There's something about all the stuff coming down the line lately that's starting to paralyze me with fear, at least according to my writing. Merm-8 is supposed to be published on 9/5 (mark your calendars), but there's still a lot to do.
I've gotten through content edits three times. But now I've got to go through grammar edits. And the problem is the grammar edits haven't been marked, because they want me to go through the whole text and make sure it's all right. Which sounds like a bad idea to me. I wrote the story to the best of my ability regarding grammar rules. How would I notice something that's wrong, if I'm working under the assumption that it's right? It's being told that you're not supposed to eat the shell of the peanuts. But no one ever taught me that you're not supposed to.
Someone has been providing cover art too. But no matter what kind of feedback I give, the end result is only changed a little from the original inspiration. They're just very generic covers that A) don't reflect the content and B) don't entice me to read at all. I'm not sure who's doing it, but I wish they would respond with something more than simply more cover art mockups. I'm glad the publisher lets the author have this level of approval on cover art, but I'm sad they seem to be incapable of understanding my criticism.
And then my stories in the hopper are starting to accumulate on me. After grammar edits on Merm-8 (which will take a long time, because I need to have it read to me), I have A) Draft 3 on a 30k dwarf novella I want to get done B) either doing macros or read out-loud on Defender C) a long, serial fan fiction I really want to write.
Now, my heart says I want to write C, but my brain knows that's a bad idea because that's the kind of thing I can't get paid for and thus, won't advance my writing career (although it may improve my writing). I'm afraid if I try and start that, it'll be a case of "Gun x Sword" where the beginning writing style doesn't match the ending because I wrote it in spurts between drafts of other novels. Defender is the most lucrative, but the next phase of its revision is boring and I just finished the line edits, so I don't feel motivated to do it. And dwarf story, I don't even know how to get it to sell. Plus, it's at a phase where it needs a lot of creation.
So the overwhelmingness leads to fear, fear leads to paralyzation. So I feel deadlocked in all these stories that I can't get done. Le sigh.
Labels: getting published, Stand By Me with Dwarves, whining, White Mage Story
