Weekly Update: November 6 to 12

Weekly word count: 3100

Editing countdown: 7 chapters edited this week, 37 total done, 10 to go, 3 weeks to go

I pushed myself a lot this week because I know next week is going to be very busy for me.  There's already one day where I know I won't be able to edit at all and three more where it's going to be a challenge.  I don't want to fall too far behind my deadline but it's nice to have the end in sight.  Also nice that the deeper I get into the manuscript, the fewer changes are necessary.  Mostly I'm having to do minor tweaks and seeing comments of enjoyment from the editor.

I also went through a bit of a confidence crisis for my new manuscript.  When I begin a manuscript, I usually give myself the first ten chapters as a pantser rather than a plotter.  I know roughly where I want to go for my main plot and the romance plot, but discovering the other subplots is the fun part.  This time, about halfway through chapter six, I hit a roadblock and had no idea where I wanted to go next.

I took 3 days to recover and research and get my head back in order.

I went back and I'm rewriting the first chapters with a much stronger setup.  I like where this story is going and it's giving me an opportunity to explore some new territory.  I've done 2 days of writing 1500 words each in a very short period.  To feel the words flow so smoothly is a great feeling.

I've been doing some thinking about the monthly Heroine Fix feature.  I've been paying for Facebook ads to get some publicity for it each month since July and I'm not seeing a big boost in people coming to my blog page.  Originally I planned to try it for six months, which gives me another two months, so perhaps I ought to just keep going and see if the numbers build.  Promotion is not my area of expertise and it's not an intuitive skill for me, so I'm just trying different options to see what works.

That was one message which came through loud and clear in Eve's workshop last week.  No one has a guaranteed path to promotion success anymore.  Any tactic with the slightest success quickly become saturated and useless, leaving authors with the choice of trying to shout in a crowd or try a wide variety of different options and hope to stumble on something new.