So, it turns out, I can’t do everything. You would think, at 46 years old, that I would have figured this out a long time ago and stopped trying to push myself over the edge.
You would be wrong.
What I have managed to do, however, is learn what it feels like when I’m almost at the edge so I can yell ABORT! ABORT! and throw something overboard before I, myself, go over. Usually.
Last week and the week before that (and the week before that), the thing I threw overboard was this newsletter. Last week and the week before that, I included scheduling social posts in the things I tossed. And working out. But, I’ve been BUSY, man, so cut me some slack. I can’t throw work overboard. I can’t throw my book overboard. I can’t throw my novella overboard. I don’t want to throw reading overboard. So, this is me prioritizing. (I even threw a lot of my TV watching overboard and, for those who know me, that is shocking).
It has taken me a while, but this is how I’ve learned to take care of myself. When things get to be too much, I have to pick something or more than one thing, that just doesn’t get done. It’s often painful but it’s always necessary. It’s either that or I burn myself out and nothing gets done for (sometimes) weeks at a time. Picking things to throw overboard is my version of self-care.
I also do other things — exercise, meditation, wine — but this is what I’ve found to be most effective. Once things slow down, I can add stuff back in. Last week I added daily workouts back in. Today I’m finally doing the newsletter and scheduling some social posts. All I need now is to have a four-day weekend every month. See? Easy.
What do you do when you become overwhelmed?
Book - Someone to Kiss for New Year
My novel has now been officially renamed “Someone to Kiss.” Why?
It’s shorter and snappier and will fit better on a book cover
It now won’t need to be marketed as “seasonal” which makes me happy
If you’ve been following along with my “steps to get a book published” I am now at Step 7: Developmental edits. This is what it entails:
Get manuscript evaluation back from the developmental editor with feedback and suggestions. What kinds of things does a developmental editor suggest? Things like:
Show more, tell less (let your reader make their own interpretations of things)
Add more tension/conflict/raise the stakes (why do we care?)
Your main character seems over-indulgent (she was)
Don’t reveal everything all at once
You need a better location than nowhere
This is a good article on different types of editing if you’re curious
Align with all feedback, because it was excellent, and get to work on making my book better
Edit/rewrite 1/4 of the book
Hate it, and myself
Get talked off the ledge by my publisher
Go back to the start and edit/rewrite half
Love life again
Finish the second half in the next two weeks
THEN it goes to a copy editor!
ALSO! I got to see the design brief that my publisher sent to the cover designer and, oh man, that got me pretty excited. For those who don’t know, (me, one week ago) a design brief is a document outlining your novel and then describing what you want the cover to look like (with examples) and what you don’t want it to look like (with examples). My publisher somehow read my mind and knew exactly what I wanted and didn’t. I cannot WAIT to see what they come back with.
Novella - Running from Christmas
In case you don’t remember, this is the Christmas romance I’m writing that people get for free when they sign up for this newsletter (or, at the moment, after they sign up because it’s not ready yet)
I finished the first draft two weeks ago and sent it to my publisher
She liked it! And gave some great feedback
Once I’m done with the edits to Someone to Kiss, I will start working on the second draft. The goal is to have this finished in the next couple of months
Personal stuff:
I bought a house! Which is great and I love it, but you also have to like, do stuff, and I don’t have time, so my front and back yards are currently embarrassing pits of mud and garbage.
My full-time job, which has been a term position for the last 2.5 years, was made permanent! For those who don’t know, I’m a content marketing program manager and I LOVE IT. But I also have to, you know, do stuff for that too, so, this might not be the last time my newsletter gets thrown overboard.
And that’s it!
Book Review
I finished this over a month ago so I may have forgotten some (all) things but, what I didn’t forget was how much I liked this one. This is my third (fourth?) Jennifer Weiner novel that I’ve read so far and I think it’s one of my favourites. I don’t want to give too much away, because part of the experience is finding things out, but this isn’t your typical beach read. It touches on serious topics (like all of her novels) and is probably one of the best books to come out of the #metoo movement that I’ve read so far (that was sort of a spoiler, but not really). I loved the friendship between the women and the fact that they were both strong and fierce in their own separate ways. The only thing I would say I didn’t like was that there was no indication on the back cover that the story dealt with sexual assault and, based on a lot of the reviews I read, it maybe should have. I don’t think people expected it. But, now you do so you can make an educated choice on whether to read it or not. I say, do it.
📕📔📗📘 out of 5
Here are some great resources that I’ve been using to help with my rewrites. Some were recommended by my publisher, some by the editor. All are worth taking a look at:
Self-Editing For Fiction Writers, second edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print - book
Helping writers become authors - blog (K.M. Weiland)
What is Universal Fantasy and Can It Really Boost Book Sales? - blog post (takes a few seconds to load)