Spring Updates
Spring is springing here in Bellingham! Yesterday (Saturday) saw rain showers, intermittent sunshine, and blue sky, soon followed by more showers. The trees outside the house are budding and I can only hope that new leaves are finally on the way to start brightening up our forests of dark evergreen.
Lishka Updates
I’m excited to say that LISHKA is officially off to Beta readers as of mid-February. I’m lucky enough to have a plethora of ideal/target readers in my life who were willing (and hopefully eager) to read the novel and provide feedback. I would have loved to get a few strangers as beta readers, but am having a hard time finding people I don’t know who are interested.
Tactics I tried to find beta readers:
Twitter: I received two interested people for a swap, but the timing wasn’t great for me to delve into beta-reading (and I have not done it before). I may reach back out now that life has quieted down a bit.
Good Reads Beta forum: There is a lot of noise in this forum and I’m sad to say, my post did not entice any interested parties.
Given that my personal beta list is robust and full of people I trust to give me blunt, honest, feedback… I’m feeling fairly confident this will be enough. And if it’s not, then I’m sure reviewers will let me know once LISHKA is published.
Along with sending a formatted PDF, I also sent a list of questions to my readers to help get some apples-to-apples feedback. On the list were questions like: Did the first 10 pages make you want to keep reading? If not, why not? Do you find yourself skimming? Was the ending satisfying?
So far, I’ve received feedback from one and the answers were very helpful and interesting. The rest are due early May. I’m suppressing my project manager instincts and not asking for status updates.
Lishka Next Steps
While LISHKA is in the hands of the readers, I’ve been working on the non-writing needs of the book. I’m over the moon to announce that I have found my designer for the cover and interior. Based on her portfolio, I can say her work is fabulous and professional, and I cannot wait to work with her! We’ll be starting design around June/July. I’ll be in the midst of wrapping up beta feedback then (I hope), so this will be an awesome boost to help me stay motivated in the final stretch.
I’m currently researching what the self-publishing process actually entails, and trying not to feel overwhelmed. I’ve started looking into copyright process, how to get an ISBN, how to create the copyright page in the book, etc. I still need to do some research on platforms, but I’m pretty sure I will be publishing through Amazon and Ingram Sparks. To (somewhat) procrastinate actually researching, I created a project plan/task list using the free version of Asana. It’s easy to use and every so often when you complete a task, a little magical animal flies across the screen! So that’s fun.
Life Updates
For almost all of March, I took a break on all things LISHKA to focus on my mother in law, who came to stay with us from Spain. We had a wonderful visit! I think if she didn’t have dogs at home, she might have packed Paul up in her suitcase. He loved having another lap to cuddle on during the day when Chris and I were working.
My day job as a senior project manager has also been in full swing, with a few big projects keeping me quite busy. I’ve started working in the office now, as we have a view of Bellingham Bay. Staring at the water really helps prevent eye fatigue from the computer, and it is so peaceful. This also means that when I come home, my home office is clean and inviting. I’m more willing to enjoy using it for personal projects (like LISHKA) vs. wanting to escape it after a long work day.
We also started to map out our summer adventures and are feeling pretty excited about taking advantage of the gorgeous PNW summer. We have a motorcycle camping trip planned, hope to do some backpacking, and we want to go back to Ross Lake for a paddle camp. All great adventures to help fuel the writing imagination.
