As always, I’d like to begin this week’s progress report by thanking all of you awesome people who’ve followed, liked and/or commented on my blog!

Here are this week’s stats:

Word Count for Chapters Edited This Week: 7,541

Last Chapter of Third Draft Completed: 5

Chapters To Go (subject to change): 20

Days Until April 18th Goal Date: 54

Thoughts?

Self-editing still feels much easier than rewriting, I’ll say that. Instead of working on a chapter each Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, I took most of Sunday and spent time with my younger sister. Even so, I never missed a beat. I still managed to meet my editing goal this week, as well as finishing another ARC read, Bite Me by Beth Bolden.

Speaking of books, not only did I finish the book above, but I also finished Captive Hearts by A.E. Ryecart, which easily is now my number three favorite m/m romance of all time. This book caught my eye because of the title. Do I really need to rehash my love of the Captive Prince series? Not only that, but the cover is stunning and the blurb was intriguing. I was a little nervous, as I’ve never read anything else by A.E. Ryecart before, but I signed up anyways, because of course I did. In beginning another round of self-editing on my own book, as well as the other ARCs I’d signed up to read and review, I sort of forgot about this one…until it showed up in my inbox a week ago. I began reading it on Monday and I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN. I don’t want to spoil anything here, as it is being released today and I wholeheartedly endorse anyone who loves m/m and aligns with my taste buying it and reading it ASAP. Trust me, you will not regret it. I know I didn’t.

Kind of part of this book process, kind of adjacent to it, I’ve scheduled my professional head shots to be taken for the inside of the book cover, as well as for my future website/author platform pages. I know this is somewhat of an extra step, but I also know that it will make my presence online look more professional. Not everyone does this, hell, some of my favorite/most respected authors don’t. But I am trying my best to make sure that as I begin building my online presence as an author, I look and sound as professional as possible. I already have the self-publishing and first-time-author marks against me. I don’t want to further perpetuate either of those stereotypes in anyway.

Goals For The Coming Week

In the coming week, I’d like to self-edit Chapters 6, 7, and 8 in order to keep up with my self-imposed editing schedule. Given my self-editing track record so far, I don’t see this being a problem at all.

For the first time in a few weeks, I am out of ARCs to read and review. While I love the rush of reading under a deadline, as well as discovering new authors (did you see my rave up there??), I’d like to read a bit more leisurely for the next couple of weeks. Unless A.E. Ryecart would put out another Deviant Hearts book anytime soon. Then all bets are off…

Note to Self

It’s okay to take a day off. It’s okay to step back and breathe and enjoy the people around you. You don’t have to be ‘on’ and working every waking minute that you’re not at the day job or sleeping. When launch time comes, you don’t want to be burned out and half-dead. Keep that balance, Baisden.