Accountability and progress report, May 2025 edition
State of me and how that impacts my work
Scattered, today, which has made productivity VERY difficult. Distracted by the state of the world, a friend's health issues. Made my calls to Senators and Representative this morning.
I took a break mid-day and went for a short walk in the sunshine, and that helped. But this afternoon I was trying to set up online access to two different accounts and... both are finally working, but the problem was my brain and the details I was not paying attention to. That's never reassuring.
To be fair, May was not been the easiest month. We lost the last of our elderly cats early in May, unexpectedly and painfully, and my partner and I agreed to clear the house of all cat things in preparation for a deep house clean and a few months cat-free, and then adopting kittens later this year. A lot of our cat furniture was old, and the house was excessively cat-focused, and it was easier for me to divest of everything and plan to spoil new kittens with new gear than to pick and choose what I was keeping. I kept a few keepsake toys, but ... let's just say the local humane society was Very Happy. I am very grateful to the friend who picked everything up and delivered it for me, so I didn't have to see cats available for adoption right now. Can't do it.
May is also the month of my father's birth and death days (Memorial Day) and my late grandmother's birthday. So. Yeah. There's that.
Cat grief is easier.
Bookwise, it has been a learning and detail month. Lots more Vellum practice, with some publication detail work: metadata; proofing, converting to curly quotes and em-dashes, and a side of rewriting four scenes that I've never been happy with because of the information flow and repetitious character actions/thoughts.
Had one extremely panicked moment where I re-flowed the text into the manuscript and the book was suddenly 80 pages longer!!! That impacts spine width, and since I have a wraparound cover for book one, that was a big heart attack. Created a new file and tried it again later and it's more in line with what I originally saw. So. Phew.
Speaking of which, I have an artist for the cover for A Dubious Hope and he has sent me preliminary designs and ... my jaw is till on the desk. I am over the moon with his design. Can't wait to share it!
What I've learned/practiced over the past month
Practice: Been focusing on LEARNING MINDSET. I don't have to get everything right. I just have to learn from what I'm doing. Let's just say it's been a month full of opportunities to learn.
Bookwise: In addition to the above, I finally broke the book into chapters, and ... it just naturally fell into a dozen or so chapters. Just worked. I'm not in love with the chapter titles, but I'll live. Also condensed my World Encyclopedia from 80 pages to something the artist might actually be able to use.
I still have next to no arc readers or beta readers, and that's been really chewing on my brain. I do have to get one copy out asap.
Decisions made: going to do paperback in addition to ebook, going to release Aug. 25 (mom's birthday).
Took a short story class through Apex, from Lavie Tidhar.
Tidbits: Defamiliarisation (a 1917 term): presenting the familiar as alien. Describe something in a way that makes you question it. SCI FI has to do the opposite: make the alien familiar. Also, stories should open like a flower, and the ending should change how you look at the beginning. It was a 90-minute class that sold me on his soon-to-be-published short story, and reassured me that I have a grasp on what I'm doing except, perhaps, for emotional core. Which isn't grand.
What I want to practice next week/month
Continue with a Learning Mindset.
Continue to set up accounts with distributors, and work on getting arc copies to readers.
Get back into both drafting some new work AND marketing some short stories. I didn't send a single submission in May.
What I've been reading and what I've appreciated/learned from it
I started reading a young adult novel in a world I appreciate and I think I would have liked it better had I been in a better brain-space, so I'm not naming it as a DNF. I was annoyed at the character for behavior that's perfectly normal in YA. Grumpy old reader shakes fist at clouds, no news at 11.
Also started to read Careless People, a non-fiction book about Facebook from a former employee. Mildly horrifying so far. Might drive me off Facebook as well.
Projects status update
A DUBIOUS HOPE: Cover in progress. Production (layout, proofing) in progress.
THWARTED: On hold until ADH is finished. Toying with TWICE THWARTED as a title.
A DEEP BUT MODEST APIQUAI: With editor
Short Stories: Nada.
Submissions and rejections so far this year: still six and six.
Marketing: Did some reading and chatting in the SFWA indie group, and discovered that ads are not recommended until book four. Well then.
Next steps: Find out what I need to do INSTEAD of ads.
S&W work: Working on a basic placeholder logo.
Other: Critted six short stories for Wordos.
