Monday, January 3, 2011

Like A Hamster On A Treadmill . . .

Sometimes I feel like a hamster on a treadmill.  Full of industry but not accomplishing all that much.

I'm deep in the middle of writing the 6th Booktown Mystery and yet, more and more of my time these days seems to be devoted to gearing up for the release of my new Victoria Square series.  I'm excited and terrified on both accounts.  It's always exciting to launch a new book--launching a new series . . . that's a lot of extra worry.  What if it tanks?  What if readers don't like it?  And what if Lorna's readers never find it?

To top it off, my trusty label printer has decided it is no longer trusty.  It used to be I could feed it 100 labels to print at a time.  I fear those days are gone.  (And wouldn't you know it, I just ordered another 2600 labels for the machine.)  Now I find myself printing them in batches of 25--just in case it dies in the middle of one (which it seems to do quite a lot).  It's time to start thinking of a different way to print labels . . . but that will be for the next book.  With less than a month to go before A Crafty Killing hits the shelves (or e readers), I need to finish the job.

As soon as the postcards arrive, a friend is coming over to help me with what I call "the stickers."  We'll be adding the address labels, stamps, and in some cases stickers to the postcards.  (Stickers that announce when my local book launch (not yet scheduled--hopefully tomorrow) will occur and to booksellers telling them they can have bookmarks if they want to email me about it.

And what about that book I'm supposed to be writing (the one that has to be handed in on March 1st)?  I hope I don't jinx it by saying that . . . I like it.  I think it might be good.  I think it might be really good.  I've reached the stage where I'm juggling so many balls in the air that I need to print it out and start editing it.  That's the part I like best.

Meanwhile, I'm stressing that I'm spending either too much time on promotion and not enough time on writing.  And, I've got even more writing projects I need to start juggling.

It's my job and I love it--all aspects of it.  I just wish I had a little bit more time to enjoy it all.