August is a big month In writing for me. I’m on the homeward stretch with some major writing goals as I push towards getting my third book, ‘Frost Hands’ ready for publication. It’s a little scary to think that I’m this close to releasing my next big project. Book three, and the start of a brand new series, feels like quite a milestone. In some ways, each book is getting easier. As an indie author, a lot of the heavy lifting in the actual pulling process comes down to me. I don’t make my own covers, but I do pretty much everything else myself, including all the interior formatting, which is a painstaking task. I’m a lot more confident with that, and a lot faster as well. Practice really does make perfect, or at least makes life a lot easier. Other things, like writing back cover blurbs and choosing good titles Remain just as difficult as ever. I don’t know that I’m ever going to be good at these things, but as long as they get done, I’m not complaining too much.
This week has been a big one for my writing, not because I’ve put a lot of words on the page, but because I’ve been slowly but surely finishing off all the fiddly little tasks involved with completing the formatting on the print files. I’m spending a large amount of time checking over each page, updating information, tweaking the formatting, hunting for errors and looking things over and over again to be sure that they’re right. It’s time consuming, and I won’t pretend that it doesn’t make me a little frustrated every now and then. But I like nailing down all the details, and doing it right first time means I won’t have to change anything later on. Plus, it’s very rewarding to tick each time off the list and to know that I’m one step closer to this book being finished.
My whole focus at the moment is on putting the final touches on the print file, which I’ll be able to upload to Amazon soon, and working on the Kindle file, which brings its own set of challenges. But outside of all this, the more exciting progress this week has been with the cover design. My amazing sister/cover designer is working on it at the moment, and we’ve been hammering out the final font details, colour choices and the like as she builds my perfect cover. I’m not a very artistic person. My creativity is all focused on words, not images, so having someone who can turn my vague ideas and clumsy concepts into beautiful artworks is amazing. This is always my favourite part of the process, seeing that come to life, and I have to say, she does a rather amazing job, don’t you think?
What I’m looking to most though, is seeing everything in print, bound, and sitting in my hands. Files on a computer screen only tell you so much. It never feels like it’s really happening until I can hold my book in my hands, stroke the cover, and see by its physical presence, that yes, this is a real book. It’s ready for the world. The labour of love I’ve put hundreds and hundreds of hours into is finally finished and I can hand it over to people and let them experience it for themselves. That’s the part of this whole process I love the most, and it’s what makes all the struggles writing back cover blurbs, the painstaking formatting, and the constant worry that it won’t be perfect, worth it. I can’t wait for that day to happen with ‘Frost Hands’. Which means putting my nose back to the grindstone and ticking a few more tasks off the never ending to-do list to bring this book ever close to completion.
