Two Steps Back

Hi everyone and happy Monday. After a few weeks of progress, things slowed down some with a couple of roadblocks that popped up. Such is life, but I keep working at everything on my list and I’m still moving forward.

The week started with some care problems that stretched into Thursday and really threw off my time to write. We spent a lot of time preparing for work, trading cars among three people in the family and going in to work early, then leaving late. It was hectic and at the end of it all it was confirmed that my car is on its last legs. It’s not unexpected but I hoped to stretch keeping the vehicle for several more months. Now that time is accelerated to the immediate which will likely slow me down some this week as we replace it. I’m semi-prepared for the change so I’m not completely off-guard. It’s still hindering some progress.

Then at the end of the week, I found out my wife needs to have some knee surgery. It’s not expected to keep her down too long but that upcoming event will really twist things up for several weeks. Again, she was having trouble for a while but now we’re keeping her off her feet as much as possible until the surgery. That means I pick up what slack I can around the house and for errands. I’m happy to do since she’s helped me several times and we’re in it together but that will mean some slower progress until she’s back on her feet – literally.

There was some progress during the week and I’m pleased to share a few things. Some effort was put into an improved cover for the series cover. Originally, I just made a graphic that line up the three books side by side but the covers were too small to really view and I wanted a 3D version of them all that made sense when viewing it. I sat down to work on it and came up with this version which I think is better than the previous effort. You can see if there on the right and click to view it on Amazon. I think it turned out very well so that was one step forward during a hectic week.

Next, I wanted to get a print cover underway for An Arrow Against the Wind. I set to work on this task but it was a bit harder for me since I’m not too great at editing graphics. I stuck with it and finally came up with the version pictured on the left. It won’t be final since I took a guess at the final number of formatted print pages, but it’s close to how it will look. To arrive at a final cover, I’ve scheduled my print formatter to complete that task so I’ll know how thick the book will be and make any changes to the print cover necessary. I should have that in a matter of days and then work on print for the second book of The Bow of Hart Saga starting on KDP, then moving to other markets as soon as I can afford the separate ISBN from Ingram.

Those are some good steps forward with some goals for the year. One goal was marked off and another soon will be, followed by the print goal for The White Arrow. Each project completed frees me up that much more to complete my next book. Speaking of which, RM did have some progress this week, just not as much as I would have liked. I’ve continued with decisions about editing and mapping out how that will move along but my focus has been divided between the distractions and the leg-work with new graphics and print planning. February is almost at an end so I want to maximize every day that I can to arrive at the overall goals of new books released this year. But managing books already out is important too so work on those must be completed as a foundation for the release of new books in several months.

The upcoming week will be important as I focus on getting ahead with some other blogging I do with Story Empire. I have much of my blogging year there already dictated and ready to post so I want to schedule ahead. Likewise, I’m dictating some posts about RM now but I was unable to do that as much last week since I was trading out between cars so much last week. This week may settle down some so I’ll plan accordingly. Completing plan for the revision of RM is very important so I can dive into the revision full-force. But I want to get as much into the plan so I can do as much as possible with each phase. One hold up has been a problem that I know is there in the manuscript but which I just can’t put my finger on at the moment. I’ve decided to revise and edit and let that process reveal the problem. Otherwise, I’ll ask my editor what she sees when the time comes and trust her professional sense.

That’s all for last week and looking forward to next week. My fingers are crossed. Thanks for stopping by for a visit this today. I hope to share a Friday feature about Fantasy when I get a chance to plan the exact angle for it so look for that in several weeks if I can get to it. Please share this post if you like it and leave your thoughts and questions in the comments and I’ll respond as time allows.