May 31, 1911: Titanic Launch Day

Today is the centenary of the Titanic's launch in Belfast. It's also the day I had originally thought would be a good release date for my book.  Well, as you can see, when they launched the Titanic, it was far from being done. So, too, is my book. Granted, the writing of the book is done (as long as I don't go crazy and decide to revise it again),...

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Happy Memorial Day

It's a holiday weekend, which means I have an extra day off and therefore should be getting all sorts of work done on my book, right?  Well... sort of. I did get some things done, mostly yesterday. I finished up some last-minute research (found a new book at the library I hadn't read yet, as well as a few on Google Books) and changed around a scene in the novel to better fit the timeline, am about 95% settled on a title (finally!), am about 75% settled on a cover design (found an awesome font yesterday that got the design geek in me all excited),...

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Post-editing work

My edit is finally done. The .doc and the .html file are both adjusted accordingly, and everything is essentially ready to upload again and check out. But not quite yet. This first time, I was concerned most with the formatting of the novel itself, as well as doing one final read-through. Now that that's done, and I'm on step closer to actual publication, I have a little more work ahead of me. There's more to a book than just the story itself, and I have a little more writing to do. The easy part: the acknowledgments page. Easy because I don't...

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Happy Birthday to Me

Note: this post was supposed to have been published yesterday (May 12). I have no idea why it didn't. I guess Windows Live Writer wasn't playing nice.   Today is my 35th birthday. It still feels strange to say that number. I don't feel 35. Hell, half the time I don't even feel 25! I never got to the point where I felt like I was finally a grown-up. Maybe because I don't have kids of my own? Anyway, years ago, I decided that my life's goal was to be a published novelist by the time I was 35. So here I am... 35. Not published yet. Maybe...

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The Big Edit (the latest one, at least)

This falls under the "do as I say, not as I do" category. All the advice out there about not editing your own work, but rather having a third party (preferably a neutral one) edit for you, is good. Editing your own work, no matter how good you may be, isn't the best plan. You miss things because you read what you know it's supposed to say, rather than what it actually says. I know this because I've edited my novel about 5 times now and continue to find errors. But I'm stubborn, and cheap, so I'm ignoring all that good advice and doing my own edits....

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Title Trouble

I'm terrible at titles. When I used to write more casually, I would use song titles because they were all I could ever come up with. Now, since I'm aiming to publish my book soon, a song title would be a bad idea. Not original, for one, but most likely copyright infringement as well. As I used to work in music copyright, I have a healthy respect for it and don't want to take any chances. Besides, I want my book's title to stand out, not get confused with a song. Up until recently, the working title for my novel was Ship of Dreams. The bulk of...

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