On Schedule Changes

So I suppose it would be good for me to admit something at this point. Iron Angels won't be coming out in May.

That might be kind of obvious, given that we are on the last day of the month. Hope springs eternal, I guess. :) Unfortunately due to delays caused by our move to Pennsylvania, other projects, and the unavoidable craziness my life seems to attract, the possibility of getting the book out this month wasn't very high.

Which, of course, means I now have a decision to make. I can either continue to work on Iron Angels until it is in publishable condition and get it out during the month of June. That would mean putting off the revisions on Badger until Iron Angels is completely done, possibly delaying that book as well, which is something that might get me mobbed. :) Alternatively, I can shift my focus to work on Badger and finish up the work on Iron Angels at a later point. One way will minimize the delay before Iron Angels hits the market, while the other preserves the rest of my schedule for Badger and the other books.

As I've been thinking about it, though, the best option seems to be the second one. Iron Angels is in the final stages; that means it will only need a short, final revision to touch things up before it is ready to go. I think that if I get Badger ready during June, send it to the copy editor by the end of the month, and turn my attention to Iron Angels after that, I can have Iron Angels ready before I get Badger back at the end of July. Then I can pour my efforts into getting Badger ready, which I will hope to get out by the middle of August. That way, instead of stressing myself to my limits and possibly rushing the development of these two stories, I can take each at its own pace, and probably have both of them ready by mid-August. They'll be released at the same time so that they can support each other, which might be a benefit that I won't complain too much about.

There are benefits to doing things the other way as well, but I think they are more than outweighed by the costs in time, effort, and most importantly, sanity. Putting too much pressure on myself to get everything done at a preset time, without consideration for the usual chaos that infects my life, will do more harm than good in the long run. By taking a more measured approach, I can have both books out before the end of the year, and hopefully arrive at my next project with my wits intact.

So yeah, if you are waiting for Iron Angels to come out right now, I apologize for the let down. It has taken me a while to admit it, but it turns out I am human too, and can fail. Blergh. Rest assured, however, that my schedule for Badger remains unchanged. My rewrites on that are starting as we speak, and the alpha readers have pretty much all gotten back to me. That project has me both excited, scared half to death and ready to start. Let's hope no more crazy hops in the way this time.

In any case, I'll see you around!

On Cool Stuff and Getting Stuff Done

Alright, so first things first. Iron Angels second to last draft is finally done. Yeah! Now it is off to our esteemed copy editor, Tristi Pinkston. Hopefully that means we will be on track for a publication date in May, which at the moment looks increasingly likely.

That also means that I am now free to work on other projects again, namely The Social Contract's first draft and the Badger rewrite. I will hopefully have the alpha readers go over Badger during May, so that I can then spend most of June tearing it apart. Let me know if you want to help out with the whole process! As it is, Badger has a target publication month of August, and I think we have a very good chance of making that date too. After that, the only other book to get done during 2012 will be the sequel for Kingsley, subtitled Murders in Whitechapel, which hopefully will be ready by November.

Five books in less than a year. That's possible and not entirely crazy, right? Aheh heh...

On to other things. We have a cover being done for Badger at the moment, again by Paul Hamblin, our awesome artist from Wolfhound. He's sent me a few rough versions, and says he'll have the finished prodcut done soon. I'll post it when it's ready, so get excited for it!

We've also had an ad up occasionally on Girl Genius, and things have been going moderately well for us. I don't know how cost effective ads are for ebooks; perhaps it is the fact that we need people to buy the book and not just visit a comic? At the same time, Kingsley's been doing a bit better as a result, so I'm not complaining at all!

Also, at the end of this next week, Emily and I will be off to Utah to participate in the LDS Storymakers conference. It will be the first time going as an actual professional writer, so I'm kind of nervous. At the same time, we'll get to meet some of our writing friends and attend some cool panels and workshops, so it is totally worth it!

Finally, whoever did this is awesome, hands down. I'm on a freaking wiki! Huzzah!

Whew, lots of news, huh? Perhaps I should post here more often... oh well. Off to work! See you around!

On Parenthood (Holy Crap!)

So on Thursday my daughter was finally born. She came in just before midnight, and was happy, healthy and ready to take on the world. Emily came through the whole process pretty much alright as well, and we are already home from the hospital and adjusting to the new changes in all our lives. For little Seraphina Paige, that means dealing with dirty diapers, the need to eat and other such stuff, and we are trying to accomodate her on that.

I have to admit, I have to have the loveliest little girl in the whole world. She has the most beautiful little personality and the greatest little expressions. I'm probably going to be gushing about that for the rest of the year, if I ever really stop. We are all a little sleep deprived and worn out, but we are recovering quickly, and are happy as a bunch of clams to have everyone home and safe.

Now all I have to worry about is how to keep going to work, working on writing and all the other worries I had before when I could just be dinking around with Sera instead. We'll see how that goes...

In any case, our little family wishes you all well, and we hope that we can see you soon. Until then!