Seeing is Deceiving is now live in paperback. As in, you can buy it. Right now. And apparently have it in your hot little hands by Wednesday, at least here in the US, with Prime, etc etc.
It’ll look something like this. Trust me, it’s big
Damn, Amazon is on a tear. Trying to impress someone?
Anyway, you’d think after doing this for so long I’d know all the stuff but no! This being the first time I’ve actually had a paperback of a book available/submitted at the same time as the ebook, it’s the first time I’ve found out that the paperback can get processed this quick and can go on sale earlier than the pre-order!
I say that was ‘quick’ because between the time I uploaded the file and I had finished with the paperback version, voila! The pre-order popped up. Pretty quick, Amazon. In, uh, stark contrast to me.
At this time of year – still 2022 around these parts – it’s tempting to do one of those retrospective doohickeys, you know, look back at all the great words that were written in your blog.
But we know better than that, don’t we? We do. It’s not like I have a lot of blog entries to peruse. So while 2022 started in what I felt was a positive way, it’s ended in a sort of… medium way. But better than it could have, for sure, because…
Yes, it’s done. Also, follow me on possibly the only social network I give a shit about any more: @ghostlywriteruk
Honestly the editing felt like more of a drag than the writing at times, but it’s done and even better, I recently invested in some new software that should help me get the book formatted and ready for publication quicker than ever. So that’s next! No, it won’t be out today (ha!) but I have a good feeling about January. I really do!
It’s a big book (surprise, surprise) and it took way too fucking long but it’s done. So yay! That’s coming closer. It’s real. Itshappening.gif.
Also, let’s be real
I have to remind myself that despite publishing one thing in 2022 and finishing one other thing, that was, in fact, more productive than I’ve been in years.
And I know that I’ve said this before, but man, 2022 sucked in a few very specific ways (and is, in fact, still sucky in some) so the fact that anything came out is good.
What’s up for 2023?
As always, I have plans. As always, they may not come to fruition! But it’s good to have plans.
First thing, obbbbbviously, is publishing Seeing is Deceiving. It will be on Amazon; it will be on Gumroad (and maybe elsewhere) as a PDF and/or other file for those who aren’t Amazon friendly. It will be a paperback for the two of you who want to buy a physical copy.
Then – honestly, unsure. I’ve got thoughts. I’ve got ideas. We’ll see which way the muse takes me. Hopefully roughly and from behind.
That’ll do! Gonna go off and (gasp) work on formatting the book. Woo!
Happy New Year, everyone. Here’s to surviving 2023.
Yep, it’s Christmas Eve and nope, the book isn’t finished (editing wise). It’s closer! It gets closer. But it won’t be out this year.
Next year? 99.9% sure. I mean, I could be hit by a bus.
However, I do have a little something. It’s really not much! At all! But it’s something and hey, if I don’t drop it here it’s going nowhere else because: it’s a cut scene.
Literally until this week, this (small) scene was in the draft. And then for reasons I won’t bore you with (right now; I reserve the right to bore you later), it got cut. It ain’t going back in. It’s just never going to happen in the book. So you might as well get it here, eh?
Regardless of the fact this scene isn’t going in the book, it’s still full of spoilers for reasons you’ll see.
Sooo SPOILERS AHEAD. You will spoil stuff about the book if you read beyond this point, regardless of it not being in the book. Trust me.
So here’s what I’m looking at today, as I work on editing Seeing is Deceiving. You can click that to enlarge, although you may spoil yourself a teeny bit, just so you know.
Click to really spoil yourself
That’s the structure I’ve been working with basically the entire time I’ve been writing this thing.
I tend to write fairly freeform with a bunch of scenes just one after the other. Somewhere along the line with this book (remember, it’s been… a long time) I started to organize it a bit. Partially that was for my own sanity to keep the whole thing in order. That led to dividing it into ‘parts’ and the prologue/epilogue bits. The parts aren’t likely to persist as you see here into the final manuscript, but were mostly for my own brain.
Vaguely/slightly spoiler-ish stuff below.
In broad terms the book’s in two parts: part one is pre-Comic Con, and part two is at Comic Con. That’s the overall structure.
However to keep me sane, I broke down the broad part two into sub-parts.
If you’re not aware, Comic-Con runs from Wednesday through Sunday in July, and that’s why the later parts go from 2 to 5, with a part 2.5 for some reason (I think I may have, somehow, forgotten to add Thursday on first draft??). Each part is a day.
Anyway, what you’re seeing here is editing-and-chaptering in progress.
Editing, for me, is mostly a proofreading exercise – trying to find the typos that a spellchecker won’t always catch, grammar, punctuation and fixing my own personal bugbears in writing, which are many and too OCD-ish to list.
It’s kind of rare I’ll make big changes to the text when I’m editing, but sometimes it happens. Usually any big changes have already been made before I get to this point, which some people think is Very Bad, but whatever, it works for me.
At the same time as going word by word I’m also trying to keep the overall ‘bigger picture’ of the book in my head, so for example trying to make sure there aren’t any loose ends, inconsistencies or major plot holes (oh, there are likely minor ones!). I also try to make sure character ‘voices’ don’t change radically over time, that sort of thing.
‘Chaptering’ is my own word for organizing the book into chapters. I tend to just write and not worry about the length of stuff, and then as I edit, find the natural chapter breaks and divide the book up. Generally I find chapter length doesn’t vary too much, except for when I have a transformation sequence or sex scene… and then things tend to run long. Sometimes really long!
Anyway, as you can see, not that far in. I’m motoring along towards the end of what will likely be Part I in the book, which is about 30K words. Rather crazily, that means there’s about 100K in Part II. Which in itself, is basically the size of your average novel.
Eeek.
I mean, a lot happens, you know. It gets complex. As my stuff tends to do. But there’s fun stuff in there! I mean [redacted] has a drunken seduction scene, it says right there in the outline if you want to go spoil yourself. That’s a good scene. And important for later in the book.
And not long after I sent out a newsletter. Yep, I still send those. Nope, I don’t have a sign-up right now. Yep, I am an idiot.
If you missed either of those, though, here I am again saying it: the actual writing part (which I hear is important) of the sequel to Practice to Deceive… is done.
[pause for thunderous applause, mutters of “Finally” and “What does he want, a medal?”]
Er, but no, the book isn’t out yet.
What’s left to do then?
Editing. Boy, this has been slow. But I am editing, slowly chipping away. I tend to write very much close to final (partly why I’m so slow) but still, it’s been slower than I’d liked. Trying to up the pace.
Formatting, etc etc. Kindle version, PDF version, etc etc blah blah it’s very dull but it does take time.
Cover making. I don’t really want to pay a lot for a cover design, or have the awkward conversations around it so as I’ve done with other books, I’m cover designing myself. Naturally, I’m making it harder than it needs to be. Please ignore the hastily put together mock cover on the just-published-today-page on this site. It’ll be nothing like that.
Publishing. You know, pressing the buttons and doing the thing.
Back in July I was blissfully, stupidly telling myself I’d get allllll of that done in August. HAH! Well, here I am blissfully, stupidly telling myself (and you) that I’m… hoping… to get a bunch of this done before end of September. (This year.)
I mean, compared to the previous, um, near-decade it’s not that long to wait, right?
Flexin’ those fingers, flexin’ those fingers. This is a warm up for writing.
Or it’s procrastination. But the good thing is, either way, there’s words at the end of it! Yay! Okay, some random stuff.
I checked: You’re The One That I Want (I namechecked it last time, right?) is just over 12K words right now. That’s before the rewrite that, goddammit, I’m doing today. End of January, I said, right? Right.
Progress continues on the sequel to Practice to Deceive, and I namechecked that too, right? Didn’t I? Well, anyway, it’s called Seeing is Deceiving. I’ve had that title for years. I have the title for a third book too. Hope for your sake if I do write a third one it doesn’t take, umm, eight years to get done.
Anyway yes, progress, and I actually put it on Instagram, which I never ever post to but here you go, just so we have a picture.
Oh, turns out I put it on my Story so you had to be following me to see which sort of defeats my purpose here. And look at that moire pattern, yuck. This is why I hate the ‘verité’ (blurgh) of phonecam-aimed-at-monitor shots.
Anyway.
Yes, I know it’s just 266 words but as I tell myself on these days, that’s 266 more than I had before, when I had none! Also, we’re up to 108K, which is… more. And more is good.
Back to that after I take a crack at editing YTOTIW – easier than You’re The One That I Want but also, jeez, what a terrible acronym.
Okay, fingers feel warm. Time to make the words.
And hey, you’ve been good. Here’s the opening to (sigh) YTOTIW. As it currently stands, pre-edits. You can tap/click for the original. Sorry for the squinting.
