Grim is at the editor’s. A few common errors were found in the sample that was sent to me, things that are common for pantsers, like description before the subject instead of after, and use of flat words instead of more specific words. Also the word “that”. I’m going to run a spell check through it and pull out as many “that”‘s as I can.

There’s going to be an author Meet & Greet at the Warwick Public Library April 22, and Grim won’t be ready by then. We hope to have it ready by June. I’ll launch it, do meet & greets, and book signings then, throughout the summer. Definitely not doing Comicon. The Association of RI Authors has a small clique of sci-fi (speculative fiction) authors that get together and do stuff. Because I am both old and anxious, I haven’t found a way to get into that clique. Besides, I have only one book. Maybe once I get a few books under my belt, I’ll get a little less anxious.

Grim 2 is up to 20K and I’ve already completed the main plot. Or have I? I suppose there’s room to maneuver something else in the main plot. Or change the main plot. Or I could do what I did with Grim, and introduce a whole new plot right in the middle. I feel like I’m dragging shit, putting stuff in there for the sake of putting stuff in there. Maybe when I’m done, I’ll be over 70K and have the luxury of pulling stuff out.

I’d probably be over 20K if I didn’t have to worry about my writing environment or timing. I used to write at work during lunch hour, but it always seemed like a warm-up, not actual “good stuff”. I write Champions stories during lunch, when my characters need to do something off camera.

I also have a writing computer where I’m writing this blog. It’s my iMac Mini named Hemingway, located feet away from the only TV in the house.. So what ends up happening a lot is that my son wants to watch TV at the same time I want to write. I can’t write 1) with a TV on in the background, 2) someone else in the room, 3) if it’s too darn cold. so I go elsewhere and let my muse stew. In the evening, by the time he’s done with TV, I’m involved in something else so I don’t write.

I sometimes write between 5-6, but once I get on my office/gaming computer, I’m doing gaming and not writing. Six to seven or eight is when I listen to the news via Sirius XM; 8-9 is when I game. I’m sometimes in bed by 8 or 9. If I wake up before the alarm, I will sometimes do some writing, but I mostly go into work early so I can leave early. That’s my weekdays. Weekends, I like to do my writing in the morning. After 4 hours or so, I peter out and can’t do anymore. Sometimes I’ll take a chores/gaming break, and then go back to writing at night.

Editing is different. Editing, I take as much time as I can and do that, because there’s a time constraint on that. I like to give myself two weeks to turn edits around, three if they’re really bad (i.e. War Mage). I’m thinking of pulling out my old “How to Revise” course that I paid $300 for back in the day and tackle War Mage with that. Of course, I have to find it…