Total word count, hearthcraft book: 5,039
New words today: 1,682
Oh, I was so, so very bored today. Not with my book in particular, just with everything in general. I couldn’t settle down to anything. I’m thankful I got at least this much done.
Some chapters are looking suspiciously unwieldy already, and they’re only in point form. Thus the reorganization and refocusing of chapters looms close on the horizon, only a week into the project. Better now than later.
Nothing like having just under three thousand words in a book MS after collating notes, outlines, and jotted ideas.
And I haven’t even transcribed all the handwritten notes in my notebook yet.
(New icon for the hearthwitch book! Still not one hundred percent certain it’s the right one, but the best I’ve found so far.)
Maggie has taken to jumping up on my desk while I work, grabbing an object, and trying to run away with it. What are we at now, the sixteen-trillionth kittenhood?
Every time I begin a book, I am reminded of how the ideas for several more spawn from the research I do. In this case, possibly a small sub-series. Sigh. Make a note, move on.
I should eat. When it get to be past noon?
Wow; rereading my monthly Liam round-up, it must seem as if all we do is watch TV and movies with him. We don’t, of course. It’s just that they leave such an impression on him that they’re what he talks about and re-enacts and incorporates into his play.
It’s getting harder and harder to write these monthly posts. I have an ongoing draft in which I note things down all month, but when it comes time to actually expand them and link everything together in some sort of semi-coherent order, it takes longer and longer. I may start evolving them into a slightly different format. I have no idea what just yet, but something different, to save sanity and time.
I finished editing my 2002 YA novel at a writing jam last night. Next on the list of things to do: write up a precis, chapter summaries, a hook, craft a query letter and sort through all the agents I’ve bookmarked. You know, in between all the parenting and writing the other, actually contracted, book.
I’m so tired, though, that I think I’ll take a short nap then settle down with some hearthcraft research books before I have to go pick the boy up. He woke himself up coughing at 5:15 this morning, and as I hadn’t been able to get to sleep till midnight-thirty, my eyes are now rather dry and red and my brain is pretty fried.
Gentle readers, Liam’s monthly update will be published sometime tomorrow or possibly the next day and backdated to today. He’ll be staying home with me tomorrow because he’s still too sick to go out, which means I have to finish the reviews that are due tomorrow this evening, because I can’t work if he’s here.
Today was my first non-headache day in six days! I’m still short on sleep because the boy keeps waking up at night and having very short afternoon naps (that damn cold — now with a nasty throat-tearing cough!), but not fighting a headache makes a big, big difference in dealing with the cold-miserable toddler.
Colleen alerted me to this at the end of last week, and what with all the other web site updates I’ll throw the info out here as well:
The pregnancy book has an official title, subtitle, ISBN(s), and release date. Pagan Pregnancy: A Spiritual Journey from Maiden to Mother (ISBN-10 1598693972, ISBN-13 978-1598693973) is scheduled for an August 2008 release, which means it ships mid- to late-July. It’s listed as available for pre-order at all major on-line bookstores, but please take the time to tell your local independent bookshop that you’d like to order a copy of it. They’ll be more than happy to do so for you.
I’ll post the cover art when it’s finalized.
Scattered flurries are called for later this afternoon. Not that I want winter to be here any time soon — for some odd reason I’m actually enjoying the seasonal weather at the moment, possibly because the cold, damp, and very windy thing is still novel — but I’m feeling moderately insulted and stood up by the snow fairies. Everyone else has had snow, it seems; where the heck are our first snowflakes? It’s Montreal, for the love of cats. We wrote the book on spastic weather.
Liam and I had a great playdate with Arthur and Curtana yesterday. This was followed by a less than stellar nap for Liam (and none for me at all because I used the first hour of his nap to clean up and check mail, and then suddenly there wasn’t a second hour for me to use), and a good shopping outing where we picked up Ratatouille and the Pixar shorts collection on DVD. I also got doorknob safety covers to keep Liam from getting out of bed once we’ve put him down to sleep, or wandering out in the middle of the night to cheerfully ask his father where his toy trains have gone. He’s also thrown open our (accidentally unlocked) front door and tromped out into the staircase on his own.
I had an insanely productive editing day on Monday: many hours of work with Mousme during the day, where I worked myself into a fried zone, then another couple of very enjoyable hours with Sandman7 and Talyesin in the evening at our inaugural NotNoWriMo meeting, despite a bad headache. (Oh, we are all so very pleased not to be doing the usual November thing; so very, very pleased. We’ve all been there and done that with multiple wins, and now we need to move on.) All in all I edited a third of the book yesterday, and now there are only around seventy pages to go.
Our coven celebrated Samhain with a quiet, good ritual last night, featuring a needfire that burned bright and long enough to make up for the lack of needfires over the past couple of years.
Today’s mail yielded me a free copy of Author 101: Bestselling Book Publicity, sent to me by the publicity department of my publisher. Enclosed was a form letter of publicity tips that began by saying, “Welcome to our company!” I am very amused, as the pregnancy book coming out next fall is my fourth with this publisher.
Today, I read a new book and write a note-form review, as well as write a second note-form review for another book I read a couple of months ago and I need to reacquaint myself with it first. Then Friday, I will expand the point-form reviews into real live reviews and send them off. Today, though, I mainly need to focus on staying upright; I’m exhausted, despite a good night of sleep, and I ache all over. Good thing I bought acetaminophen yesterday. I will not be sick, damn it. I’ve had a dry cough over the past week that I am certain is directly connected to turning the heaters on, but the aching? Not a good sign.