Phew! August has come and gone so quickly. So much has happened this month. The last week of the month was spent home-bound for much of southern Alberta, which unfortunately didn’t translate into a lot of writing time. It’s strange – when you’re bored out of your skull because it’s too unhealthy to go outside in the middle of summer, it’s amazing how much you don’t do.

We Didn’t Start the Fire

Smokey City

The biggest life event of August was that the city survived horrible smoke levels that were off the charts. Fires in Washington State and British Columbia socked in much of southern Alberta. At one point, air quality in Calgary was a whopping 28 on a 1 to 10 scale (methinks the scale needs to be revised, n’est pas?) Many of us were relegated to homes and offices with the ventilation turned off while temperatures ran up into the mid-to-high twenties (75-80F). Smoke choked the skies and choked our lungs, and I’m not even kidding about that. I couldn’t go outside without a scarf tied around my face. And even then, I would cough for half an hour once getting back in doors.

Websites!

Sometimes we have bad dreams…

I’ve launched my author website, www.rissarenae.com . Whoo hoo! The blog is up and I’ve put up a little teaser for Book 1. Still lots to add to the site, but I’m taking it all in baby steps. I’m kicking around the idea of starting a vblog on YouTube, and I’ve already set up a Facebook page. Social media is a lot to keep up with, so this is gonna take some getting used to.

Rose Cross Academy website

In addition to the author website, I’m setting up a website for the series I’m writing. The series is called the Rose Cross Academy series; central to the storyline is the aforementioned academy – a high school which trains its students to hunt and extinguish demons. I’m building up a university-esque website, www.rosecrossacademy.com, to serve as both a marketing tool and an informational site for the series.

Book 1 is still waiting patiently for final artwork. In the meantime, I’ve been polishing up Book 2. I’ve hit my word count, which I’ve been using as a basis for determining how complete the book is. But at 83,000 words, the manuscript is still not complete. This was something I was hoping to finish up in August. Now, I’m thinking this book may hit close to the 100,000 word mark (my editor better prepare herself!)

There will be a Book 6!

Book 5 Storyboard Snipit

Book 5 grew an ending this month! So now that means I’m going to have to write a Book 6 in order to end the war that’s brewing all the way back in Book 1. I’ve also come up with an ending for the series. When exactly the series will end in its entirety remains to be seen. Six books? Eight books? It’s strange to be thinking about the end of the series when I’m still waiting to publish the beginning of the series. However, when you take into account the fact that I’m a Pantser and not a Plotter, having a goal is a good thing: the light at the end of the literary tunnel is no longer a freight train.

The Statistics

I love my statistics – that’s the Gold in me coming out. I know it bores the snot out of most people, so I’ll try to contain myself. Other than Book 2 hitting the word goal of 83,000 words, most of the effort this month went to the websites and my experimenting with whether or not I’m going to be starting a vlog.

It’s looking like September may be fairly quiet. Still, I haven’t made a decision on NaNoWriMo 2016 yet as I’m aiming to publish Book 1 in November. Ahhh, so many decisions to make, and I still have to remain gainfully employed through all of this. I don’t know how most authors do it.

Later!

– Rissa

It’s finished! Book One is finished! The absolute and final edit is complete and I have a full, publishable draft. But not so fast! The text may be done, but there are still several more tasks to be completed before this novel sees the light of day.

The Blurbs

First, there are still lots of little pieces that need to be written: query letters, inside flap synopsis, and that annoying 2-sentence explanation of the entire book that is just about impossible to write. It’s not that I have been procrastinating on these items, oh no. Well, maybe a little. It seemed as though every time I read a new article or post concerning writing these items, either the information I was reading changed or completely contradicted what I thought was my game plan. I think these items will be a blog post of themselves, so I won’t bore you with the details just yet.

Second, is the all-important interior design. This entails making sure all the font is consistent, and that spacing and layout is consistent throughout the whole novel. Since I ping-pong between word processors, formatting is different between the two, so I must consolidate. I’m using a free eBook tool called Calibre. Since I have a web programming background, editing the HTML of the book before putting it into eBook format is a relatively easy, albeit, time-consuming task.

The interior design feature of Calibre

And third, and perhaps the most exciting on my way to final publishing, is the artwork. I have enough Photoshop skills to get myself in trouble, but no enough to make a cover the way I envision. Interior art such as chapter headings and maps are easy enough to do since they are monochromatic (black and white) and easily producible in Photoshop. The cover, however, needs a huge slap of TLC. I have a concept to which I have passed on to someone far more qualified than myself to turn my concept into reality.

So, with that out of the way, on to the ever-important statistics! Only added about 4,500 words to the entire series as most of my time was spent creating the publishable draft of Book 1.

The Progress

Book 1: Publishable draft complete!
Book 2: It’s so close to being the first draft!
Book 3: Editing, mostly; 68%
Book 4: More than half the draft is done.
Book 5: Almost ¼ draft complete

Well, the weather is hijacking my mood (two tornadoes and two freak hail storms in as many weeks), so I have a lot of cleanup to do in the yard before winter sets in.

Tornado!

I can see it – the cold, cloudy days of winter peaking over the mountains. Already, I can smell the chill in the air and feel it seeping into my bones. Winter is the perfect time to stay inside and write, so maybe I’ll finally get caught up on my other novels.

But hey, no promises there.

Stay warm and stay dry!

-Rissa