For a brief moment this week, I felt omniscient — and I have Noam Katz, a character in Evolution’s Hand Book 6: Unnatural Crypsis, to thank! Though in all honesty, I’m not sure the explanation will be as impressive as I made that sound. Also, last week, I set a pretty aggressive schedule for writing. Did I come close? If I did, and if I’m inching nearer the finish line, have I decided which series to write next? How’d the new FreeBooksy ad perform? Let’s talk about all these after the infographic.
Progress Report 2023 Week 40 By the Numbers
Slightly less than 10,000 words, but seven new chapters is nothing to be ashamed of!
I didn’t hit 10,000 words this week.As always, I have an excuse! I had to play God. Which is a grandiose way of saying that I realized Noam Katz needed some more details in his arc to make the payoff work. So, I went into his previous chapters and added material.
It almost feels like cheating! If I were reading this book, I’d have to go from the start to the finish. As a writer, though, I can jump back and make whatever changes I want. It’s like I can jump back and forth in time!
That a writer can do that is obvious, isn’t it? But I hadn’t thought of it in those terms until I watched Dean Wesley Smith’s video Writing into the Dark. Prior to that video, I had not even realized it, but I felt like I was cheating if I went back to embellish a scene outside the routine revision process.
I swear, sometimes we put ridiculous roadblocks in front of ourselves!
FreeBooksy — My New Friend!
I tried FreeBooksy for the first time last week. I’m happy with their performance. For a very reasonable price, I saw a solid jump in sales. The cost per sale put them in line with the very best of Robin Reads and The Fussy Librarian. So far, though, nothing has come close to Book Barbarian. Which reminds me: I think 90 days have passed, so I can try to run another of their ads!
The Next Series?
Back in this year’s 29th post, I talked about three possible direction I could go after finish the first six books in Evolution’s Hand. I even had series titles. But then I attended a consult with The Writing Wives. They convinced me the titles I had come up with just weren’t engaging.
Like the title Evolution’s Hand.
So, putting my sadness aside (I really like Evolution’s Hand, but it might be a bit too clever and a too un-engaging, if that’s a word), I brainstormed titles for the next series. I think it’s going to be a space opera and/or military/fleet science fiction. I was going to call it Evolution’s War, but if you hadn’t read the first series, that would make no sense. It almost sounds like a continuation of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom or something.
I have two leading candidates:
- The Sword of Sirius
- The Hidden Sword of Sirius
The second has an air of mystery. The first is shorter, and for titles, I tend to think shorter is better. That’s my current thinking, anyway.
Do you have a preference between the two?
Progress against Last Week’s Goals
Here’re the goals I set for myself last week:
- Finish Catalina Ojeda’s Plot Turn 2: Done! This includes the Part II I decided to write.
- Finish Noam Katz’ Plot Turn 2: Done! I split his chapter for better pacing.
- Finish Magali Suarez’ Plot Turn 2 Part II: Done!
- Finish Melchizedek Conrad’s Plot Turn 2: Done!
- (Stretch) Start Matsushita Sachi’s Plot Turn 2: Done! I actually finished this chapter. It turned out to be a little shorter than I expected, again for pacing reasons.
- Evaluate the results of a new ad campaign through FreeBooksy: Done!
Goals for the Week in Progress Report 2023 Week 40
Here’s what I hope to accomplish this week:
- Finish Mariam Al Khatib’s Plot Turn 2: I suspect I’ll need to beef up some of her older scenes to support whatever happens.
- Finish Noam Katz’ Resolution
- Finish Catalina Ojeda’s Resolution
- Finish Magali Suarez’ Resolution
- (Stretch) Start Matsushita Sachi’s Resolution
What Do You Think?
Have you ever found that you hurled obstacles in your own way? What was one that made you laugh the hardest after you discovered it? I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments!
