A Matter of Perspective

Jul 15

A haze of smoke hangs in front of the sun today, turning the word a sickly shade of yellow. It’s coming from B.C., which is experiencing a terrible wildfire season after the recent heatwave.

There’s always something.

I’m making progress on The Sphinx’s Heart, and so far (through no real fault of my own), have managed to stay ahead of my editor. Today, I should pass the halfway point in the story, though I confess that it won’t be quite halfway in the word count—so, I guess the second half is a little overwritten? I’m not sure what to think of that. Either that or I’m calling the wrong event the midpoint, lol.

Also, at my editor’s request, earlier this week I figured out the remaining word count and did the mental math for how long it will be before I’m finished. At my current rate of revisions. I’ll be revising this for the next seven weeks or so, assuming I’m able to stay at optimal speed. Realizing this was a little devastating at first, because I just want to be done already! But then I talked myself down (or up? Or away?) from the spiral thusly:

This whopping book is probably going to be close to 300,000 words when I’m done. That’s equivalent to:

1. Six romance novels.

2. Four thrillers.

3. The shortest George R.R. Martin book. (A Game of Thrones, first in the Song of Ice and Fire series, came in at 298,000 words.)

No wonder it took two years to write. No wonder it’s taking months to revise. I need to cut myself some slack already.

Flat lay of a cup of black coffee on an open antique book with a row of orange tulips above. Courtesy of Natalia Leanovich via Unsplash.

In other news, my second son, Noah, started a summer job last week that’s basically full-time office hours. He leaves with my husband in the morning and comes home with him in the afternoon. So it’s just me, Jabin, and the pets home most of the day, and the cats have been spending most of their time outside with the dogs and huntable critters lately. Makes for a nice, quiet day.

Maybe that’s why I’m spending so much time connecting to people on Facebook. :-D

Anyway, so there’s nothing earth-shattering to report. I get to revise a really fun part of my book today, so I’m going to go get after it. And then later, I get to finish up an editing project for a client that is also pretty fun.

Some days I just pinch myself that this is what I get to do for a living.

Happy Thursday, friend! May you find something to be grateful for today!

P.S. For my epic YA fantasy peeps, I finished watching Shadow & Bone on Netflix last weekend, and it was awesome. I haven’t read the series, but I’m going to have to now. I don’t want to wait for the next season to see what happens!