I am sure those of you who have been following the progress of the novella are wondering exactly what stage of production the new installment is in. Possibly wondering why it has not already been sent to you by yours truly. Well, that is a pretty simple answer; time, money, and life. Okay, maybe that doesn’t sound like a simple answer. But I assure you, it is.
So what about those simple items that has hung up the release of the book? Don’t get me wrong, I am still incredibly exited to get this story of Nestor the Seer, and his background out to you all. But I got…distracted. Before the great time suck occurred, the cover was developed, and I too had completed the red pen edits and revisions of the novella. I’ll be honest, it was remarkably quick. Editing a mostly well written 30K word project is wildly easier to manage than a poorly written 90K word book. So when I announced the release I was SURE I could deliver by the fall of this year (2021). Then the time suck blew me off course (That sounds oxymoronic…Whatever, I’m going with it.)
Any who, a bit of background. My wife and I have been married for almost ten years. Through these years we have both worked incredibly hard to develop our careers, raise a family, and manage a household. Not an easy gig, mind you. That said, we had been fortunate enough over the COVID weirdness to save oodles of cash by pulling kiddos out of the money pit that is day care, and essentially stopped several other more expensive habits, like going out. Let’s just say, that we decidedly ran head long into remodeling (A word that until recently gave me the spins) our downright dingy old house. It was finally time for us to pay for something we actually wanted, and not just by the craptastic cheap stuff to get by. So yes, it was done for selfish reasons. And I am completely not sorry about it.
Well, I don’t know about anyone else, but when I start a project I can’t think about anything else. It was the same way when I wrote and edited “Soldiers of Fire” and the novella. Long story short, I am an atrocious multi-tasker. I get confused, irritated, and easily frustrated if I juggle too many things that I feel require my utmost attention. So sadly, my writing, editing, and book producing of any kind migrated to that cluttered cobweb infested back burner (Man, I should really look into cleaning that thing off).
All of sudden, all of my time, energy, and money was caught in the renovation. Well, why not just send the novella off to the editors? It’s free and won’t they take care of the whole manuscript for you? Great question. In fact, I actually flirted with the idea of doing that. However, knowing myself, and the editing process. I rightly squashed that idea. When you send a manuscript to the editor, first you DO have to pay for this service, and it isn’t cheap. Also, you set in motion something you do NOT want to stop. Explicitly, you don’t want too much time to go between edits, because you could forget something you needed to fix, take out, or even add to the manuscript. When an author sends a book to their editor, he or she will read it, analyze it, correct any errors, doing their best to smooth out any of the stories pot holes. At the end, at least in my case, my editor wrote me a letter explaining the great things, the not so great, and the confounding properties of my story. Don’t worry, this is a good thing… Frustrating, but in the end, a VERY good thing.
Knowing all of that, I recalled many late nights, early mornings, and long afternoons I sat at my computer willing it to edit for me. Turns out, no matter how tech savvy you are, that just is not a thing. Anyway, decided to do the responsible thing and focus on improving our family home for the few months. I’ll say this. It was hard. I would often feel guilty for not writing. For not sending it off to the editor, for not even thinking about ways to progress the project. But then it hit me. I was doing something with my family that I had been dreaming about for many years. I wanted to uplift our way of living. I wanted to give my family and me a better home. Most of all, I wanted to teach my sons the value of hard work. I was granted the opportunity to teach the boys skills I did not learn until my late 20’s. So once, I began the process of breaking things down (literally and figuratively), looking at the precious time we could spend together, and the cherished memories (sometimes infuriating. Teaching kids how to break something without destroying the whole room is a serious task, just saying) we made, I quickly let the guilt go. At least for a little while…
In the end, the house looks much better. The family learned a cornucopia of skills, and we shared many laughs along the way. Thankfully now, I have started to write again, and we are saving up so I can send the book to the editor. At which time, I will not only inform you, but I’ll give it my all to get a hardcopy to you in the near-ish future…;)
Stay busy my friends.
And if you are wanting to pre-order, please visit the shop at my website, ryanmoliver.com.