EPIC UPDATE TIME!

Nanowrimo and my blood oath - Wow! What a wild ride. That was awesome.  You'll be pleased to hear that the blood oath I swore to Titivillus the Demon Patron of Writing Errors has been fulfilled. At 6 pm last night I wrote the words "The End" on this first part of the story, coming in at 95,815 words in total for the first draft. I feel like I've just given birth. No seriously, I know I am a male and right now all the women reading this are scoffing and saying things like "You don't have the pain tolerance to give birth pal." and cracking their knuckles in a meaningful way...but it is honestly how I feel. There's this beautiful, amazing thing that has been created that is looking at me with baby blue eyes all full of innocence and asking "What will I become Daddy?". Awww. And like any freshly hatched baby it's covered in blood, sweat, and tears, and while I think it's beautiful I realize she needs a bit of wash up so that other people don't freak out at the sight of her and can truly appreciate her.

What now? - The button...the sell pre-orders button is talking to me. It wants me to press it. It knows I want to...and tonight...with beer, and ceremony and as much pomp as I can  manage ...I will be pressing that button. You know what you have to do rebels. Spread the word. But Finn and I have a big list of things we want to achieve in the next couple of months. This is where we make our amazing and beautiful baby even more amazing and beautiful until everyone falls in love with her at first sight. We will be working hard doing...

• Cover Art - there are several major iconic scenes in the novel that I think would make exceptional fodder for an artist. Finn's brother is kinda artsy, so he's going to give it a red hot go. Failing that we'll be looking around for an artist to replace my rubbish attempt at a cover.

• Editing and Beta reading - Part of my brilliant decision (I know, so modest right?), to bring Finn McRae on board is because Finn is detail orientated like me. He spent the first few weeks going over what I'd written and editing it, putting some of his own flair and sprinkling magical leprechaun gold dust over what I'd already managed to achieve. Then, like a couple of Sherpa's tackling a mountain together, we'd write together, with one of us taking the lead, (while the other edited along behind) and then swapped leads when brain turned to mush or we felt the cruel whip of our Muse. It worked better than I could have possibly imagined. But I KNOW  there are sections of the text that could be better, particularly when I was struggling along alone without my lucky leprechaun. So there will be a very quick edit by Finn and I (particularly around chapters 8-9) then a round of beta reading. I expect all of this to be finished by the end of January. Depending on feedback we will do another round of editing and then evaluate. If we need to we'll do some other things, and then we will unleash our creation upon the world... Mwa ha har.  

• Website and/or Facebook Page - I've never been a big social media user, I just never saw the attraction. Do people really want to see the blueberry bagel and coffee I had for breakfast? Or the awesome manly cocktail I had when my brother was in town. Really? But for the Novel, I think she needs it. So I'll be making a Facebook page, or making a small simple website...or both! So we can get our social media thing happening.

• Updates -  I really want to figure out how to do one of these updates correctly. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong or how some other authors manage to produce beautiful updates with pictures in the middle and other kinds of fun stuff. It's just a box you type into, there's no WSYIWYG controls. You have to right click to get anything  and it's only got 8 items on it. You can't preview what it looks like before you press send!!! *deep breath*  Okay rant over. I feel better now. I'll figure it out. 

• Goals and goodies - I want to do a list of goals and prizes for reaching pre-order targets. There may be arty things, wordy things, declarations of undying love and gratitude...Who Knows!

• Other Things - That's right, we will be doing all the things! You know those things I can't think of right now. Those things.

Finally I wanted to share something else my awesome talented teenage daughter did in celebration for me completing the novel and participating in Nanowrimo ... https://www.wurrly.com/wurrly/vrAn8q7Jb5 

*Hands out Mops* Explodes with fatherly pride.

Next update when I have some progress to report.

Keep up the good fight Rebels