Update: aargh, bored now

Okay, this past weekend, I quite suddenly hit the Bored Now stage of revision for INVICTUS.

I’m close to the end of this round of revision, thankfully, but abruptly working on it is like pulling teeth. Ugh! Tired of it! Don’t want to deal with it! Can I please set it aside and work on something else? And of course I can’t, because it’s up for preorder and there is no possible way to set it aside until it’s polished up.

Well, I shouldn’t complain, I guess. This is a pretty typical stage and I really am closing in on the end of this round of revision. I just don’t expect to enjoy anything to do with this story from this point until I can proofread the final-final-final version. Oddly, I usually like that part, or at least I don’t hate it. Oh, maybe that’s not odd. I think that’s because at that point I can stop being so critical and just read it, and that part is seldom as boring and never as annoying as repeated rounds of revision.

MEANWHILE

Yes, I’m definitely behind now with starting SILVER CIRCLE, which is annoying and contributing to how fed up I feel with INVICTUS. I still expect to finish a draft of SILVER CIRCLE this year, but I don’t expect it’ll be ready to release till next year. Which is fine, I guess, but it’s annoying. And whose fault is this?

Tuyo World Companion is at fault. Obviously. If I hadn’t put time into that, I’d have finished with INVICTUS long ago. On the other hand, I am now in the final-final-final proofing stage with the TWC and after swearing my way through hours (literally hours) of repeated attempts to figure out how to get the images to work in the paperback version, I did figure that out, so I’ve ordered a final-final-final proofing copy with all the images and rough drafts of the maps. (I don’t have final drafts of the maps). (Soon, I hope!)

MEANWHILE

I’ve got the following scenes in my head. NONE OF THESE IS SET IN STONE. Just having a scene in my head doesn’t mean that scene is going to appear in a finished story! Sometimes scenes shift and shift again, in pov, and who else is present, and when, and where, and everything, basically. Sometimes these early scenes disappear into the abyss because when I come to it, I write the story a completely different way. I’m just musing! Still, at the moment, I’ve got the following scenes in my head:

–The first chapter of MARAG, from Marag’s pov. There’s a prologue or a first chapter from Sinowa’s pov, which I have written and which I like, but I rather think the main story will start in Marag’s point of view, and then we’ll probably alternate points of view. I’ve got enough of this in my head that I think it’s likely to happen this way.

–The first chapter of RIHASIS, from Rihasi’s pov. I’ve got a chapter written from a different pov, but I rather think I will back up and write the opening chapter from Rihasi’s pov instead, starting a little bit earlier. Not sure, but I think that might be what happens.

–The first chapter of Tano’s next book, from Tano’s pov (of course), starting rather earlier than I expected, just one year after TANO. Not sure I’m going to use this scene at all, but, I mean, maybe. It would be reasonable to start there for a couple of different reasons.

–The first chapter of a story from Tathimi’s pov. That one is definitely set in the future, ten years after TASMAKAT.

–The first scene of a sequel to NO FOREIGN SKY, from Samuel Lockwood’s pov. It’s just a fragment, but it’s funny and I like it, and I think I am almost certain to pull Lockwood forward as a pov character. And most likely a turun character, maybe Aanhk. I’m going to limit myself to three pov — or, at least, that’s what I think I’m going to do — Lockwood, a turun, and Gerstner. Oh, and I have a great ending scene for this book as well, very dramatic and a bit of a cliffhanger. Not a dire cliffhanger, nothing terrible, not having someone abducted by the uut and then stopping right there, nothing like that. But certainly a very clear pointer to a third book, and in fact I have the first scene of THAT book in my head as well.

ALL OF THIS is in my head, plus SILVER CIRCLE, and here I am, stuck in revision. No wonder I’m gritting my teeth. Has anybody developed a magic clone spell yet? Because a couple magic clones would be handy.

MEANWHILE

Here’s a different version of a BookBub ad I made, on Mona’s suggestion to maybe line up most of the books along the bottom and stick the first book up in an eyecatching position.

I bet the sand-colored boxes would look better with black borders. But maybe I should go ahead and take Gaughran’s advice to use red boxes, more like this.

I haven’t decided what I think of lining smaller books up on the lower edge rather than this distribution:

And, with five days of ads, I suppose I will try both, along with different text, as shown here. To provide the clearest result, I ought not change things up too much — same arrangement with different text; different arrangement with the same text. Well, we’ll see! A couple of weeks to go.

OH! One more important bit of news! The gray kitten is a GIRL! In my defense, sexing five-week-old kittens is honestly rather difficult, and once I decided the three tabbies were all boys, I didn’t think about it again. My vet never takes these things on faith, and therefore the gray kitten, who was briefly Montgomery, is now Magdalene. The orange kitten, Maximilian, is indeed a boy.

Though I would have been fine placing these two in a good home, I also found myself thinking, if I wait fifteen or eighteen years, until I don’t have any dogs … how old will I be at that point? And do I really want to wait till I’m that old before I get kittens, who are also likely to live fifteen to eighteen years? So then I started thinking about names. I feel that a plain tabby needs a fancy name, hence Maximilian and Magdalene.

When they’re bigger — too big to slip right through the trellis that prevents puppies from falling off the deck — I will take a stab at teaching them to stay in the yard. The fence itself is kittenproof, I mean the wire, and there aren’t any gaps along the bottom, but a determined kitten could climb one of the big wooden fenceposts and get out. I don’t think I could ever have kept the tortoiseshell kitten in the yard; she was ridiculously committed to going straight up every vertical surface, but I do hope I might train these kittens that climbing fenceposts is not allowed. I’ve taught cats to stay off the kitchen counters, so … this should be reasonably possible. Plus I’m going to teach them that we get a special, special treat in the evening. I don’t want to have to keep the pet doors closed in nice weather, but I also don’t want to lose a cat to a fox, so we’ll see how it goes. At the moment, the pet doors are not a thing because it is appallingly similar to a sauna outside.