What's up?

Too many things! As Winter Came and Went's release date is drawing nearer, and nearer and I'm still finding it hard to believe that yes, I'm actually going to publish a book! And it's really stressful, for there are so many things still to be done!

 

There is one particular scene I want to edit. I'm not sure yet how, or how much, but I know it could be better, and since it's quite a central scene... I'm not going to tell you what it's about, but it's meant to be a sort of climax, and I'm afraid I haven't succeeded yet in attaining the right tone and rhythm and so on with it. So I will have to look at it, again, and see what I can do, if there is anything that I can do.

 

Then I will have to proofread the novel. Thanks to a number of very helpful beta readers (and if any of them are reading this: I cannot thank you enough for your help!), many typos and inconsistencies have already been tracked down and corrected. However, there must be several mistakes lingering still in the manuscript. So I'm probably going to read through it all again, backwards maybe, and try to polish it as much as I can.

 

When all this is done, I'll have to format it. There will be actually two manuscripts, formatted in different ways. One for the paperback and one for the ebook (both of which will be published through Kindle Direct Publishing). The formatting will have to be done at the beginning of November and the two manuscripts uploaded on KDP to make the ebook available for preorder. What will make the formatting difficult is the fact that I've included illustrations. There will be twelve of them, one for each chapter. I've done nine at the moment, and will have to complete the last three as soon as possible. When that is done, I'll be able to create an ARC (Advance Reader Copy) uncorrected version of the novel, which will be sent to reviewers, if I manage to find reviewers willing to read it...

 

At the same time, my author website will go live. I've started to build it but I've got to polish it, and buy a domain name, and so on... I admit that it's not the most important part of the process, but author websites are a must-have today, especially when you're an indie-writer.

 

Another thing I need to get done is my book cover. It is sort of done already, but there are still a few things to tweak... And, on the 2nd of October, I will have a cover reveal! And probably, I will reveal the blurb as well, which means I have to write it, and I'm finding it even harder than the novel itself...

 

And I'm still working on the first draft of the sequel to As Winter Came and Went. I'm half way through, which is good: there's going to be 13 chapters (it might be a bit longer than the first one, except if I cut a lot of scenes, which I might, but there's also going to be a lot more action in the second half of the book) and I'm more than half way through chapter 7. I've also started another manuscript, whose temporary title is Cinnamon, and which will be in the contemporary/literary fiction genre. But I've just written a few pages.

 

So as you see, I've got a lot of writing-related things to do, all at the same time. So it's going to be a hectic couple of months!