ozma914 | Juggling Book Projects Can Give You a Headache

After hitting 28,000 words on the first draft of my new novel, We Love Trouble, I'm calling a halt to it.

Temporarily! Come on, I'm not going to give up on a story that I've described as The Thin Man meets Scooby-Doo. I'm having way too much fun.

But Emily and I wanted to get our new humor book, Still Slightly Off the Mark, out before the Christmas season. It's been so long since I last went over the final draft that I assumed--correctly--that I'd find more mistakes. So, while Emily works on the cover, I've started a line edit.

Emily's trying for a cover that's similar to the one for the original Slightly Off the Mark, seen here. But not so similar people think it's the same book. A lot of juggling goes on in the writing business.

Then I'm going to finish the rough draft of We Love Trouble, and while that cools and awaits a second draft, I'll finally go back to pulling photos together for our Albion Fire Department photo book.

It's like cooking a meal with multiple dishes at the same time. You have to add the various ingredients at the right moment, have them cooking at the right temperature, and keep anything from burning. I've always been exceptionally bad at cooking multiple-dish meals, which is why I make sure my smoke detector batteries are good.

Hopefully I'll be better with the multiple book projects. Although, come to think of it, if I should hear back from an agent or publisher things will get even more complicated.