First up is a link to a Tik-Tok video that hits on intellectual property. A company offered an influencer essentially token pay to promote their product. Meanwhile, they can use what she creates on it for advertising, so she’s creating the content for their advertising for token pay.
No one respects the creators, so we have to be ever-vigilant.
This week:
I’m not going to break down this week by days. Saturday I was about to start writing Broken Notes again. Then it hit me that I was close enough to finishing Time Management for Fiction Writers that I needed to focus on that.
Previously, I’d been writing the short story, then cycling on Time Management. I felt that if I continued that process, it would be another month before I got it done.
So I cycled through the entire book. Critical voice surfaced to say, “But you’re not writing Broken Notes! How will you get a book done by the end of October?” It conveniently ignored that I would have a book done by the end of October if I focused on cycling!
I spent most of the week getting truly sick of cycling through it. I don’t count words during cycling because it would create more critical voice problems. Words always come out, and they get added. I’ve previously tried to count words by pasting what I cut out into an extra file. That just feeds critical voice.
Plus cycling on non-fiction is different than cycling with fiction. I had to fix chapter openings, fuss with Microsoft Word wanting to turn chapter numbers into bullets (and then screwing the numbering up), and make sure I’d accounted for all the books I’d used as a reference.
One week from Saturday (today), and it’s done.
It’ll still need another proofreading pass for typos I probably introduced during the cycling. But it can sit a week or two for that. I’m looking at a February release date for it.
Space Dutchman is also back from the continuity editor, so I’m going to focus on getting that ready over the next few weeks. Critical voice says that I could spend an entire day and get it all done. It’s a lot of work, and my brain would short-circuit if I spend all day on it.
Meanwhile, I also did a major refresh on my Digital Minimalism book. Originally, I’d purchased a pre-made cover so I could put it out in print. But I needed to replace it. It was a risk for me to do it, since the book is selling well. But it was also a risk leaving it as is because I didn’t ask them for the license for the cover.
Besides, I like mine better than theirs!
Naturally, critical voice jumped in when I decided to do the refresh. It declared that the information was out of date (especially after I wrote the Time Management book). It actually wasn’t, except for two links that were bad.
Next up? I’m shooting for getting more done with Broken Notes.
Then I’ll bring in another project that’s been sitting: Research for Fiction Writers, out of the Pantser Rebellion series.
Linda Maye Adams 