Dog Jack Russell Terrier and a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever by the fireplace with a Christmas tree © Anna-av

Went grocery shopping yesterday to get ahead of the Christmas rush.  Spotted organic olive oil on sale for $6 off, grabbed the jar, and continued walking around the aisles.  Stopped in the frozen food section, and when I picked up the handbasket again, a yellowish-green puddle was on the white floor.  The bottle had a tiny chip in the bottom.  I left an olive oil trail!

I’m still working on the copy edits for Superhero Portal.  It isn’t a lot—and I have to keep telling myself that. The steps I added to my cycling this time made an amazing difference in what I got back from the copy edits.  But the creative side is kicking and stomping its feet and saying “I don’t wanna do this!”  So, finalizing the copy edits is taking longer than it should.  But I’ll have Superhero Portal done by December 31.

I’m also making the rounds of refreshes of all past books, which includes all of the following:

  • Folder Reviews.  I’m only creating two subfolders, 1 Publishing Masters and 2 Archived Files.  Anything directly related to the publishing process goes into the first one and everything else in the second one.  I’m cleaning up the file names and standardizing them. Otherwise, the disorganization becomes a distraction.  It kind of grew on me, especially after writing so many short stories.  Now this something I have to pay attention to. 
  • Cover Updates.  Everything is getting changed to standardize it.  Most of that isn’t much work.
  • Updated the interior.  I’ve been running all the interiors through the AI processes I used on Superhero Portal—and I’m finding issues that need correction.  Then I pop the corrected copy into a new template.  I gave the template a name, which goes on my inventory list.  This is so future self can know which stories to update.

All along the way, I’m finding a lot of little errors.  So I’m also thinking about how I can make the process less error-prone. I’m guessing it’ll be multiple checklists, one for each of the five book vendors.

On December 27:

  • Write Like a Pulp Writer cover showing a man juggling lightbulbs
  • A man walks through a time portal in Time on the Loose

On January 25 (not yet available for preorder, but it’s coming):

  • Superhero woman watches over the city from above in Superhero Portal
  • Write One Draft cover showing a man riding a lightbulb like a rocketship