Sorry to Shortchange You

A short post

You might (or might not) have noticed I didn’t get a post done last week. Sorry about that. I got my latest book back from my editor and, well, it needed some work. So basically, I’m doing some rewriting. Okay, in the interest of full transparency, I’m rewriting about 85% of it. In 30 days. Which will be up on February 11.

The big mistake I made was putting the book up for presale before getting the edits back. It’s not usually a problem, I’ve done it before lots of times. But lately I’ve been having this plotting problem, see, and that blew up everything. So I pushed the release date from 2/12 to 3/10—the farthest I could go without getting gut-punched by Amazon. They “value the reader experience,” they say, and don’t want authors changing release dates willy-nilly. I don’t blame them. It makes me stick to a plan and not procrastinate, so that’s okay.

Once I finish writing on 2/11, I’ll have two weeks and change to fine-tune it before having to upload it to the retail platforms for the 3/10 release. It should be okay. Should be. Okay.

Is it ideal? Heck no. Embarassing? You bet. Am I learning lots of valuable lessons? Like you wouldn’t believe. For example, if I can actually rewrite this book in 30 days, that means I should be able to write faster than I have been, even when I’m not totally stressed and under a hard and fast deadline. It means there’s some wiggle room in there. It means I could be more productive, without killing myself.

Guess I’ll need to give that some thought.

And then of course there’s the whole SoCal wildfire situation—unfathomable yet unsurprising, in a way. Fortunately, all my family and friends seem to be safe, thank goodness. I am pessimistic about LA’s future, but I’m sure everyone will “rebuild stronger” and try again, although personally I think that’s crazy, and good luck getting home insurance now. Oh wait, that should still be okay, because Oklahoma will pay for it all.

And yesterday was the inauguration … let’s not even go there though. I’ve resigned myself to feeling permanently nauseous for the next four years. Possibly longer.

I did take a break from everything on Saturday to go to the movies. We go about once a year, depending on how busy my movie-making relatives have been. This year we saw The Last Showgirl. It was really good.

I might suck at book plotting right now, but I’m learning enough about story to say, with some degree of informed opinion, that the plot and pacing of the film was a little uneven, which matched the camera work, lol. But it was very moving, especially watching it as a “woman of a certain age.” Jamie Lee Curtis made me cry.

Several family members were involved in this project, which is pretty cool (I really don’t mean to brag—I just get kind of awestruck when I think about how cool they all are). There’s even a Neil relative in the special thanks section at the end of the credits, however they spelled his last name Niel, which is pretty funny. When we all get together this spring, I think maybe us Neils should quiz the other side of the family to make sure they get it right, you know, for next time.

Anyway, you should check it out while it’s still around.

Listen, I’ve got 2,000 words to write today still, plus homework from my author coach, and like, actual work to do, so I’m out of here for this week. Sorry to shortchange you, but thanks a million for understanding.

“the last showgirl,” roadside attractions

---