Midweek #ROW80 Check-In

I am generally NOT one of those writers who fiddles endlessly with a manuscript and looks at everything I’ve ever written and still sees things I’d do differently.  Usually, I hit a point where I feel like “This is as good as I can make it,” and I mentally divorce myself and out it goes.  Some of that is related to the OMG, I can’t look at this anymore!!!! fatigue that invariably hits at some point during revisions.  But almost every time I go back to read something that’s been put out, it’s better than I remember it being.

But this book.  This book is very near and dear to me on multiple levels.  I want so much for it to do well (not just for financial reasons) but because I love this town and the series I have planned to go with it SO SO MUCH.  And yesterday I hit Terror Level Orange about whether people would like it, whether they’d understand my understated hero, whether some of the choices I made were a mistake, and generally worrying that the book will tank, and therefore the series will tank before it even begins.

I had four different people talk me off the ledge yesterday (Thank you Susan, Claire, Liana, and Lisa).  I finished the scene I needed to add first thing this morning, made a few more tweaks, and sent out ARCs.  I still need to do the final proof, but it is, for better or worse, going to be out of my hands in a matter of days.  And then I can move on to the next book–well, in between the obsessive refreshing of Amazon and my sales pages for the first week.  Probably I need to make sure I have a team in place to vet reviews, so I don’t look.

I’ve got my plot points for Next Book and I’m debating whether I should start my proof read tonight or play with some plotting.  Maybe some of both.  I’ve already spell-checked the whole thing for the obvious misspellings (after spending considerable time training Scrivener’s dictionary to include Southern), so whatever is left is going to be those occasions where I’ve used the wrong word.  Like “discrete” when I mean “discreet”.  Which requires, perhaps, a bit more focus than I’m apt to have after work today.  So maybe plotting…

6 thoughts on “Midweek #ROW80 Check-In

  1. I feel your pain! Or, rather, your fear…

    My WIP is book 5 of a series. It ties the others together. Books 1-4 are all in various states of undress. I wanted to write them all together because there are certain things that developed after-the-fact and I wanted to make sure I could make those details consistent throughout the series.

    But, if and when I sell book one… if it tanks, the series tanks. Unless I find a publisher who is excited about have all 5 ready at once and gives me release dates close together! I’d LOVE that.

  2. Congratulations on getting the ARCs out and on letting yourself be finished with the story. Wishing every best thing for it going forward!

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