December 2022 – Into the Light

I picked this title for the December blog post, not because of the festive season, but because this has been an “enlightening” month for me.

Hopefully I didn’t lose you with my punning.

I learned a lot from my copy editor’s feedback. I don’t have anything profound to say about 2022 as my brain has turned to mush this week. However, I do believe I am a better writer than I was at the start of the year and I am grateful for good health.

Main Character Portraits

This is my creative procrastination. I am being productive, just not in order of priority. I have really grown to see my two MCs, O (left) and P (right), as real, breathing people. I hope to bring them to my readers in a way that does them justice. Painting and sketching them helps me understand who I am writing.
The portraits capture their first impressions. I chose 2 POV characters because I wanted the narrative to access different parts of society. Each of them has insights into aspects of their city that the other lacks.

_{These artworks, along with other images on this website, are my intellectual property. Please credit them to me if you share them.}

Edits

In mid-December, I received my copy edit from Jonathan Oliver. He is a professional editor with over 20 years of experience, particularly in the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres. He was the perfect fit for my project. As with many accomplished people, he was unassuming, efficient, and pleasant to work with. If you’d like to hire Jonathan, you can find him on Reedsy, but you will need to book him well in advance.
I’ve read through all his edits and am making a few small changes.

Reading the MS aloud to my brother over the holidays was fun. He got invested and seemed to enjoy the ride, which I take as a good sign. He isn’t overly critical. But he also can’t fake an interest in anything. In late January next year, I will hand the MS to my proofreader.

Novelette

I plan to release a prequel novelette in March with subscriptions to my newsletter. This will be different from my month-end blog posts in that I will only send a few newsletters per year with special announcements. Social media does strange things, and I’d like to keep in touch with people. The novelette will be around 9000 words. It follows characters connected to one of the protagonists in my novel.

Reviews

I wanted to wrap-up 2022 with some reviews of Indie books I enjoyed this year, but this post is getting long, and I don’t want to scare you off. So, next weekend, I will post the reviews. I normally update my blog only once a month, so this is an exception to that pattern. I promise I won’t start spamming you. Thank you for joining me on the 2022 stretch of my journey to publication.