The nitty gritty side of things.

I freaking love this job. Seriously. My commute is the hallway from my bedroom to my office. I go to work in my pajamas. My cat sleeps on my desk and my phone never rings. I can listen to whatever music I want, and I don't have to listen to anyone else's music. I spend all day taking dictation from the voices in my head and writing about their dirty shenanigans.

Some days, though, it definitely is a job. I wouldn't trade this for the world, but all play and no work means your humble blog author doesn't get paid. I don't mind the boring stuff at all. Tedious? Boring? Work? Yeah, definitely. But it's part of the game, and I have no complaints.

Fortunately, it also tends to come all at once. Some of that is deliberate on my part, some of it is just perfect timing. Like right now, I'm between drafts. I just finished With the Band, and I'm tinkering with some short stories as well as outlining Out of Focus. But for the most part, I'm in that convenient little limbo between books.

This week has been a week of galley copies, getting some contract stuff squared away, cover art forms, things like that. Not exactly drowning in paperwork, it's just stuff that needs a little time and attention, which I'm more than happy to give.

Yesterday was spent going over the galley copy of Cover Me. Basically this means I spent all day reading it line by line, looking for any typos or last second problems. Last chance to look it over before it's released...and by this point, it's also about the hundredth time I've read the book. It's a tedious step, but hey, it also means the book is THISCLOSE to being released. A few days ago, it was the same process with Rain. Funny how they all seem to come at once.

While I'm in housekeeping/nitty gritty task mode, I decided to spend today working on my website. I'm not too thrilled with it at the moment, so I'm currently transferring it to another host that has more user-friendly site builders, templates, etc., for those of us who are only tourist-fluent in HTML. As a result, my site may be down for a day or two, but never fear - it'll be back as soon as I get everything squared away.

As long as I'm getting my site together, if you would like your site or blog linked on mine, please comment here or send me an e-mail at thethinker42(at)gmail(dot)com. A reciprocal link would be appreciated. :) My website is here. As I said, it may be down for a couple of days, but that's the link.

So, today will be one of those days that reminds me this is, in fact, a job. I'm not complaining, though. It just serves as a reminder that I've finally turned this into more than a hobby.

And tomorrow? It's back to work on my short stories so I can get them submitted by their deadline, and more outlining on Out of Focus before Bookewyrme throttles me for taking too long to get to work on it.

While I do that, 30 Seconds to Mars will now entertain you by interviewing - and apparently gnawing on - a cardboard cutout of Robert Pattinson...