Once More Unto The (Writing) Breach- June 2017

Happy Independence Day to all my fellow America readers! 😀

This month is off to a pretty good start, so let’s jump right in!

What I’ve Accomplished This Month

Hey look! Christmas in June! ;P This was kind of a weird month and not all of it made it onto the WordKeeperAlpha graph, because not all of it involved actual words. Let’s break it down!

• Good Intentions (Age of Ultron fanfic)- 14,895 words written (total wordcount: 97,464)

Freaking finally!!! I cannot tell you guys how thrilled I was to finally finish this thing. I’m setting it aside for now, to be revisited in the near future, but for now IT’S DONE!

• Doubt The Stars- 24 chapters edited (complete!)

This was my second big project of the month, and I did WAY more than just the beta-edits! I did probably the scariest thing thus far of my fledgling publishing career: I shopped for editors.

I know. It was terrifying.

But seriously though, the editors I spoke with were lovely, professional, and encouraging. I’ve picked a content editor, she has the book now, and I’m really excited to see what happens next!

I’ve started thinking about the cover design too, and I think I’ve decided to try out 99designs for my book cover. I thought about doing it myself, but honestly, my Photoshop skills leave A LOT to be desired, and I really want this to be the best it can be. Go big or go home, right?

I’m really nervous about this part of the process (Who am I kidding? I’m nervous about pretty much EVERY part of this process!), but I’ve got (what I think is) a pretty solid brief for the designers. I’m waiting until I hear back from the content editor before I start my contest (because REASONS), but look for a cover reveal in the VERY NEAR FUTURE…

I did a few other little business things too, stuff I had been putting off because I didn’t feel “legit”, but I figure if I don’t do it now, I will never feel “legit”. So things are really coming along!

Speaking of which…

• Double the Baggins, Twice the Took– 1 chapter posted

This is the exact OPPOSITE of coming along. I gave my brain a break from this story this month, despite my guilt for leaving my fans hanging. I had a really hard time even posting the one chapter that I managed, because I really feel like it’s not completely up to the quality standards I’ve set for myself. I might even go back and rewrite it when July is over.

Which segues nicely into:

What’s Coming Up in July

That’s right folks, it’s that time of year again! This month has really started out with a bang too, I’m super psyched!

• Double the Baggins, Twice the Took– Write 50,000 words

Okay, I don’t ACTUALLY have 50k words worth of story left to write on this fic. Which is why I’m putting the rest of the words into the sequel!

The tentative title is… not going to be revealed yet, because I feel like it would probably be a spoiler. But I’m very excited about it! I’ve already got so many ideas and I know exactly how it’s going to end and there’s going to be SO MANY TEARS!

• Doubt The Stars– Evaluate feedback from content editor and make changes. Finalize cover design. 

I’ll be waiting on pins and needles to hear back from my editor this month! I’m kind of glad this is happening during a NaNo, so I have something to distract me. Otherwise, I would probably look something like this:

But since there’s nothing I can do until then, I’m just going to focus my energy on my new words and let the chips fall where they may! We’ll see how that goes for me 😉

And now, the real reason you all read this blog:

Fog’s Cute Animal of the Month

Special thanks to my awesome fellow author Adan Ramie for this month’s adorable animal:

The patagonian mara!

Or as I like to call them “the antlerless jackalope” ;P

They are also surprisingly huge, as demonstrated here, next to a (previously featured) capybara!

The patagonian mara, everyone. I’m planning my trip to Argentina RIGHT NOW. Who’s with me? 😀

See you next time!