I’m still here! Luke is one years old and all grows up. He said he’s moving out next week. Actually, I’m just stalling so I can have time to take pictures off the camera and edit some video.

I didn’t make it to the next round of the Amazon competition. The first “judging” was based on a 300 word pitch….and that’s where I got cut! Nobody even read my book, so in that sense it’s less defeating. All it took was someone to say “That doesn’t sound like my kind of book,” and I was done. Now I can look forward to all your honest reviews.

Waiting for some final edits to get finished, then ordering a new proof. I’m estimating another two weeks…but it’s coming this time, I promise!

Baby birthday will come sooner.

Unpacking my first book from CreateSpace

Here’s my dorky unpacking video! Overall I’m very impressed with the quality of the printing. The cover is a little thin compared to most major books, but the paper and printing inside is awesome. I’d say it’s even better than most paperbacks you’ll find at a bookstore.

Right now I’ve got a small list of changes to make. The text on the back is a little big, the gutter is too wide, and the top margin needs to be bigger. Stacie is going to read through it and find any final errors she can, and then I’ll make my final edits. I’m shooting for another couple weeks, and then this bad boy will be ready!

I’ve been thinking about “selling” my book and how it’s a little out of my comfort zone. I like to have opinions here on the blarg, but overall I really don’t like to talk myself up. It’s a little weird for me to talk about myself and tell people “hey, look what I did!” and make myself the center of attention. If I ever want anyone to read it though, that’s what I’ll have to do.

Edit:  Here is the original cover artwork if anyone would like to compare it to the new cover that is two posts below this one.

For the last two weeks I’ve been on lockdown working on the book, and it’s just about done. Over last weekend I finished all my edits, and I’ve been working on formatting ever since. If only work wouldn’t get in the way!

Now when I say formatting, I mean serious formatting. You have to design and format everything, from something as simple as the size of the book, all the way to stuff like the gutter (extra margin near the spine so you don’t have to tear the book apart to read words on the inside). By far the most annoying task was numbering the pages. At first you think it will be easy…just go to page one, and hit “start page numbers.” But then you realize, it looks stupid to have page numbers at the top of blank pages and first pages of chapters. I am now a master of the section break!

The next most annoying task was justifying the text. You can’t leave it on left justify because you get really dumb looking edges, so instead you use full justify. The problem with that, is that without hyphenation, some lines have super big gaps between words. This usually happens when you have a long word that needs to be hyphenated, but not always. You could tell Word to autohyphenate, but then you get stupid things like people’s first names getting hyphenated. Luckily there is a “manual” mode where it will search for large gaps, and then let you decide what to do. Hopefully all my margins and font size are fine, because if I have to change anything, it means going back through the whole book and rehyphenating. Ugh!

And finally, today I’ve been designing my cover. I bought an image off of www.istockphoto.com a few months back. I fiddled with it a few months ago, but you can’t design the cover until you have a final page count, because that affects the width of the spine (and thus your cover). So here is what I have right now, and I’m pretty excited about it. It’s the first thing in a while I’ve had to share, so feel free to give your opinions! You like it? Wrong font, too big, etc?

And in case you missed it a long time ago, you can read the back to see what it’s about. There will also be a barcode that gets put onto the back in the bottom right corner.

The last post didn’t really count as an update, just more of a rant, so here’s a better post.

Christmas was nice. We split time between both sets of grandparents, and then we went up north. Great-Grandma got to hold Luke, so we took pictures and videos of that. Who knows how long she’ll be around, so I wanted to make sure he’d have that to remember her. It makes me want to find some of the old photos of me with some Great-Grandparents that I never knew that well. On the way home we took a two-hour detour towards the San Jose area to visit Stacie’s Aunt and Uncle. It made the trip a little longer, but it was fun to see them.

So what am I doing with the rest of my vacation? My main goal is to finish my final edits on my book. I’ve got both manuscripts sitting on the table side by side, I’ve got my laptop, and I have a notebook where I’m listing any major changes to the plot and characters. Right now I’m 20% done, so I’m hoping it can be done before I go back to work. After that I need to format it for printing, order a proof copy, and then I’m letting Stacie read it first. Assuming she doesn’t find any major typos, then it will be all ready to go! The way it will work is it should be available to buy on Amazon, and I can also buy copies myself to sell for cheaper.

I’ll have to make some more posts about writing once it’s all done, because it really is an interesting process. It’s much like a painting that can be constantly updated. Maybe you start painting a scene, and then later on decide you’d like to change part of it. All you have to do is get some new paint and paint over it. A book is the same thing. The words you put down in the beginning don’t say set in stone, because the story is constantly evolving. What was written in the first few pages may not match the way the story has evolved after 300 pages, so you have to go back and make the story consistent throughout. It’s not really fun to edit, but if you don’t you’re doing your story a major disservice.

