Tag: progress

Progress on Love Runs Out, Including a Draft of the Cover

20 out of 48 chapters written. Turns out this pass through is action and dialog, and I’ll need a third pass for description before editing. But at a chapter a day, even with time off for good behavior travel to Wisconsin, that pass will be done end of September, and the book finished by end of October.

Assuming editing and formatting can be done in 6 weeks, it’ll be out before year end. (We don’t work the latter half of December, so come the 15th thereof I’m history until 2019.)

Unless I have a major epiphany before then, the cover will look a lot like this. (Click to enbiggen.)

A Still, Small Voice Passes the Midpoint

AStillSmallVoice-cover20151020e-flat-3DIn multiple ways, the next Phil Brennan mystery A Still, Small Voice passed the midpoint this week.

I’ve written 35 of 64 scenes.

Over 42,000 of a projected 75,000 words, my longest book by far.

And sentence #6 of 12, the Midpoint, where Phil changes from Wanderer to Warrior, from flailing and failing to winning.

It will be written before we go away for our year-end sabbatical, during which my beta reader will review it for sanity (where appropriate.)

The underlying theme has made writing some scenes emotionally challenging, in ways beyond the usual Resistance.

Progress Report on ‘A Long, Hard Look’

It’s edited and proofread, and almost ready to be formatted.

James, the world’s greatest proofreader, found some logical inconsistencies in the story.

Tom, the editor, agrees with me that, in his words, “It isn’t an equation, its an ebb and tide of hypotheses.”

So, today I check the proofreading notes, make my final font choices, and send it off to Leigh Anne Aston to be formatted.

She’ll have it back by Monday(ish) and then we upload it to CreateSpace, order and check the printed proof, and then you all order a handful of copies each for your reading groups, friends, family, and others.

Yeah. That’s the plan.

A Profound Truth About Coming Unglued and Getting Unstuck

In the past couple months more than one person has, out of the blue, asked me what was wrong. I’ve noticed it myself: more tough mornings, more cancelled work days, more struggle to create, then flopping into TV-watching or eating instead.

During the past year I’ve been aware that there’s a seismic shift making its way from my inside out.

During the past six months I’ve realized it’s the rest of what I started 10 years ago.

The rest. As in, perhaps it’s the end of an era and, by definition, the beginning of one.

the bridge over the River Laune in Killorglin, Co. Kerry, Ireland
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