Editing | Graphomaniac – A. Elizabeth West

Greetings, programs!

Betas are finished. Feedback is good. I have printed, hole-punched, and bindered my hard copy. The latter involved digging through my storage unit for the office box that contained my hole punch and manuscript binder. You see, I packed them, because I assumed I would be in my own apartment and UN-packed by the time I needed them again, but as we all know, the ‘rona is still borking everything up.

At least I think it’s the ‘rona. It could just be me. :P

Photo: Elizabeth West

Don’t pay any attention to the word count; it’s not final.

At any rate, we’re rounding third base and headed toward home now. I recently finished the book trailer for Confluence and I cannot WAIT to show it to you. You’ll get it when the book goes on pre-order. I have better software. It’s so good I can’t stop watching it.

In fact, it’s so much better than the other one that I actually redid and replaced the second Tunerville book trailer. It’s exactly the same; it just plays and looks much smoother overall. Since that video is linked to my portfolio, I decided I’d rather have a better-quality version, instead of the one I made in PowerPoint. Embarrassing!

The next thing you’ll get from me is probably a cover reveal. I will do that before I drop the trailer. Now to make the inside as spiffy as the rest of my materials, haha.

If I can stay off Iceland’s Geldingadalir volcano feeds, that is. I may be slightly obsessed with this thing. But can you blame me?

November looms yet again, when writers everywhere try to cram 50,000 words into one month!

I am not participating in NaNoWriMo this year. I have a project (Book 3 of the Tunerville trilogy), I’m outlining it, and I even started a rough storyboard for the book trailer. What I don’t have is time.

As you know, I’ve been job hunting for an excruciatingly long period. I still haven’t been hired anywhere, but the state of Missouri did recently offer free CompTIA IT training to workers displaced by COVID-19. I qualified for this due to being a long-term unemployed person whose job hunt was completely derailed by the pandemic.

Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay / captions Elizabeth West

So now I’m preparing for the Project+ certification exam. I can’t write a book and do that simultaneously. However, this should bode well for the future. Not only will I have a certification to add to job applications, but I’m boosting the rudimentary project management experience I obtained at my last job.

Confluence is with my editor. Deadline: Thanksgiving. Although I doubt we’ll have any guests this year, I need to be ready to hit those revisions in December. I hope to have most of this study and maybe even the exam knocked down by then.

I promised you I would finish the trilogy, and I will. With that in mind, I’m launching my own personal, month-long writing challenge in January, which I will call JaNoWriMo!

Note: this is not an official thing, so don’t go looking for it online (edit: whoops, somebody did it!). It’s just me adapting to a crazy situation and the tendency for the Universe to make me sit here for months and then pile it all on at once.

“I only f*ck with you because I love you.” – Universe, probably

Image by Fine Mayer from Pixabay

I doubt I’ll finish in one month, especially if I find employment by then (sooner, please, so I don’t have to move during the coldest, wettest time of the year). Someone could even offer me a job out of state, since remote work is now a legitimate way to start. If so, cross your fingers that this hypothetical company happens to be in the increasingly narrow list of areas where I’d actually want to live.

Weekly updates for JaNoWriMo might work better. I’ll also pop a word count meter up on the blog so you can see how it’s going.

As of this writing, we have no clue who will win the 2020 U.S. election, what will happen in the aftermath, or whether we’ll even have democracy by January. All we know is that it will probably be very unsettled and chaotic for a while. I feel for anyone doing NaNoWriMo this year; the added stress is sure to derail you, but don’t give up. The whole point is to get you working.

Artists and writers are scribes of history, whether or not they include actual events in their work. So keep creating. Keep doing the thing you love. It will get you through these dark times. It will help others who need a breather, or an escape. Your voice is important.

See you soon!