Nanowrimo plans and Ari Cat Health Update
I just realized it... with my plan as it stands, the book will become available sometime during November, during NaNoWriMo, while I am working on its sequel. I see plenty of series potential in the book, because I set it up that way. Also, Ari Cat had his followup vet appointment today. He's back now and munching on his food after slashing the vet with a one inch long bleeding wound for poking his sore ear. More details under the cut.
Ari Cat has a polyp in one ear that could turn nasty. If it starts to grow, then he gets scheduled for outpatient surgery for another $30 to $50. He had his followup appointment today. The gob of wax is finally gone -- all those nights of waxing the cat have worked. Kitten and Karl have been wrapping him in a towel, holding him down and putting in eardrops every night for a week since a weekly dose for the infection wasn't budging the obstruction. Once it was gone, Dr. Bradley could see the polyp that it was probably stuck to. That is most likely benign and caused by the ear infection, so he's still getting his full course of antibiotics till the infection is gone but only gets a weekly dose now -- but we also need to check his ear because of the slight chance it's not benign and needs to be surgically removed. Happily that's very noninvasive surgery.
At least it is from our point of view. I understand that snipping off a wart inside an ear that's the size of a shot glass is a pretty easy, noninvasive thing. Ari's perspective, his ear hurts and Dr. Bradley keeps doing very painful things like sticking an otoscope into it. Today he wound up straitjacketed after having laid a one inch long gash into Dr. Bradley's arm. After having laid still and purred for Dr. Bradley before the exam. He just lashes out when the inside of his sore ear gets poked. If he needs surgery, he'll get total anesthesia for it.
Which is why we're watching rather than booking his appointment, because any full anesthesia has a slight risk and most times those polyps just go away on their own. Dr. Bradley doesn't like doing unnecessary surgery.
Kitten described the veterinarian as just standing very quietly for a while, holding his arm, not saying or doing anything. He took the time to calm down so that he wouldn't take it out on the cat, who didn't do anything but react like a cat who got poked in a sore spot. Ari usually behaves well with veterinarians, but this ear infection has been painful and he's objected every time it gets poked. Also he violently objected to getting his claws clipped on that first appointment. So it's circumstantial. I'm sure once he completely loses the ear infection that he'll be much mellower with Dr. Bradley.
I find myself trusting this vet more every time too, hearing about his reactions from Kitten. He's better with animals than people -- but that's the point. I don't care if he's brusque with humans as long as he's gentle with my cat. He also talks to Ari reasonably, says things like "We're friends now, right?" He's established enough rapport and respect that Ari only claws him when suffering painful medical indignities -- and ear infections are very painful. I can remember a few of them I've had that drove me out of my mind. I got snappish too, but more verbally.
I am really happy about the sequel possibilities for my Nanowrimo though. I think about it and not only can I add one more good battle to give The Emerald Sword a solid ending, but also unfulfilled prophecy and foreign enemies that could still invade with both magical and conventional warfare. I have just deleted a bunch of spoilers.
What I may do though, is start shifting emphasis on who's the main character in the sequel, since a lot of my MC's personal conflicts got resolved so splendidly in it. I need a more conflicted, more messed-up hero for the second book. I have one in mind, too, a character who's already appeared and proved to be interesting within the first book. I'm going to quit doing spoilers on this because The Emerald Sword will be available in its final form pretty soon now, and I don't want to ruin the first read for y'all. There may be a few in last year's entries during the Three Day Novel weekend that I wrote it, but the lesson I learned on this one is that to win that competition, I need to be capable of editing a rough draft within a week to publishable standards.
I've got speed on rough drafting, yay and good, a real joyride. But this next two months, I'm going to be gaining speed and quality of editing in order to keep up a decent publication schedule. My edit speed is the measure of how prolific I am.
If I can kick The Emerald Sword out the door on October 1st or October 9th or so, with professional quality, finish quality, that means that I can do between four to six novels a year. Because every one of them will need these edits. When I've edited as many as I've written, I may get that down to a month the way Leigh Brackett did and raise my prolificity. That itself would mean an indie career I can live on, if the numbers don't soar into pro-novel range.
The money, the income from 750 sales in POD is equivalent to 5,000 pro sales. So the process of treating my indie books as back-door submission is also a way for me to turn into a decently self supporting novelist even if nothing does explode into those big numbers. While at the same time, this time I'm actually doing the things that successful indie writers do to make a good living -- the website, the marketing, the advertising budget that some of the profits will go into, the profits of doing resale. That's the royalty income. Any signed editions I sell, I get both the author's cut and the bookseller's cut, which is self employment on the "lives on dealer tables" or online business model. SBI talks about online business modeling as collecting different income streams.
So maybe if I'm going with the SBI model, pro publishing is a perk and a lark and prestige, while I get self supporting a lot sooner this way. If I do the sequel for Nanowrimo and have Emerald Sword out, it would be natural to start editing it and plan that for the next one, set it up the same way. But I will not assume that -- it may take a year of letting the book sit and cool before editing in order to do a really good job on editing.
