I haven’t had a week this bad in years. While the raw count of Real Life Family Events (RLFE) wasn’t too bad, I ran into a cumulative effect I hadn’t counted on. And, wow — it was costly. Also, I started a technological experiment that might kickstart my marketing. It’s certainly not likely to hurt it any! Finally, I wrestled this week with time-slicing. Unfortunately, the time sliced back. Let’s take a look at the key performance indicators before getting into any of the details.
Last Week’s Progress By the Numbers
Of this week, I’ll just saw it could have been worse. A lot worse.
A RLFE Monday night left me with about three hours of sleep. I don’t know about you, but I don’t function at peak efficiency with only three hours of sleep. Things started going further down hill Tuesday night. I wanted to touch up some dialogue in the chapter where I introduce Zhū Meng, a character who’s a Chinese national. She speaks very good English, but it’s as a second language. I did not want her to speak in a cliched accent, so I studied how an intelligent person, fluent in Chinese, would speak English. I began restructuring her sentences according to those rules.
There’s a plot point reveal that happens to her, then happens to a companion named Heba Salah a few chapters later. I’d already written both chapters. As I updated Zhū Meng’s earlier chapter, I made a (to me, anyway) horrible discovery: I had revealed the plot point to Zhū in the earlier chapter. I did it again in the later chapter.
She acted surprised both times.
This sort of thing happens to many writers. I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. I just have so many things going on (see the time-slicing discussion later in this post), I’m working through so many RLFEs, and this novel is so thematically challenging that I’m exhausted all the time. And, oh yeah, I have a full time job that deserves my full attention and abilities.
The cost of that mistake was three days averaging only 300 words a day. I only got close to 10,000 because i got a second wind on Sunday and wrote two chapters instead of my customary one.
What lesson can I learn from this? Well, I should exercise more. That’ll give me more physical energy. But I suspect there’s something else I need to do as well — get a better hold on my time slicing.
Partial Cover Reveal
But before we get into time slicing, I wanted to show you a teaser image of the cover for Dreams of Deucalion Book 1: Special Recon. Here it is!
The release date is getting closer!
I’ll release the full cover in a week or so. Miblart has once again done a fantastic job. They really captured the spirit of the book with this cover. You’ll see more of what I mean when I release the whole thing!
Time Slicing with a Double-Edged Knife
In my post last week, I talked about my plans to test audiobooks. I still want to do that. But this week, as I was trying to listen to the audio version of Evolution’s Hand Book 1: Executive Action, I started to think about what else I might use that time for. For example, I could:
- Run Dreams of Deucalion Book 3: Bait and Bleed through ProWritingAid to prepare it for an alpha read.
- Read the entire Dreams of Deucalion trilogy out loud to get it ready for the beta read.
- Write another chapter or two of Wayland’s Hammer so I can finally get that out of the way and onto the next book.
I’m not sure if working on the audio book actually interfered with me writing Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Conventional Forces or not. It may have; I was listening to Executive Action’s audio draft when I wrote the second chapter that revealed the plot point to Zhū Meng. So it’s possible.
On the other hand, lots of writers work on lots of drafts at once. I think the key difference for me is that I’ve let myself get worked into a state of exhaustion, and no one functions at peak under those conditions. I need to find a way to avoid that state. At least, I need to find a way to avoid living in that as my default state.
I also have to remind myself that my lapse might not indicate anything unusual. It’s a minor issue, and I’ve had them before. This just seems to have had a bigger impact on my output than previous issues.
Technology to Assist with Marketing
There are many days when I have to sit in my Bronco Sport for a half hour. Usually, I read. But recently, I asked myself: what else could I do in that time? Not necessarily to replace reading, but to augment it.
I remembered watching a video where Dean Wesley Smith suggested buying a laptop dedicated to writing. It didn’t have to be expensive. But having a dedicated machine can help a writer focus. It does for me. My MacBook Pro M1 (the 13″ model) is the best laptop I’ve ever owned. I only use it for writing and writing-related activities like research.
It’s like a psychological association. I see that laptop, I know it’s time to write. I didn’t want to dilute that by using my laptop in my Bronco Sport. I didn’t want to buy even a used laptop to do that, either. They take time to maintain (patching, fixing stupid errors, stuff like that). And I have other uses for the money. Like, you know, food.
But I have an iPad I used for reading and for drawing. For example, I use it to sketch some of my starship interiors. I wondered if I could get a reasonably priced iPad keyboard that would let me write marketing copy while I was in my vehicle. I’d have portability without having to buy another laptop.
This is my writing setup. The iPad, with its Logitech portfolio, is on the left. The background on the main screen and the MacBook Pro is from Pixiv.
I checked Apple’s pricing. After I recovered from my shock (Apple wants around $350 for a keyboard/portfolio), I asked myself what other manufacturer might make something serviceable and with a lower price. I decided to try the Logitech Folio Touch iPad Keyboard Case with Trackpad and Smart Connector (affiliate link). It was less than half the price of Apple’s product, and though I love Apple’s keyboards, I don’t love them that much.
You know what? The Logitech keyboard is fantastic. It feels a lot like an Apple Magic Keyboard. Using it and my iPad Air, I’ve rewritten the Amazon blurb for The Sword of Sirius Book 1: Red Flag Warning and I plan to rewrite the blurbs for Collapse Zone and Firebreak, too. It might become my marketing workstation. Who knows? Maybe building an association with it will help me get into the zone when it come to marketing materials!
Progress against Last Week’s Goals
Here’s how I did against last week’s goals:
- Begin proof-listening to the Evolution’s Hand Book 1: Executive Action AI-generated audio book. Done! I might set it aside for now to prepare Dreams of Deucalion for publication.
- Write Gerhard Wimmer’s Midpoint Part III: Done!
- Write Owen Payne’s Midpoint Part II: Done!
- Write Wimmer’s Midpoint Part IV: Not Done! Instead, I wrote Payne’s Midpoint Part III.
- Write Moritz Lehner’s Midpoint: Not Done! I ran out of time and energy.
- Send newsletter number 48 to prepare readers for upcoming Dreams of Deucalion: Done!
- Review the performance of the ads after I started charging a higher price for Red Flag Warning: Done! My sales were down, my page reads were stead, and yet, my income remained stable. So, I proved I don’t need a discounted price on Red Flag Warning to maintain that income level.
Goals for the Week in Progress Report 2025 Week 15
Here’s what I hope to achieve this week:
- Finish revising the Amazon blurbs for The Sword of Sirius Book 1: Red Flag Warning, The Sword of Sirius Book 2: Collapse Zone, and The Sword of Sirius Book 3: Firebreak. Upload them to Amazon.
- Write Gerhard Wimmer’s Midpoint Part IV.
- Write Moritz Lehner’s Midpoint.
- Write Owen Payne’s Pinch 2.
- Write Wimmer’s Pinch 2.
What Do You Think?
Do you have any techniques that keep your plot’s reveals organized? Or do you rely on your good memory? I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments!