Sent a new version of Saving Brackett Station out for review. One of the early readers thought the beginning was a bit slow, and I agreed. Over a few hours of editing I managed to winnow the text from approximately 5,600 words to 5,000 without breaking the setup and hopefully speeding up the beginning. I know, who’d have thunk I had it in me? So now it’s out on its second round of beta-readers, and I’ve offered it to my writing group as well for the next meeting. Should be in great shape in a couple of weeks so time to turn my attention elsewhere.
It’s a tradeoff though. I have all these ideas on converting the starting section of An Empire Forgotten into a novella tentatively titled Alexiandrölarn for more immediate release, but realize that’s just avoidance behavior on my part. I’ve got eight more chapters to finish before Built for Murder‘s initial draft is complete. That has to be my focus for the next few weeks if I plan to get it out for the xmas holiday rush.
Decisions, decisions.
So, I know what I’ve got to do but gosh darn it, I’ve got so many other interesting projects to work on. I keep reminding myself that the last 10% of a project takes 90% of the effort and if I’d just get it done I could move onto others sooner. I’ve done it before so I know it’s possible, just need to grit my teeth, face into the headwind, and do the work.
In other news, Blizzard announced the next expansion for World of Warcraft, something they’re calling Legion, and which I call the kitchen sink. The presentation they gave was so underwhelming it was almost boring. They had a few good ideas mixed into the whole (separate PvP talents, etc.) but overall it left me thinking they really didn’t care about the player base at all and that other forces (money, corporate profit) were driving their design decisions. I have little faith this new one will match the former high points of Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King, but hey, it could happen, right?
Finally, the British Library has scanned and released 1 million images to Flickr for public sharing and enjoyment. Some of them, like the book cover shown above are just so different, but in a good way, It’s nice to see just how far we’ve come since it’s publication.
