Heavens! It's the last week in July, and as I look at my desk calendar, I'm seeing that I'm already overbooked for August. What lies ahead? Here's a partial list: 1. Coming up first -- our annual Auction and Dinner for Mid-South Lions
Sight and Hearing Service on August 8. I'm procrastinating this morning
on this one. I have a buffet filled with items for our silent auction,
which (somehow) have to be transported downtown to our main office. The
biggest problem is (that) a couple of them are too big and/or too heavy
for me to carry. Getting them from the dining room to my car involves
going through a couple of doors, which I can't open or close while
carrying said objects, and which can't be left open because the indoor
Katzenhaus Kats will make a break for outside and cause even more
problems. And then cramming them into my (little )2-door coupe with its
tiny trunk - - - ummm. Waiting for a guardian angel to show himself! 2. I'm already editing the preliminary draft of "Yankee Reconstructed," which involves round after round of reading and searching for careless errors. i have a bad habit of using meaningless words as transitions and fillers. So I have to search through the pages, looking for these gremlins: that, all of, absolutely, really, very, always, never, just, maybe, perhaps, stuff, things, quite, and got. I do them one at a time and usually find I can (just) do without them. It's a good way to tighten the prose, but also tedious and time-consuming. Deadline? I've promised the complete manuscript to my editor by the end of August. 3. I'm a judge for a (rather) large book contest -- a responsibility I take seriously because i know how important the results can be for new writers. I have six books sitting here, all waiting to be read and evaluated by August 24. I'm reading the first one in those periods when I can't bear looking at my own writing any more. I'm grateful (that) several on the list are short and quick reads. But there's also the 530-page one that weighs four pounds in paperback! (Just) holding it up will be a problem for my arthritic thumbs! 4. I'm working on a proposal for publishing a local history book for a nearby county museum. It would be lovely for Katzenhaus Books to add it to our catalog, but many unidentified minefields lie ahead. 5. Finally, rolling around (in the back of) my mind (and late at night) are ideas for the second edition of "The Second Mouse Gets the Cheese." Self-publishing has changed drastically in (the past) five years, and a rewrite is (absolutely) necessary. The project in #4 above has suggested (that) the first step in that process needs to be a rigorous self-examination. So in the coming days, I plan to offer a series of questions directed at those who are still trying to answer the big question: How Do I Publish This Book? |
