This week was quite a contrast to the week before, especially in terms of my writing output. But despite that, I’ve made some progress that we can talk about this week. Dreams of Deucalion continues to shamble towards publication. The manuscripts feel solid, but I still lament the workflow that resulted in this delay. But before we discuss, let’s take a look at the key performance indicators.
Last Week’s Progress By the Numbers
My word count fell short this week. On the other hand, it could have been worse!
On Tuesday, I had a minor flame-out, so I turned my attention to a final read-aloud pass through Dreams of Deucalion Book 1: Special Recon. I want all the chapters to be error-free. But I want the opening chapters to be particularly error free. That cost me one day’s worth of writing.
Half way through my writing session Wednesday night, a storm went through and knocked out power in my neighborhood. It stayed out until mid-afternoon the next day. And guess what? My generator is in the shop. The previous power outage, which only lasted about six hours, wrecked my generator. And it’d only run about ten or twenty hours, total!
And here I thought technology and I got along.
Of course, no electricity (or generator) meant no refrigeration. I lost an entire refrigerator and freezer full of food. I also lost air conditioning. Combined that with higher than normal temperatures, I couldn’t sleep Wednesday night much at all. So the best I could do writing-wise Thursday night was finish the chapter that got cut in half Wednesday night. I use Fridays to create a round-up post for my anime site, so there was another Writing Free Day(tm)!
Saturday morning, I was really looking forward to writing — but a Real Life Family Event (RLFE) ambushed me. It was a good ambush. It didn’t involve any emergency, and everyone ended up happy. But I wrote a grand total of zero words on Saturday.
I’m going to the 6,084 words as a major victory, given the week!
Dreams of Deucalion: Road to Publication
I’ve incorporated all of my proofreader’s feedback into Special Recon. I’m feeding the first few chapters into ElevenLabs so I can listen to an AI voice read it to me. I’ve caught only a couple of mistakes, which is a testament to my proofreader’s thoroughness. But there were a handful of phrasing issues that I thought I should have caught during my read-aloud. Sigh. Still, I was able to fix them before publication.
My proofreader finished Dreams of Deucalion Book 2: Flanking Maneuver. I’ve finished updating the manuscript. As soon as I finish the ElevenLabs pass on the first book, I’ll run the first few chapters of the second through. She’s working on Bait and Bleed now.
Yes, I’m excited about publishing Dreams of Deucalion. But I’m also dreading it. More precisely, I’m dreading marketing it. BookBub’s featured deal showed me how sales could be, and it also showed me how sales aren’t. BookBub featured deals are rare, and I can’t count on them being a regular fixture.
I know how to stack promotions, and I’m planning to do that for Dreams of Deucalion. I’m just not looking forward to not selling as many copies as I’d like. That’s not a terribly healthy attitude, is it? Each series I’ve published has sold more than the previous (which is to say, both series — so the sample size isn’t gigantic). I should be looking forward to getting Dreams of Deucalion into the hands of readers.
And I am.
I think the world’s just getting to me. I need to make another attempt to force myself off social media, because it is doing precious nothing good to my mental health.
Progress against Last Week’s Goals
Here’s how I did against my last week’s goals:
- Write Owen Payne’s pinch 1: Partially done! It kind of exploded. I thought it’d be a single chapter, but I just finished parts I and II. It’s going to need at least one more chapter to say what Payne wants me to say.
- Write Gerhard Wimmer’s Midpoint: Not started! Between the RLFEs, power outages, and Payne’s chapters demanding more time, I didn’t get to this.
- Write Moritz Lehner’s Midpoint: Not started! See #2.
- Write Owen Payne’s Midpoint: Not started! See #2.
- Continue working on the AI-narrated draft of Evolution’s Hand Book 1: Executive Action: Not done! See #2.
- Prepare Dreams of Deucalion Book 1: Special Recon for publication: In progress.
Goals for the Week in Progress Report 2025 Week 26
Here’s what I hope to accomplish this week:
- Write Gerhard Wimmer’s midpoint.
- Write Moritz Lehner’s midpoint.
- Write part III of Owen Payne’s pinch 1.
- Write Payne’s midpoint.
- Continue working on the AI-narrated draft of Evolution’s Hand Book 1: Executive Action
- Use Vellum to generate Special Recon’s files (ebook and paperback).
- Finish the ElevenLabs read-aloud pass for Flanking Maneuver.
- Receive the proofreader’s feedback on Bait and Bleed
What Do You Think?
How do you maintain a marketing-positive attitude? I assume it’s possible, anyway! I’d love to hear your perspective in the comments!
