Update June 26 PS

Okay dokey, I finished  Two Struggles. Still need to spell check it and send it through my proofreader but it's finished.

I revised it, went back added a few Boulder landmarks, added more of the five human senses to certain scenes and clarified some spots that needed it. Should have done that before though. But it's done...unless of course I think of something I want to add. I did that last night and this morning. What I added was more of the human senses so both should add to the readability of the novel.


I'm still not too sure about chapters two and three though. There's an action scene at the end of two I may switch to the middle part of that chapter. I want to see what a couple of Readers think, if I can find two or three. Plus I may have repeated a couple of comments about my MC and her best friend I don't need. Not to mention changing one person's name. I corrected the name of one relatively minor character who still has an important part to play. I gave him three names and now, I think, I have changed them all to one.

Still not one hundred percent sure if I want to E-publish this or send it out queries for the traditional way. I lean toward E-pub. That has grown very fast lately and in some ways it's better. But I would still need around 800 to 1200 dollars to get it ready for that. That includes a pro copy editor to find all the nitpicks and an artist for a cover design. I need to decide exactly who to use for those two things to be able to see exactly how much.

In either case maybe I should try to find an Alpha reader or three. They might be able to find most of the nitpicks, repeats and such. If I get one or three I may not need the pro copy editor. It doesn't have to be one hundred percent clean but at the same time it needs be close to one hundred. From experience no way can I do that myself.

And I really want a new title. Something other than struggles. Something to indicate how big her two struggles are. I say two but she really has more than two but I believe the two for the title are the major ones for the plot. They are two independent and different battles. One with the bad guy and one with herself. She had to win both to save the day.

Oh, it is now 83,922 words long. Not too bad. Originally I thought it was going to be on the very short side but from what I hear--which may or may not be true--that is not a bad length for a beginners UF novel.


Another Oh, speaking of E-pubing. I hear from two sources that pro editors do look over new E-books and sometimes will contact the writer. Not that it happens all the time but enough to say that E-publishing does not take a novel out of the running for a traditional contract. Of course saying that will happen to me is a long shot but the chances might be the same as sending out queries.  


Okay. Instead of going with my plan to start the revision of my space opera today I will be revising a story. It's written and is very short so hopefully it won't take long. I sent a story to Extreme Planets anthology. They rejected it but it sounded like they really wanted another try. I'm not sure if that was personal or just a form. But a second rejection will tell me that. I just happen to have this story I wrote a few months ago that might fit what they want. I had two new ideas for extreme planets--I really liked one of them--but neither plot would gel enough for me to write the story. Besides I was busy with the revising.

I also have to revise my story for Q4 of WotF. Hopefully it won't take long but I can add some struggle and more human senses.


Plus I need to do another crit for Critters.org. I did two this week and today I want to do number three. That won't be the five I wanted for this week but it's a whole lot better than usual.

And plus work on my two work novels. I still need that fight scene in one of them. I was able to take a picture of the structure she has a fight on and now I just need to take the time to figure out how to place a pic here and what size it needs to be.