The Speed of Everything

by
Scott D. Parker

In many ways, things are really moving fast down here in Houston. Guess it’s just the way things go for an independent publisher.

When Easter hit last week, it marked the end of Lent. Not coincidentally, the Lenten period was the exact time that I published WADING INTO WAR as I uploaded the book on Ash Wednesday. When you are giving up something, Lent can be a long time. When you publish a book, it goes by in a flash.

The only thing I’ve been having an issue with is the print copy of WADING INTO WAR. It’s a small book, to be sure, but it’s my first and I’d like to have a hard copy for myself, my parents, and those readers who don’t use an ebook reader. The interior file is fine, but it’s the cover that proving more challenging than I expected. Mainly that’s because I’m a perfectionist when it comes to my own material. Like it or not, folks will judge my books next to book by traditional publishers and I’m doing my darnedest to make the comparison as favorable as possible. That means I’ve rejected two proof copies and will be making a third. Heck, the hard copy of WADING might not be ready before the next book drops.

Yesterday, I turned over the manuscript of THE PHANTOM AUTOMOBILES to the editor. Now, for the month of April, she’ll be working her magic to make the story better. In the meantime, I’ve developed the initial mock-up for the cover. I purchased Adobe’s Creative Cloud so I now have access to InDesign and Illustrator. I still don’t have the artistic talent to make cover art so I’ll be using my friend Ike again, but, to decrease the number of review cycles, I’m doing a mock-up in Illustrator so I can show him exactly what I am needing. I’ve never used Illustrator before, but I want able to knock around enough to start the process. Next, I’ll use InDesign for the proper cover for WADING and PHANTOM. It really is exciting.

What is also proving challenging is juggling the needs to edit already finished work while also writing new material. Yet again, the hours in the day and the time needed to spend on the fun work are never equal. Ain’t that always the case? But I again proved something to myself: when I have a plan for a story, I can bust out the work. Upon reading PHANTOM, I realized I needed a last chapter so I sat down to write one. Boom! In under two hours, I busted out two chapters. Someday I’ll learn that me + plan = writing efficiency.

That’s the news from the offices of Quadrant Fiction Studio. I hope you had a good week.

Current Audiobook: The Thief by Clive Cussler and Justin Scott, as read by Scott Brick. This is one of the Isaac Bell adventures and they are splendid! Historical (this one is set in 1911 or so) and enthralling. Scott Brick is one of my all-time favorite narrators. No, actually he’s my favorite. I love his cadence and his touches of whimsy. No matter what he reads, you can bet it’ll be great.