Downtime. I do not has it.
I shouldn’t complain, I got like three weeks of downtime last month, which we used on the Great Stoffice Migration, and I made a little art. This week, however, it has all come home to roost-art edits on Book 5 today, text edits on the next book at the end of the week, a Digger to do, and by the way, they’d like a sample chapter for the next project after Dragonbreath. (Dragonbreath is currently slated to go seven books, and then I’d like to start another series, tentatively called “The Platypus Files,” but before they buy it, they would like to actually see a sample chapter, which is TOTALLY REASONABLE but as I cannot pull sample chapters out of thin air,* this adds substantially to my current workload, but of course I have to do it and relatively quickly or I am going to be staring at an abyss of non-money-coming-in-ness about this time next year. (I mean, there’d still be royalties, but I worked in RPG illustration too long to actually believe in the existence of royalties-I budget around advances only, and am always pleasantly surprised to learn that someone has bought the book.))
And I still have this other thing I’ve been noodling around with, and the story is LIVE (I seen to have to write the first quarter of the book to tell if it’s alive or not) but I want to get it dragged to a point where I can actually maybe sell it to somebody, and that requires me to go off to the coffee shop for an hour every other day or so and beat my head on it. (Hmm, although maybe I should use my coffee-shop time today to script the Platypus thing instead…) and I realize that on some level this may count as insane productivity but in my head it is merely A Whole Lot Of Stuff I Have Promised To Get Done That Isn’t Yet.
And also I need to go get on the exercise bike.
Once more into the breach…!**
*At least, not if they include art. I can actually pull a sample chapter of script out of relatively svelte air, but you want it illustrated and that’s a whole ‘nother ball of hornet wax.
**I know that’s not how it goes, yes.
Originally published at Tea with the Squash God. You can comment here or there.