I know that I've blogged/posted very little over the past few months while I've been absorbed in finishing my latest novel. I've also written hardly anything new except this WIP novel. My short story inventory is lower than it's been in many years. And here I am today, just like yesterday, with more free time than usual, procrastinating the edits on my last 7 chapters. I'll blame it on 5 days of muscle relaxants for a vicious neck spasm, whether that's the root of it or not. Maybe I'll chug over the hump of my inertia soon and a massive burst of productivity will kick in by this afternoon. I sure hope so. Goal for this novel is to have the final draft done by early December, and I probably have one to two more read-throughs after these last chapter edits.
I did manage to accomplish a few things this week. I re-read my entire novel #2 over the past few days in preparation to submit it to an especially good-fit open call. It felt good to find so little I felt needed line editing - even after not reading that novel for a very long time - and to find that I still enjoy the characters and story as much as when I wrote it.
Yesterday, my main accomplishment was on a much smaller level - I organized "My Books" on Goodreads. I found I have 48 novels in my "to read" list (47 now that I started "The Martian" yesterday.) I wanted some sense of the order of the next few I plan to read. I'm tired of doing the same searches every time I pick a new book: looking through Amazon for Kindle version that offers Whispersync, checking Audible if e-book with Whispersync isn't available or costs more than a monthly Audible membership, then checking library audio catalogs if I can't find an audio version to buy. If all that fails, then an internet search for MP3 options or out of circulation or used audio versions for sale ensues. As a last resort, I'll do Kindle text-to-speech if I absolutely have to.
I don't actually HAVE to read in audio. My only reading disability is my time-limit for dedicated reading. Audio while I walk the dogs and drive and maybe do things around the house - if they don't take much attention away from the book - is my primary reading time by a huge margin. As of today, I have my Goodreads list organized into 'already own', 'already on wish list', and 'can't find in audio' so I won't keep repeating my searches every time I finish one book and go to start another.
A new tool I discovered on Goodreads is stats, where I learned that of the books I've tracked on Goodreads, I've read 20 novels so far this year. Not impressive by any means, and I probably tracked most of them, but a couple of books or so a month isn't terrible for me either. If I double my effort, I could get through my current to-read list in about another year (by which time it will have grown by at least as much again). On the other hand, I love, love, love that there is so much good reading out there waiting for me to get to it!
But first, back to those chapter edits.
I did manage to accomplish a few things this week. I re-read my entire novel #2 over the past few days in preparation to submit it to an especially good-fit open call. It felt good to find so little I felt needed line editing - even after not reading that novel for a very long time - and to find that I still enjoy the characters and story as much as when I wrote it.
Yesterday, my main accomplishment was on a much smaller level - I organized "My Books" on Goodreads. I found I have 48 novels in my "to read" list (47 now that I started "The Martian" yesterday.) I wanted some sense of the order of the next few I plan to read. I'm tired of doing the same searches every time I pick a new book: looking through Amazon for Kindle version that offers Whispersync, checking Audible if e-book with Whispersync isn't available or costs more than a monthly Audible membership, then checking library audio catalogs if I can't find an audio version to buy. If all that fails, then an internet search for MP3 options or out of circulation or used audio versions for sale ensues. As a last resort, I'll do Kindle text-to-speech if I absolutely have to.
I don't actually HAVE to read in audio. My only reading disability is my time-limit for dedicated reading. Audio while I walk the dogs and drive and maybe do things around the house - if they don't take much attention away from the book - is my primary reading time by a huge margin. As of today, I have my Goodreads list organized into 'already own', 'already on wish list', and 'can't find in audio' so I won't keep repeating my searches every time I finish one book and go to start another.
A new tool I discovered on Goodreads is stats, where I learned that of the books I've tracked on Goodreads, I've read 20 novels so far this year. Not impressive by any means, and I probably tracked most of them, but a couple of books or so a month isn't terrible for me either. If I double my effort, I could get through my current to-read list in about another year (by which time it will have grown by at least as much again). On the other hand, I love, love, love that there is so much good reading out there waiting for me to get to it!
But first, back to those chapter edits.
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