How do you...

Original post is at http://www.ailionora.com/, please comment there.

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…revise your manuscript’s final draft in a week and be happy with it?

The answer is, you can’t – and I suspect the same would apply if I had a year to work on it.

“Art is never finished, only abandoned.”
— Leonardo da Vinci

Thanks for the quote, Bryan. 

So, I’ve got a deadline – a date where I must finally abandon The Human, or, in other words, get it to a state where I’m mostly happy with it. The truth is, I’m mostly happy with it now. Yes, there are problem areas, and things I know need to be fixed & I will address those before I turn my novel into my editor – but, I think that I could potentially revise this thing for years and never be 100% happy with it. So I’ve decided to turn it in & move on to the next book in the series, The Hunter.

I know the writer I am now is writing a drastically different version of The Human than the writer I will be in 10 years. But in 10 years I’ll be writing other stories. For this one, it’s time.

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And just because I’m not about keeping good information to myself, this is the due date timeline that my editor has come up with for a June 22nd release at Origins:

I checked out the CreateSpace community and found this: https://www.createspace.com/en/community/thread/15755?tstart=0
The average seems to be 3 weeks for uploading it, receiving a proof (a lot of people skip this step, but I refuse!), okaying the proof, ordering copies, and receiving them.

3 weeks back from June 22 is June 1. I’d feel more comfortable starting that process no later than May 23. Cause, you never know. Memorial Day is in there, and holidays tend to bugger up schedules. So… Yea. My goal for having files uploaded and proof requested is May 23. That means our DROP DEAD DEADLINE for having all files finished is May 22. So there’s a hope that you could have finished books in your hand by June 15.

That said, it’s time to get strict.

Janine, I need your latest (3rd?) revision no later than April 24. My goal is to have the editing and interior layout done and back to you for review by May 8. Since I want to be uploading the final files and requesting a proof on May 23, we have two weeks between May 8 and May 23 to go back and forth approving edits and making final changes. Obviously, if we get done sooner, that’s GREAT, and I can upload files and order your proof earlier.

Betsy, I need your finished artwork that Janine is 100% happy with by May 8.

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-I’ll also be posting links and whatnot as I go that you might find helpful. Feel free to ask me any questions about this process & I’ll do my best to answer them.

-Now 19 people “like” me on my Facebook Fanpage. I like all of you too. 

And then something awesome happened...

SO, I posted on on my previous entry that I had a goal publishing date of somewhere around the end of June or beginning of July so that I could have my book ready for Dragon*Con.

Good plan, right? it gave me some time to finish my final revision, and maybe a month or two to play with to make sure everything was ready for D*C.

But then this amazingly awesome thing happened – a couple days later Bryan and I were corresponding with our mutual friend Mike Stackpole, and he invited us to attend Origins as author guests, pending our books being ready by June 22nd.

My reaction to his email went kinda like this:

First:

Then:

To say that we were excited would be a HUGE understatement – I think I was unable to speak coherently for a bit there!

I immediately contacted my editor and my cover artist to see if this new timeline was even remotely doable. They both said we could do it… as long as we did NOT delay.

I’ll get into the new timeline, and the whipcracking from Kelli in my next post. But for just a bit I just want to enjoy this amazing opportunity – War of the Seasons: The Human, my first novel, is going to be released at Origins, where I will be among dear friends & mentors.

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Also, I have a totally big head now, and made myself a Facebook fanpage… But so far only like 5 people like me! *CRIES ALL THE TEARS* Help?

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Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
Henry David Thoreau