The lesson is one I already know: I work more efficiently if I focus on one thing per day. If I spend a day working on, say, Let No Man Put Asunder, I focus better than if I do half the day on that, half on, say, newspaper work or sending out submissions.
The divided day (the “divided” theme is a flimsy excuse for posting this Murphy Anderson cover but it’s one of my favorites) goes wrong too easily. I end up focusing too much on one of the two things, typically not the most important one. Getting writing done is usually job A but browsing possible markets online or doing research for The Local Reporter is typically easier. If I’m tired, I may go with easier or at a minimum start it sooner in the day. It’s also possible that I’ll throw in a third task to fill an odd moment and end up with even less writing time.
This week, however, I did have to do a lot of divided time. I was working to get the last steps done for the publication of Southern Discomfort next month. Revising the back-cover copy. Working through Amazon’s cover creation system to get the image (created by Samantha Collins) right on the front cover — that was the big challenge. I created the cover, ordered the sample copy (it arrived Wednesday), saw some problems, went back and did it again.
This takes time but it’s not something I can work on hour after hour. Once I ordered the test copy I was done; when it came in I dropped everything to go over it. For example I discovered my About the Author page in the back was several years out of date so I had to replace it with more recent information.
The end result? A patchwork week. Couldn’t be helped. And it paid off. Southern Discomfort will go live July 11; the initial ebook links are here, which is where Amazon, Barnes & Noble and others will show once they process it. The paperback goes live too, but Amazon doesn’t allow preorders.
That kind of erratically scheduled work is the pits for getting other tasks done on the same day. You’d be amazed how much time fiddling with the cover can consume. But now it’s done and I don’t have to do it again. On to fresh adventures.
I did get some other stuff done. I finished rewriting my short story, “Honey on the Grave” and sent it in to New Myths. I thought the rewrite suggestions from the writing group had made it too long but it was still under 4,000 words. That’s remarkably short for me.
I rewrote one chapter of Let No Man Put Asunder. I’d anticipated doing more but like I said, the book publishing process siphoned off my focus. Equally inconvenient, the last third of the book requires way more revision than the earlier two-thirds. It needs to move faster, scarier, with less talk. Everything that I’ve been hinting at has to be explained clearly. The bad guy has to go down — I know how that will happen but I have to get there logically. So it’s going a lot slower.
I also went back and rewrote one of the earlier chapters, where Paul is discussing his biophysicist mother’s insistence psychic powers are all fake. After reading How the Hippies Saved Physics I wanted to make mention of the early 1970s experiments that attempted to prove quantum non-locality (electrons can affect each other at a distance even though there’s no possible way they can) could be the basis for telepathy.
I still have to rewrite some of the chapters to show Mandy stopping smoking. Or give up the idea and let her keep puffing away. Finding she’s somehow compelled to quit has more potential so I’ll probably go with option A.
I got a little work on Savage Adventures done. I’m close to the end of this draft; one more draft and I’m done with the writing part. I wrote two posts over at Atomic Junk Shop, one on Doc Savage’s Crime College, one on how certain comics writers are so good they make you realize what you’ve been missing.
Another obstacle to getting work done was that I had my annual checkup Tuesday. That took a few hours out of my day. Good news, though, I’ve lost weight and my blood pressure’s down. There’s a couple of other problems that might need some work or checkups with a specialist but nothing calamitous.
With Southern Discomfort under wraps and no appointments next week, I look forward to full days and more productive output. I hope it comes true.
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