Surprise, Surprise

Blog Post No. 438

Surprisingly, the sample copies of my new novella, Break/Interrupt, came in earlier than expected. Not surprisingly, there was a mistake and I had to pay to upload a new file in order to fix it. The books came in last week, but I spent the weekend searching for coupon codes online in hopes of avoiding the steep cost of making the fix. It was just a little thing. The text on the back cover was off centre. Some of the issue is from the wildly varying printing and cutting tolerances that comes from print-on-demand books. Also, I was relying on the previous book’s cover as reference and since this book is significantly larger, the spacing was off.

Making the fix is easy. I had to fiddle a little with figuring out the width of the safe printing margins and centring the text within that frame, but it only took me fifteen minutes (or so). What added to the delay (beyond my fruitless search for a discount) was looking for further issues with the book. It’s not fun to get the sample copy and have to make changes. It’s worse when you have to fix something even after the second attempt. I’m sure there is something I’m missing, but the rest of the book looks good to me. (I’m always sure there is a mistake, though, so at some point I have to let it go and print the stupid thing).

It will be a couple more days for the new files to be revised, but that should all be settled by the time this post is out. Unless something else goes horribly wrong, I will put in an order for some copies and start making them available to purchase. I still haven’t decided on how to distribute them safely. My brother graciously offered to help me since he’s partially vaccinated. I may take him up on the offer.

In the mean time, I’ve been struggling to get myself going on the next project. There are a ton of things waiting for my attention. The ebooks are still in limbo, desperately close to a solution. I have short stories in need of completion and begging to be written. Most of all, I have the Invasion Novel looming over everything, waiting to be edited.

Everything is weird when a project comes to an end. (Or is in the final stages and doesn’t requite daily effort). Usually, there are a bunch of directions to chose from, but there is also that sense of ennui like when you finish reading a good book or end a long, engaging series on television. I spend so much time and effort on Break/Interrupt, suffering setbacks and overcoming obstacles, that no longer working on it is strange.

It’s the same for every book I’ve written, but since I’m more isolated right now, I think the feeling is heightened. It’s been a barrier to getting into the next project. Usually, I’d have a writing session with the crew and just start on something because I was there. Now, it’s all on me to get the ball rolling.

Getting back into writing is also odd after spending months editing. It’s so unstructured and untethered. It’s like driving in a car without wearing a seatbelt. The freedom of what to do next is overwhelming. Hopefully, by finally putting Break/Interrupt to rest and selling copies, I’ll get some sense of completion and be more able to move onto the next thing. At least, I hope so. If not, I’ll just set an ultimatum for myself. That usually does the trick.