I came close to missing the newsletter this time--just wrapped up in other stuff, and the date snuck up on me. In terms of life news, it looks like I'll be exiting retirement soon. I have an offer, but since I haven't accepted yet, I'll just hold off a bit on the details. The job would be a jump back into the semiconductor industry. I'm still working through my second pass on Secrets of Deara. It's fun that the pacing problems of this book are entirely different from the last book. Bones of Cenaedth was very linear, which is unusual for me, and I struggled getting the timing right in terms of the pulse of reading. The new book has several threads that need to diverge and then come back together, more than once. So it presents a different sort of pacing problem, one more like what I dealt with in The Guardian League series. Because I've learned, and gotten better at this craft, I'm more particular. That generally means it takes longer, but ends up with a better result (hopefully). Let me put it this way--when I wrote Guardians, I didn't think about pacing. Or sentence structure and how it relates to story pacing. How narrative versus exposition can be used to speed up or slow things down. Does being aware of it make me better at it? Ultimately, probably. What else is going on? A couple of things. One is that we should start the cover for Secrets in Feb. I have another, but I'm going to wait until it solidifies a bit more before I bring it up. Next newsletter I think. I wrote an update to my writer friends on my marketing efforts. That's just so others can learn from my mistakes. If you're new to my group and a writer, AND you're interested, let me know and I'll add you to that email group. I already put the results of the last polls in my unscheduled newsletter, so nothing new to share there. That's all I can think of! I hope you all have a great couple of weeks. All books by Steven J. Morris Indie Author Showcase Previous Newsletters
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I had a couple of things I wanted to mention. One is what looks like a weird new scam that I haven't worked out yet, and the other is just an update on how I'm doing in marketing. Scam Alert! So, the potential scam. I received an email that looked like this: Your book just gained new reviews from my readers community.<screenshot of a GoodReads book review>Did you get it?Looking forward to hearing from you I followed up with a couple of emails, and I basically think the paid-book-review people...
Last week was Homecoming week, and my younger two girls are both now in High School. It's really something watching how much effort the girls (and their mom and other girls' moms) put into the preparation. Meanwhile my oldest had a rugby tournament, where they awarded her MVP. Certainly a better way to spend her time than watching that Arkansas v Notre Dame football game. Brutal. Yes, to relax, she does rugby and boxing. Any wonder I came up with Red? Really miss having my oldest girl around....
We're a few weeks into the school year, and settling in to the new/old routine, more or less. With my oldest off to college, and my youngest now in High School, I'm getting sentimental about all the lasts. Last time I'll help one of them learn geometry. Last time I'll teach one to drive. Last time I'll find a "box of strawberries" in the fridge that is nothing but stems. It's funny how even the things you don't like become things you miss, innit? My oldest sent me one of her papers from...