Taniel, Vika, Writing

Catch Up

Hello people, I hope this finds you well.  I’m adorning this post with images from our morning walk during June. (Nokia Lumia 530 windows phone)

a small wilderness by the drain

Vika, lingering autumn leaves, strappy belladonna clumps, and masses of green clover

First – let’s get the usual confession out of the way: July already and my self-imposed publishing deadline has come and gone – yet again! Just as well it is flexible. I thought I might put Taniel on preorder in a few weeks, before I realised I still can’t do that because I’ve committed myself to finishing it on Wattpad. I cannot leave my little band of readers hanging when I publish on Amazon’s KDP.

footbridge & autumn leaves

footbridge

Well, the delay is not just that, of course [sigh]. I now have several different endings for Book One and only a few scenes to edit before I must make up my mind which path I’m taking. This week saw me stalling and procrastinating. In all, I have 20-30 scenes left, depending on my decision. And, since I’m only managing to edit three scenes a week that is another TEN weeks, tops, unless I up my game. So, to those of you dying to be my beta readers … sorry for the extra wait. Hopefully, it will be worth it.

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foggy morn at the end of the service road

I have entered Taniel in Wattys2016 – the biggest online writing competition in the world!  One of my followers suggested I should, but it turned out that he meant my haiku book, which surprised me. I think the various winners are announced in September. Needless to say, I feel somewhat bold entering the competition which is as simple as adding a tag to your story. (Ongoing stories are acceptable, excerpts are not.)

I decided to change the rating to Mature. I have mature themes and my few bedroom scenes are a little borderline – not particularly graphic, but Wattpad recently updated their definitions so that they have no grey area. Entering the Wattys will put it under scrutiny by their ‘data scientists’. Better to be safe, than sorry.

Taniel peaked at #459 in Fantasy. Considering that there are millions of books on Wattpad, I was really pleased with that. Mature titles are not included in the rankings. Great. Now I can stop the constant checking.

Gosh, I will have to get that impulse under control before publishing at Amazon.

WP_20160629_09_37_40_mistyrange

misty range

Yesterday, I played with the idea of submitting to the publishers who take unsolicited applications online. There will always be a part of me that will wonder … what if I had tried getting traditionally published?  Now I’ve had the thought, I cannot unthink it.

misty rural scene

misty gums

We have had lots of rain. The paddocks are getting lush. Healthwise, my cholesterol levels continue to improve and my weight is very very slowly coming back down.  My blood pressure is under control again. (I’m sure that getting sucked back into my novel’s world had caused the increased heart action.)  I’m seeing a physiotherapist now, so I have to do the exercises I’m told to do. My annual visit to the podiatrist is next week and I’m really looking forward to having my feet buffed again. I’m overdue for my biennial mammogram.

green rural scenery behind my house

rural scenery behind my house mid-June (this one is clickable)

 

Thanks for reading. I hope you are having a good weekend. I’m going to try and get around a few blogs this coming week. I’ve set up a new organisational diary for myself and have scheduled blog visits and Instagram into it. Hope that works. I hope I work!     🙂

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9 thoughts on “Catch Up”

  1. Keep on keeping on Christine – and you will get there. So glad I am not a writer – I couldn’t deal with the stress.
    Glad to hear your health is improving – just had my mammogram (how time flies).

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  2. Hi Christine. I’m glad I read your Catch Up post. It’s very hard to take that final plunge into getting your book out there on Amazon, and there’s always that temptation to check it all through just one more time. It seems Taniel is doing really well on Wattpad. Well done! That should boost your confidence, at least. But, you’ll get it published when you feel it’s ready and that’s that. As for traditional publishing, I think many self-published authors have similar thoughts. There’s always that ‘what if’ to consider. Glad to hear your health is improving. We’ve been out of touch a lot this year, and I didn’t realise you had any problems, health-wise. Look after yourself.

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    • Hello Millie, its just the various niggles that come with getting older, nothing serious apart from the blood pressure shooting up again. An increased dosage and it is fixed. I’ve tinkered with most of my story, for ages, but I found it hard to get drawn back into it. Wattpad fixed that. It was like starting over, and this time I run each scene through Word, Autocrit, and Word again for another grammar check. I always come away from that process somewhat amazed and happy. Thanks for your continued interest, it keeps me going. 🙂

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      • I’m looking forward to reading your book, Christine, but you’re right to be holding off until you’re happy enough with it to publish. As you know, I had a few typos in mine that could have been prevented if I’d checked it through just one more time. 🙂

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