So I have hooked and crooked my way into ownership of a new computer, one that isn't a collection of interconnected old parts cobbled together into a semblance of semi-functionality. Because of that, I now have a number of projects going.
First, I am starting to scan my novels into HTML format (thanks to some Iris soft/hardware) to format for the Kindle. I bought old copies of all of them from Amazon's shops, and am in the process of cutting the pages apart with an X-acto knife and feeding them through my nifty little scanner.
Second, I am in the process of formatting my three VBS plays for publication through Lulu.com and for the Kindle. The big hangup here seems to be the name of the imprint I will use for my self-publishing efforts. I'm trying to some up with something with a slight Biblical reference, but nothing to give the impression that it's strictly a religious imprint since the Kindle versions of my SF novels will be under the same imprint, along with cd's or mp3's of my music, if I ever get around to recording them. But nobody likes what I've come up with so far. Oh,well.
Third, I'm in the process of working out a new design of the website to coincide with the launch of all this previously mentioned stuff.
Finally, I'm editing the book code-named
...and that's the end of the news because, well, with a little work it'll be ready to hit the markets. It deserves better than to sit in the metaphorical closet under the metaphorical bowling shoes.
Funny thing about
and/news. After I got my Kindle in February, I decided to read the manuscript again in preparation for editing it. Thing is, I wanted to read it in such a way that I wouldn't start marking it up, as is my instinct. Then I got a brilliant idea. I emailed it to my Kindle and read it there.
That experience was remarkable. It had the psychological impact - for me, anyway - of reading the book in a final form. I was able to actually step back and read it as a story, like it was coming out of a published book. At one point in my reading, I decided to try having the Kindle's Text to Speech feature read parts of the book to me during my commute. And heavens to Betsy, what a rush that was. You'd have thought that I was listening to an official audio book narrated by James Earl Jones himself.
Then something else happened. I started to feel a little scared and a lot sad. Because for the first time, as I was reading one of my own pieces of writing, I could tell it was
good. Really good. And then it hit me:
what if I never write anything else this good again?.
That's something I'm having to work through.
Currently, I'm about two-thirds of the way through taking a red pen to the manuscript. Then I will be going to the computer to put in the changes and rewrite from scratch some of the scenes that need work. Looking again at what I did, even with red pen in hand, that wistfulness and fear is coming back.
But I've decided to try and channel it.
I think
and/news is good. And instead of being scared of it, I should let it make me feel confident that I can go on to another similarly epic project - not necessarily epic in pages, but epic in scope, perhaps. I'm thinking that perhaps soon will be a good time to start my UFO novel. Oddly enough, that book is going to be a study of human nature, and there's going to be a lot of emotional depth to it. There's emotional depth to
and/news, so I'm thinking that perhaps it was a kind of dress rehearsal for writing the UFO book.
Instead of letting that fear and wistfulness intimidate me, I'm going to try and channel it into something good. So I'm looking at it as a kind of stagefright, the kind that always grips me on opening night. The feeling that, if I didn't get it, I would worry about how lame my performance would be. Call it that jumpiness that a race horse gets before the gate opens, although my own personal thoroughbredness is questionable.
That's where things stand today. I'm coming back onto the main road after the detour, the map is a little out of date, but I still pretty much know the way. Let's see how far I can get before stopping to ask for directions.
