'm done with both Backworlds stories. What would you say is essential about platform/blog building?

Anyway, I'm still in the swamp over my neck, but I don't feel as if I'm drowning any more. Progress. How are things going for you?

PS, to coincide with the I'll Tumble 4 Ya blogfest this week, my post will not be going off until late on Thursday. So, I didn't fall into a hole...unless you hear otherwise...I'm just delaying the post for a few hours for festing.

Oh, and if you haven't signed up for the I'll Tumble 4 Ya blogfest yet, here's the linky link. It's this Friday and all's you have to do is post up your 80's crush.