I cannot believe it is already February. But, of course, it is.
I finished revisions on Cast in Flame in January, and they’ve gone back to my editor. I still have copyedits to review (when they arrive) and AAs (the HLQ version of page proofs), and the book will be done. And I have a cover rough which I cannot share yet, which is making me cry. I will post the cover the minute I have permission.
Ahem. No one likes to see a grown author cry, so I will move right along.
I am about a third of the way through Grave. I admit that I have avoided looking at any reviews whatsoever for Touch, because I am still smarting from the writing part of it. Except for the Tor.com review, because one of my close real life friends tweeted it. And facebooked it. And I was reasonably certain she wouldn’t have if they had hated it.
(Digression: I believe that readers should be allowed to say whatever they want about the books they read in their own spaces. I also believe that when I’m struggling with writing and therefore the inevitable uncertainty in my own competence, some of what they do want to say is not going to make my inevitable uncertainty any easier to deal with. So I mostly avoid reviews. When I’m feeling relatively competent, I will seek them out to see what people are saying and how they reacted to various books — but. I don’t think of this as cowardice. Mostly. I think of it as self-preservation.)
I am probably 4/5s of the way through Oracle. I say this because the mid-point arc of these two books is not completely clear to me — I can see the end of War, which is not, sadly, the end of Oracle, the book I’m currently writing. I know the end of Waris hundreds of thousands of words away, but: still writing.
There’s a lot of snow on the ground here.
But someone (Australian alpha reader) sent me a picture of a wallaby in his front yard. This is decidedly better than the picture of the very large snake which had taken up residence on the seat of his riding lawn mower for cute factor, but less amusing somehow (although that could be the caption: “Maybe I’ll do the hand-mowing first”).
Ahem indeed…“I can see the end of War, which is not, sadly, the end of Oracle, the book I’m currently writing. I know the end of Waris hundreds of thousands of words away, but: still writing.” The only quibble I have is the use of the word ‘sadly’…from this reader’s point of view, this is cause for celebration :) Keep on keeping on Michelle — I’ll like most of us exercise patience since the reward is so great…