“In Review”

On Monday, I put the first part of The Schrodinger Paradox up on Amazon, and set the release date for 5/1. And then started to do part 2.

Right now, both parts are “in review” which “could take up to 72 hours.”

…which is almost up for both parts. And I posted a draft of part 2 of the novel, but it wasn’t the right damn draft, and I can’t change that until the “in review” status changes.

I have part 3 ready, but I’m going to wait on that until Amazon pulls its thumb out of its ass so I can post the correct version of part 2.

Anyway.

The Schrodinger Paradox: Cataclysm will (hopefully) be live on 5/1. I’ll post a link when they let me. In the meantime, allow me to tease you with the back-of-the-book description:

The end is coming.

Unlucky jerk Tom Beadle was on watch at NASA when the collision alert sounded: a new asteroid, bigger than the dino-killer, headed for Earth. Big problem, but that’s why we have NASA, right? Except, after decades of budget cuts, NASA has no way to shove it off course. That job has to be contracted out. Will the private sector company his best friend from college works at succeed where the government option failed? Might be best to have a backup plan, just in case…

Busy month, and announcements

April has been…stupidly, hellaciously busy. I have not gotten as much done as I’d hoped to at all.

It’s too easy to get knocked out of the writing groove when there’s other stuff going on. Like dental appointments (first week of April, and one coming up for my daughter tomorrow), doctors’ appointments (including the office fucking up the appointment day when they migrated from one system to another), and a phone call from our insurance company to set up a policy review…which I’ve got set for Wednesday.

I have actually gotten some things accomplished, and others figured out.

On the writing front: I have figured out that I actually do better, writing in the car, with click-pens that I don’t have to worry about keeping track of pen caps. I’ve got two of those. Yeah, it means that I’m kind of limited on ink colors, since they’re both loaded with blue, but they’re both comfortable to write with, and I can change the ink color in one to make the character who’s talking to me at the moment happier.

Now, I just need to figure out a safe place for my other inked pens, for when I get stuck here at home…because I don’t need to carry half a dozen plus the two I routinely grab in the car.

Anyway. While I’ve not gotten everything accomplished that I really wanted to get done, I have accomplished some things.

Whine in a Box (Liquid Diet Chronicles) is about a third of rhe way into it. Just under 20K words, as of today. It’s…going places I really didn’t quite expect, and things are complicating nicely. Meg’s kind of pissed about it, but sees that yes, that is where things are going, and is cooperating with it.

Better yet, I’ll have the first three weeks of May with full school days, then the kids have half days for the four days of finals week, then they’ll be leaving for a bus tour vacation with Grandma right after Memorial Day. So I’ve still got a month or so to get first draft writing in. And that might be enough to finish the first draft of a second novel.

As for the announcement…I’m working through putting the parts of The Schrodinger Paradox up on Amazon. I’m planning on having each part come out a month apart: May, June, then July. Then I’ll put the omnibus Kindle version out in August. I hope to have the hardback ready by then, but I’m not thoroughly sure I can…not yet. Because things are fucky with the cover art vs. Amazon.

Wish me luck.

Eep!

So, this morning, while I was getting my son pried out of bed for school, I realized something.

It’s April.

I have seven and a half more weeks where the kids won’t be underfoot all day/every day.

I have four weeks before I want to have the first part of The Schrodinger Paradox up for sale. I need to get on the formatting for that, and get covers figured out. And…

…and I need to quit panicking.

I also need to write. On first draft type stuff.

I’ve said it before: I can’t write while the kids are home, and my focus is on preventing them from killing each other, now that they’re old enough they’re not gleefully trying to kill themselves by accident. I can edit and revise stuff I’ve already written.

I’m going to bust my ass trying to get Liquid Diet Chronicles 3: Whine in a Box done in first draft. I’ve got a good idea of where it’s going, and what’s going to happen. The difficulty is in typing fast enough to let it come out at speed. And sometimes, the character sits up and goes “Naw, let’s do this, instead!” after I’ve started writing in the initial “that”, and getting hit with writer’s block until I figure out where she wanted to change direction.

Sometimes? No. Frequently.

I don’t exactly have control over my creative output. At all. I don’t even have the illusion of it anymore.

I’ve got Certified Public Assassin finished in first draft format (first draft finished was about 73K words–actual finished finished draft is…anybody’s guess).

And, like I said, LDC 3 is…coming. Finally. Despite being sick last week, I still averaged about a thousand words per day writing on it, and working on other stories along with it, when it wasn’t coming smoothly.