I’m at that awkward stage right now with my current work-in-progress: the first draft is done, and the first editing pass (the one where I make sure that, for example, the guy who I’m calling Robert in Chapter 2 hasn’t become Bob – or Sam or Phil – when he shows up again in Chapter 12) is now complete, as well.
My instinct is to jump back in at the beginning and start Editing Pass Number Two. But I’m forcing myself to wait. I know from experience that the book needs time to sit quietly on my hard drive before I jump in again and start tearing it apart. Continue reading “We Will Publish No Book Before Its Time”
It was sometime in April 2012. I was parched and past sweating, crossing the vast indie publishing desert on my virtual hands and knees, when a message appeared before me. Maybe it was on Twitter; maybe it was on Facebook. In any case, it didn’t look like a mirage – although who can say, really, with mirages? What criteria can you use, except your own senses? And I knew from experience that sensory input is not to be trusted in such a situation; until you get on top of a mirage, it looks solid enough. 
Indies Unlimited reader J. Johnson Higgins asks, “If you are an author and your writing is different from your other professional work, what are some best practices for keeping your identities under control so that they don’t harm one another? Fun examples: It’s cool if you’re a forensic psychologist that writes murder mysteries (everybody loves that) but if you’re a school guidance counselor that wrote a fiction novel titled “I Slept with Your Mom then Killed Her!” I imagine it gets really strange when it comes time to promote.” 
I’m sure you have one of those relatives who forwards scary emails to you. Sometimes it’s about how you should always check the back seat of your car when you get in, in case a rapist or murderer is hiding there. Sometimes it’s about how some Internet virus is going to wipe your hard drive and steal your identity and all your hubcaps. It’s frustrating because the warnings are nearly always bogus, and the person who sent the email would have known that if he or she had just bothered to go to Snopes.com before hitting “send.” Which you know because you checked it out at Snopes.com yourself, didn’t you?