If I've got other good books edited and published in between, big deal. I'm not leaving some cliffhanger ending that would have readers strangling me if I don't shove the sequel into print ASAP. lol
Ari Cat has a polyp in one ear that could turn nasty. If it starts to grow, then he gets scheduled for outpatient surgery for another $30 to $50. He had his followup appointment today. The gob of wax is finally gone -- all those nights of waxing the cat have worked. Kitten and Karl have been wrapping him in a towel, holding him down and putting in eardrops every night for a week since a weekly dose for the infection wasn't budging the obstruction. Once it was gone, Dr. Bradley could see the polyp that it was probably stuck to. That is most likely benign and caused by the ear infection, so he's still getting his full course of antibiotics till the infection is gone but only gets a weekly dose now -- but we also need to check his ear because of the slight chance it's not benign and needs to be surgically removed. Happily that's very noninvasive surgery.
At least it is from our point of view. I understand that snipping off a wart inside an ear that's the size of a shot glass is a pretty easy, noninvasive thing. Ari's perspective, his ear hurts and Dr. Bradley keeps doing very painful things like sticking an otoscope into it. Today he wound up straitjacketed after having laid a one inch long gash into Dr. Bradley's arm. After having laid still and purred for Dr. Bradley before the exam. He just lashes out when the inside of his sore ear gets poked. If he needs surgery, he'll get total anesthesia for it.
Which is why we're watching rather than booking his appointment, because any full anesthesia has a slight risk and most times those polyps just go away on their own. Dr. Bradley doesn't like doing unnecessary surgery.
Kitten described the veterinarian as just standing very quietly for a while, holding his arm, not saying or doing anything. He took the time to calm down so that he wouldn't take it out on the cat, who didn't do anything but react like a cat who got poked in a sore spot. Ari usually behaves well with veterinarians, but this ear infection has been painful and he's objected every time it gets poked. Also he violently objected to getting his claws clipped on that first appointment. So it's circumstantial. I'm sure once he completely loses the ear infection that he'll be much mellower with Dr. Bradley.
I find myself trusting this vet more every time too, hearing about his reactions from Kitten. He's better with animals than people -- but that's the point. I don't care if he's brusque with humans as long as he's gentle with my cat. He also talks to Ari reasonably, says things like "We're friends now, right?" He's established enough rapport and respect that Ari only claws him when suffering painful medical indignities -- and ear infections are very painful. I can remember a few of them I've had that drove me out of my mind. I got snappish too, but more verbally.
I am really happy about the sequel possibilities for my Nanowrimo though. I think about it and not only can I add one more good battle to give The Emerald Sword a solid ending, but also unfulfilled prophecy and foreign enemies that could still invade with both magical and conventional warfare. I have just deleted a bunch of spoilers.
What I may do though, is start shifting emphasis on who's the main character in the sequel, since a lot of my MC's personal conflicts got resolved so splendidly in it. I need a more conflicted, more messed-up hero for the second book. I have one in mind, too, a character who's already appeared and proved to be interesting within the first book. I'm going to quit doing spoilers on this because The Emerald Sword will be available in its final form pretty soon now, and I don't want to ruin the first read for y'all. There may be a few in last year's entries during the Three Day Novel weekend that I wrote it, but the lesson I learned on this one is that to win that competition, I need to be capable of editing a rough draft within a week to publishable standards.
I've got speed on rough drafting, yay and good, a real joyride. But this next two months, I'm going to be gaining speed and quality of editing in order to keep up a decent publication schedule. My edit speed is the measure of how prolific I am.
If I can kick The Emerald Sword out the door on October 1st or October 9th or so, with professional quality, finish quality, that means that I can do between four to six novels a year. Because every one of them will need these edits. When I've edited as many as I've written, I may get that down to a month the way Leigh Brackett did and raise my prolificity. That itself would mean an indie career I can live on, if the numbers don't soar into pro-novel range.
The money, the income from 750 sales in POD is equivalent to 5,000 pro sales. So the process of treating my indie books as back-door submission is also a way for me to turn into a decently self supporting novelist even if nothing does explode into those big numbers. While at the same time, this time I'm actually doing the things that successful indie writers do to make a good living -- the website, the marketing, the advertising budget that some of the profits will go into, the profits of doing resale. That's the royalty income. Any signed editions I sell, I get both the author's cut and the bookseller's cut, which is self employment on the "lives on dealer tables" or online business model. SBI talks about online business modeling as collecting different income streams.
So maybe if I'm going with the SBI model, pro publishing is a perk and a lark and prestige, while I get self supporting a lot sooner this way. If I do the sequel for Nanowrimo and have Emerald Sword out, it would be natural to start editing it and plan that for the next one, set it up the same way. But I will not assume that -- it may take a year of letting the book sit and cool before editing in order to do a really good job on editing.
If I've got other good books edited and published in between, big deal. I'm not leaving some cliffhanger ending that would have readers strangling me if I don't shove the sequel into print ASAP. lol