I love it when the first day of the month is a Monday. It makes these goal posts so clear and clean. ^_^ I have a full month from today to achieve all the bits n bobs I want to achieve with no laggy days at the front. Let’s see what’s been going on.

Actions Last Week

Edit five chapters of ‘Walking The Razor’s Edge’ – skip the parallel timeline and focus first on the contemporary line in Leicester
Well . . . I’m not stuck any more, that’s for sure. Hang on. *counts* Four again. Something about that number! Anyway, if you’ve been keeping up with my Twitter, you’ll know that I’ve done HUGE chunks of rewriting and I’ve now managed to get back to the point where the rewrites meet the existing text.
It should be smoother progress now, but there’s no guarantee. Everything up to this point is pacier, with deeper insights and explorations of every key character. Even my villains are blossoming on the page now, something I think ‘Silk Over Razor Blades’ could have enjoyed more of (yes, hindsight is a wonderful thing. Deal with it, and move on, Illy!).
Getting the balance right so the villains don’t take over is tricky (they’re so much fun to write now that I know exactly what their motivations are), but as a result, Lenina is forced to be harder, quicker and smarter. Which is perfect for this section of her overall arc through the trilogy. Basically, I don’t care that I’ve only done four chapters; good things are happening to this novel. ^_^

Send out review copies of ‘Silk Over Razor Blades’ to those who have asked
Hmm. Well I gave away a copy to a woman who works in the museum I’ve loosely based Lenina’s employers on. Does that count? Ugh. -_- I’m waiting for an address for one person and the impetus to get off my arse for the other. I’ll do it tomorrow. I swear. *holds up pinkie finger*
UPDATE: 9:30pm
Turns out I needed address for both people! Humphhh! Which I now have. So tomorrow is the day they go in the post. Let’s do this!

Send five review request emails
Three. I read somewhere that a response rate of 7-10% is brilliant for sending review requests so I’m looking at this list of mine and thinking I need to send a whole heap more. Like . . . LOOOOOOOADS more. -_- Why, oh why do I find it so hard to ask for things I need? Even from people who want to help? *sigh*

Targets For May

Complete at least half the deep edits on ‘Walking The Razor’s Edge’
Haaaaaaaaaaaa, not even close! ^_^ See above; I don’t care. Things are going swimmingly.

Issue this month’s newsletter
Sorted. And the last of the freebies have been given away too, meaning this newsletter is now quarterly. Phew!

Release ‘Silk Over Razor Blades’ (SQUEEE!)
In answer to that target, I’ll leave you with this old favourite of mine:

Changes To My Plans

Given the level of fiddling I’m having to do with ‘Walking the Razor’s Edge,’ something needs to change. Not much, but I do need to manage my expectations and be realistic about what I can actually do. Let’s be sensible here, right? After all, DSB only gives half of her attention to me. 😉

As ever, completed tasks struck out, changes/clarifications in red and additional tasks in green.

• Publish ‘Silk Over Razor Blades’ through Little Vamp Press by May 25 in digital and paperback forms
• Edit ‘Walking The Razor’s Edge’ to completion by end of September (including betas)
• Publish ‘Walking The Razor’s Edge’ through Little Vamp Press by end of November in digital and paperback forms
• Issue all remaining parts from the ‘Chapters of D’nai T’keyah’ novelette for newsletter subscribers (monthly), then switch to quarterly newsletters which should leave two updates for the remainder of the year.
• Start deep edits on ‘On A Knife Point’ by end of December
• Decide what I want to do with Dead or Alive in 2016
• Send two more newsletters to subscribers. Ensure there are decent freebies to offer

Targets for June 2015

• Complete deep edits on primary timeline of ‘Walking The Razor’s Edge’
• Update this blog (and website!) to show Saar’s Legacy progress and include sales buttons for physical copies of ‘Silk Over Razor Blades’
• Make 30 separate requests for reviews on Silk Over Razor Blades (don’t panic, Illy, that’s one a day. One! You can do this . . . just breath deeply, okay?)
• Contact Dave for discussions re ‘Walking The Razor’s Edge’ cover art

Activities For This Week

• Edit the next five chapters of ‘Walking The Razor’s Edge’ following the primary timeline
• Make seven review requests (in person/via email/via blogs/via strangers – let’s be creative about this!)
• List which pages on the blog need to be updated
• Email Dave to begin ‘Walking The Razor’s Edge’ cover art discussions

Thoughts…

BEHOLD . . . ! The holy diary!

I just had a look in my diary. Y’know, the one in which DSB painstakingly planned every week of the year to ensure I met all my goals. *snerk* Mad woman . . . and that was only five months ago!

Not that I’m miles off what she planned. If I follow that diary, I have three weeks to complete all deep edits on ‘Walking The Razor’s Edge’. Obviously it’s going to take me longer than that, but Raven isn’t actually scheduled for anything major writing or editing wise for another nine weeks. Nine! I wonder if she knows about that . . .

DSB actually had a pretty good sense of what could go wrong and she budgeted for it. Which is great, considering the curve balls both Raven and I have come up against.

So while that list for June looks pretty heavy, Raven is going to be mostly quiet except for her work getting ‘Sugar Dust’ back on the shelves. That leaves lots of time for me.

Also, I keep looking at ‘Dead or Alive’ and licking my lips. I’m gagging to get on with working on that, but I know I can’t until ‘Walking The Razor’s Edge’ is clear. Which means those last two goals in my year’s plan may need to become one and the same. If I make ‘Dead or Alive’ my newsletter freebie, then I can justify spending time on it. DSB has been reading it at the Phoenix Writer’s Group for the last few weeks and even though the majority aren’t genre writers (or readers) it isn’t going badly.

Guess I’ll just have to see where things sit at the end of June. Ha, if that was ever a spur to get my editing hat on, right? 🙂