Updates on “Tales of the Supers”

I promise I have not yet abandoned this site! I have been working on several projects, not all of which are currently listed here… mainly because I don’t actually have titles for the series these stories would fall into. They’re getting a lot of interest from at least one of my pre-readers, though, and that’s encouraging to me.

You may also notice that the site layout has changed. I’ve been trying to find a WordPress theme that is (1) free and (2) appropriate for an author and (3) appropriate for the sort of things this author writes. For now, I like this one, but I have a few others I’m fond of and may eventually  play with.

But I have promised an update on Tales of the Supers. Somewhere back in October, I mentioned that I had been working on edits. The external hard drive that had my most recent copy of the edits crashed and burned, taking with it all the changes I had made to the document. Naturally, this was a bit depressive, and so instead I start focusing on writing Endless Loop.

While going through several of my backup discs yesterday, though, I found a copy of the edits. It wasn’t the most recent copy, but it was better than starting from scratch. In point of reference, there are five chapters and an epilogue to Tales of the Supers. The version I lost had edits done all the way to Chapter Four; the version I located had edits through the end of Chapter Two. So I lost half my work… but that’s better than losing all of it.

That in mind, I’ve been editing like a fiend these last few nights, and I’m hoping to have it ready to have one more check done by the end of the weekend. I would like to have it available on CreateSpace by my birthday at the end of February, if not sooner.

This will, however, push the release date for Color of Life: Endless Loop Book 1 back a bit, but hopefully it won’t be by too much.

Finally, please continue to bear with me. As I mentioned in the middle of October, I am unemployed. I’m still unemployed, now in February. In only a few weeks, my unemployment will run out. I have over 240 applications out, but I’ve had less than 10 interviews. I will put the PayPal link back up, because I’m beyond having any pride left.

Major-ish site updates

Okay, so apparently I’ve been slacking on updating this site. I plead the fact I’ve been working on the editing for Tales of the Supers 1 and writing on Endless Loop: Color of Life. I’m within maybe 10,000 words of being done on Color of Life, and if my computers will cooperate, I’ll be done with the editing of TotS1 before much longer as well. 

The sad fact is that I’m currently unemployed, which would think would mean I would have more time for writing and editing. Sadly, that is not the case. We’re currently living off my roommate’s $400 a week job, which doesn’t stretch too far, so I’m madly applying to jobs everywhere I can. In fact, I counted them up and I’ve put in 130 applications in one month. Three-fourths of those are for full-time positions; I’ve only started applying for part-time jobs in the last two weeks.

Not knowing if you’ll be able to make your rent or pay your bills has a way of causing some stress, which in turn has a way of depleting creativity. So, sadly, until I know I can pay my bills, I’m not progressing on all of this as quickly as I would like.

Hopefully, though, that will change.

Either way, though… I am beyond pride.



Another little update

67351_10100358139143133_1402287_n2I still haven’t done author photos, because clearly I suck at time management. Or it could be the three jobs plus writing. It could go either way on this one. So I’m thinking that this should be the photo I use on the back of the books. It’s my little lady Boo being a silly goose.

Okay, I’m joking. I’m not going to use Boo’s photo for my author photo. I am not yet that desperate. I just need to find some time to do the author photos and get one that I’m happy with using. Of course, I’m still waiting to hear back from the second editor to know how many more changes need to be made on top of the ones the first editor gave me. I asked her to be brutal, so I guess that must be what she’s doing.

There is still another month and a few days until the second Camp NaNoWriMo/JulNoWriMo starts up. I would love to have the first book ready before I get too far into the second one, but then I’m a piece of the way through the first story in that book as it is. I just wish I could scrounge more hours out of the day so that I can get more writing done. But let’s see: there’s the day job, the editing job, and the blogging job(s) that I’m doing, while I prepare for a big out-of-state move. I think that I’m finding time to sleep might be an accomplishment at this point.

Things to do

See? What did I tell you? More posts.

The book is still with my second editor, but I have at least finished the edits from the first editor. Apparently, my Microsoft Word got stuck on a British English dictionary at some point, because she caught all kinds of things where I was spelling things incorrectly for an American audience. This is why it is a good idea to have editors, especially someone willing to do line edits, before you self-publish.

There are still so many things I need to do before I can get this one out in the world. I still need to do author photos (before you guys just end up with a picture of one of my cats), and once all the edits are done, I need to have it copyrighted with the Library of Congress. Those are the big two, really. The latter will take a few weeks to get to me once it’s done, if I remember correctly from the last time I sent something in (again, under that other name). It’s been a bit, though, so I’m not 100% on the amount of time it takes. I just know I’m not paying the nearly $80 for expedited. That’s just too rich for my blood.

In the meantime, I’m working on the second book in the Tales of the Supers series… in between the day job, the contract editing job, and the blogging contract job. It’s a full day, let me tell you. But there will be more Tales of the Supers, and you can count on that.

A quick update in the middle of May

It’s the middle of May. I’ve gotten the corrections back from one of my editors. However, it is still with the other one, and I don’t have an ETA from the other one.

With that, I’m setting a very tentative release date of mid- to late-July for the first Tales of the Supers novel. Again, that’s very tentative, because the editors have had it since 04 May, and I’ve gotten it back from one. Maybe I should say early August instead? That might be the safer option.

And in the meantime, anyone who is reading this can count on more frequent updates. I can always stand to babble a bit more at people.

Post-April 2013 Camp NaNoWriMo

Somehow… Somehow… I managed to finish Camp NaNoWriMo with over 58,000 words—and a completed novella. The first Tales of the Supers is done, and it’s currently at the pre-readers/editors for now.

Hopefully, they should be done with it before too long. At that point, I’ll go ahead with the copyright, sending it to Library of Congress, then it will be time to finally give CreateSpace a try. I’m not even going to try sending it companies this time around; it’s probably a bit too… something for any of them to be willing to pick it up. I got burned with the books I wrote (under a different name), and I think it will be a while before I consider trying another publisher, aside from self-publishing. I might give another go, but it will be a while yet.

But, please, be expecting actual content on this site before very much longer.

See you all then!