State of the Unbelievable
drafting editing science fiction
First
Holy shit, you guys. The Nebula Conference. SFWA people are amazing. I have never experienced a 0-60 like that, in terms of being a total stranger and then feeling completely welcome. Everyone was so incredibly warm, open, wonderful, true, and as awkward as I was. There wasn't a single person who behaved as though I—a non-member unpublished first-timer—was anything less than their peer. It was really amazing. Got to meet people already on my radar and other people who emerged out of the mists at the edge of my perceptions. I wish I could list them all but I'm terrified I'll forget someone! Also I got to meet an astronaut!Second
Feeling slightly less enthusiastic about dictation after some hiccups in the process over the weekend. Luckily I am stubborn to a fault, and I'll keep working at it.Third
My publisher (Parvus Press) is amazing. SO amazing.Okay, so now what?
The weekend was so wonderful and incredible and overwhelming and for the past few weeks was the solitary focus of everything I was working toward, so it's strange to be on the other side of it. I found myself without a distinct plan, and that's untenable for a planner like me. In my RJTL;DR video from yesterday, I was at a loss to set my goals for this (already in progress) week! Who am I even? So, the plan:- Figure Out the Dragon Issue - I am going to clean up the files I have using Audition, and see if I can get a clean enough file for transcription. Also will do some walking dictation again and see if it can still transcribe that. If so, it's not the profile but the road noise, in which case I'll make a second profile while in the car so I can train it to that.
- Announce Release Date - Since my publisher and I were telling everyone all weekend, I imagine it's a good time to announce the release date of Flotsam, so I'll send a push out to my newsletter on Thursday.
- InstaFreebie Campaign - I joined a group campaign with other SFF authors, in which I'll offer the first chapter of Flotsam to new subscribers, and I just need to make sure everything's set up in my MailerLite automations to handle that properly. Then I need to draft the email that will go out for that. Maybe I'll combine it with the release date announcement so as not to suddenly send two emails in as many weeks. (I've been incredibly sensitive to deluges of author emails since I signed up for a collection of novels from InstaFreebie a month ago, so much so that I'm going to treat all these new people as cold leads until they actually read the chapter and come back wanting more.)
- Re-read Revised Draft from April - It's been almost a month since I last looked at Salvage, so I feel like I'm ready to go back into it again. I'll give it another read-through to see if I spot pacing or other major issues. Then take it to an editor for some outside input.