The Curtain Closes

Here it is Saturday, and I'm writing this post from the business center of the LaQuinta Inn and Suites I spent the night in, (which, by the way, was unexpectedly nice) since my laptop and the internet access here had a tenuous truce between them, as best I could tell. I decided not to wake up the old laptop this morning, since who knows what surly early morning maneuvers it might have pulled.

I failed on my promise to blog daily about this trip, but well, I got too busy writing. Which is a good thing. I hit my stride on Wednesday morning, and since then have cranked out a handful of new scenes and nuanced countless existing areas of The Sword of the Patron.

So, in reflection, what am I coming away from this trip having gained? This won't be an exhaustive list, I'm sure.

Traveling alone is much easier than traveling with small children, but the wonder they have when they see things for the first time is well worth all the juggling at airport security as you wrestle 3 pairs of little boy feet from their sneakers. I wish they (and my husband, of course) could have been with me to go to Snow Canyon, for instance.

The secular writing market, at least from Dave Wolverton's perspective, is a lot less rules-bound than the Christian market. It felt good to be able to write and just turn off the internal editor that often hollers at me about word count. (Let's face it. I'm well over 90,000 words at this point, which closes a lot of publishing options to me anyway. I might as well write what needs to be told and shoot for the markets that don't care about wordcount until you start getting in excess of 150,000 words.)

Will you still love me if I publish in the secular market? It's on the table as a possibility.

The ebook is going to turn publishing on its head in the next five years, and well it should. I'll post a link later, but there's tangible evidence the big New York publishing houses are cooking the books beyond well-done when it comes to reporting on ebook sales, as a desperate grab at something buoyant in a sinking market. Shame on them for being scummy, but they'll reap what they sow. And I'm sure this practice is not isolated to big secular publishers. I wish I could say without reservation that Christian publishers would never do such a thing, but desperation is a powerful motivator, and publishing everywhere has taken a hit.

There's more, but if I'm going to go snuffle around the breakfast at my hotel before I need to hit the airport, my deadline is upon me. Thanks for dropping in, and my your Easter be filled with the joy of life Everlasting!