August in Review
Health/Fitness
... I wasn't really paying attention. I think I did a bit less biking than usual, but still 30+ miles a week so it's not like I've given up on exercise.
I want to have eaten less junk food, but not badly enough to actually y'know, eat less junk food. Spinach needs to taste as good as chocolate.
Writing
I did some of this! I finished Birthright! Looks like that was about 19,000 words. Then I finished the outline for The Sun Etherium and started writing that: about 2000 words.
The draft for Birthright, incidentally, is 120,000 words. Part of why I finished sooner than I thought I would is not only that I was writing faster, but that I had expected it to be closer to the length of the first book, which was over 200,000 words. I am not complaining about this! 120k is already longer than the typical fantasy novel. I suspect that it will get longer in edits, as I was more likely to skip or skim with this manuscript, where in the past I tended to over-write and pad.
The Business of Writing
Uhhh. I forget if I did anything business-ish this month. I poked at the blurb for The Moon Etherium? It is not much improved from the blurb I started with.
I discovered that there's a category of elevator pitches which goes "[Popular work] but with [other popular work or concept]." It lets you pitch your book in five or six words. I kind of hate them. I met an author at WorldCon whose four-word elevator pitch made me less interested in his book. Like, he'd been talking about it and it sounded cool and then he mentioned what the pitch was and I thought "well ... nope. Maybe I'll try your next series." I do want a short description of my books that I can remember, so when people go "what's it about?" in person I can just rattle it off and the conversation can move on. But I'm not sure I want to go the @nerdgarbagebot route. I guess RA's pitch of that format would be "Pride and Prejudice with magic and polyamory".
... yup, still hate it. Maybe "fantasy of manners with polyamory & bi characters".
Still need one for The Moon Etherium, though.
Art/Other
I beta-read Cantor for Pearls for haikujaguar, which I like even better than Thief of Songs. \o/ I look forward to reading it again after release. ♥
Did a handful of doodles. Nothing I put much effort into. This was the cutest:
Socializing
I went to WorldCon! I wrote up a con report, even, which I proceeded to never post because "oh, I should add one more thing first". I should stop pretending I'm going to add anything else and post it.
Happiness
Pretty good month. I enjoyed WorldCon, though it was tiring, and it felt good to finish a draft of Birthright after all these years.
Goals for coming month
Publish The Moon Etherium.
I expect I'll do more writing of The Sun Etherium -- I've already written 6000 words this month -- but I don't want to set a goal for that because kicking The Moon Etherium out the door finally is more important. And I kind of want to try doing a different cover for it, though I don't know.
I am tempted to try to hire an artist to do the cover for The Sun Etherium now, because cover art requires a lot of lead time if you're hiring someone. Meh.
... I wasn't really paying attention. I think I did a bit less biking than usual, but still 30+ miles a week so it's not like I've given up on exercise.
I want to have eaten less junk food, but not badly enough to actually y'know, eat less junk food. Spinach needs to taste as good as chocolate.
Writing
I did some of this! I finished Birthright! Looks like that was about 19,000 words. Then I finished the outline for The Sun Etherium and started writing that: about 2000 words.
The draft for Birthright, incidentally, is 120,000 words. Part of why I finished sooner than I thought I would is not only that I was writing faster, but that I had expected it to be closer to the length of the first book, which was over 200,000 words. I am not complaining about this! 120k is already longer than the typical fantasy novel. I suspect that it will get longer in edits, as I was more likely to skip or skim with this manuscript, where in the past I tended to over-write and pad.
The Business of Writing
Uhhh. I forget if I did anything business-ish this month. I poked at the blurb for The Moon Etherium? It is not much improved from the blurb I started with.
I discovered that there's a category of elevator pitches which goes "[Popular work] but with [other popular work or concept]." It lets you pitch your book in five or six words. I kind of hate them. I met an author at WorldCon whose four-word elevator pitch made me less interested in his book. Like, he'd been talking about it and it sounded cool and then he mentioned what the pitch was and I thought "well ... nope. Maybe I'll try your next series." I do want a short description of my books that I can remember, so when people go "what's it about?" in person I can just rattle it off and the conversation can move on. But I'm not sure I want to go the @nerdgarbagebot route. I guess RA's pitch of that format would be "Pride and Prejudice with magic and polyamory".
... yup, still hate it. Maybe "fantasy of manners with polyamory & bi characters".
Still need one for The Moon Etherium, though.
Art/Other
I beta-read Cantor for Pearls for haikujaguar, which I like even better than Thief of Songs. \o/ I look forward to reading it again after release. ♥
Did a handful of doodles. Nothing I put much effort into. This was the cutest:
Socializing
I went to WorldCon! I wrote up a con report, even, which I proceeded to never post because "oh, I should add one more thing first". I should stop pretending I'm going to add anything else and post it.
Happiness
Pretty good month. I enjoyed WorldCon, though it was tiring, and it felt good to finish a draft of Birthright after all these years.
Goals for coming month
Publish The Moon Etherium.
I expect I'll do more writing of The Sun Etherium -- I've already written 6000 words this month -- but I don't want to set a goal for that because kicking The Moon Etherium out the door finally is more important. And I kind of want to try doing a different cover for it, though I don't know.
I am tempted to try to hire an artist to do the cover for The Sun Etherium now, because cover art requires a lot of lead time if you're hiring someone. Meh.