Flotsam on stand-by; Salvage-focused
On Sunday I completed the interior page layout for the paperback of Flotsam. Spent the afternoon tightening up an old sketch of the characters' ship, Wind Sabre, and laid that into the document. Ordered a proof from Lulu to review. And now Flotsam waits. I anticipate receiving cover thumbnails from the illustrator in the near future. That shouldn't trigger a spiral of Flotsam distraction, I don't think. But once I receive the proof of the paperback I'll be giving that a read-through to catch any final issues. I admit I did re-word a couple of sentences to improve the rag and tracking on the story. Nothing major. Maybe a half dozen, at most. So I returned to working on Salvage yesterday morning, starting from the beginning. I need to figure out a way to improve the sentences without reading them myself. NaturalReader isn't a great experience, but I may feed it through that anyway because I keep losing my voice before my second cup of coffee. It feels like I'm doing all the hard work in the wrong spot, but I don't think I am. I think this is the next phase of my development. I'm skipping the twelve years I spent just starting over on Flotsam. According to the writers I follow online, the second book is painful, so I'm right on target, I suppose. Oh, and if you're following that query/submission I sent to Parvus: I got an email last night letting me know that they'll let me know. I've been given permission to poke them if I don't hear anything by April 1. By then I'll have my finished cover, the proof should be proofed, and I'll be prepping my marketing. Interesting parallel universes I'm operating in, here.