I’ve only missed a Thanksgiving post by a full week.

The baby is doing great. He had an ear infection that had spread to both ears, but two weeks ago he got a super antibiotic shot, and he’s all better now. Got our 8 month shots finally, and he weighed in at 23 pounds on the nose (at 8.5 months now).

On Thanksgiving Day he started to crawl, and it’s on video! He wanted Great Grandpa’s cane, and he pulled himself a good 4-5 feet across the floor to get it. Right now he mainly uses his right arm and his legs, and just leaves his left arm tucked under him. His favorite destinations on the floor are the Wii Fit and the cables on the front of the PS3. When Stacie asked me what I was going to do about that, I said I was going to place decoy cables around the room. Then he will crawl to the decoy cables and not mess up anything. I’m sure it will work.

I haven’t mentioned anything about my novel in months. I sent off two copies of it to be edited, and I now have them both back in my possession! My next step is to read through my editors’ notes, take some notes about any major changes I want to make, and then I need to go back through the entire thing one more time. My goal is to have it done by March/April because that will be two years since I started it. Originally I had hoped for Christmas time, but that’s not going to happen. Thanks again to Kevin and Joanne for all their hard work.

There’s a quick update on things. Baby pictures in the next one, I promise.

I’m not an expert on all things writing, but I’m pretty sure that when you finish a book from start to finish (for the first time) it’s called a first draft. I gots me one.

All street speak aside, I’ve finally finished my first draft. I started it mid-March of 2007, so it only took a year and four months to finish. Right now it stands at 112,000 words, or 195 pages in word (Times New Roman 12, single spaced).

Tonight I began the long and arduous task of editing. My goal is to have it done in two weeks, and then it’s off to my other “editors.” Hopefully by the end of the month or early next month you will all be able to sit down and see what I’ve been throwing hundreds of hours of my life into. And finally, now that it’s all done, here is a quick synopsis of my story. I started writing this to go on the back of the book, and it’s probably not the final version, but it’s enough to wet your appetite.

In a small central California town a seismologist working for the United States Geological Survey has a made a terrifying discovery. A recent seismic phenomenon is predicting global volcanic activity that threatens to wipe mankind from the face of the earth. Fearing widespread panic and civil disobedience the truth is kept under wraps, but the President pushes forward with a dramatic initiative to overhaul NASA and begin a new mission: to colonize deep space.

The newly formed deep space team must harness the technology of researcher and single-dad Tom Scolari, but with their eyes focused on the stars the odds are against them. News of the earth’s demise is on the verge of becoming public, and increasingly violent eruptions continue to mount around the globe. The continued survival of the human race rests upon the shoulders of a few, and time is running out.

It’s been a few months since I made a book update because I was waiting for a special occasion, and I just had one!

I just hit 100,000 words on my novel, and that’s a HUGE hurdle. It’s so big that Word can’t even handle the extra place value in the bottom status bar! As a general rule most people consider 100k words the length of a marketable novel. It can be shorter, but that makes it a little harder to publish. To give you an idea, from what I can find on google Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was 107,000 words. I think my total word count will end up somewhere around 110-115k.

I’ve got six chapters left and they’re special because I have to use them to say “goodbye” to the characters. I’m writing the book through the POV of six or so characters, and each chapter bounces to a new character as the story unfolds. These last six chapters are the final chapters for each characters POV, so not only are they closing out the book, but they need to bring about some sort of closure for each character’s journey. Exciting huh?

You probably won’t see another post until I’m done with the book and begin to edit. I hope everyone is leaving a space open in their summer reading schedule.

Today our little guy turned one month old! It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. I’ve got a full 60 minute tape for the last 3 weeks, so his youth should be well documented. Once I get to editing that I’ll be sure to post links. For now though, here is his monthday picture!

Dodgers: They put up another high score tonight, so I expect a week or so of doughnuts. Andruw Jones did have two hits…in the SAME game, so that’s a positive. Four games in a row on TV this weekend/Monday.

Book: Took me about 3 weeks (since baby came home) to finish the most recent chapter I was on. I started a new one last night and made good progress, so I’m hoping things speed up. Sometimes the words just shoot off the finger tips and you know exactly how the scene should unfold, but other times it could go a bunch of different ways. Most of the time you just have to plunk away at it, and in the process you usually figure out where it’s supposed to go. I’ll wait until I have more exciting news to say more.

Videogames: I’m currently batting about .325 at AA Jacksonville in the Dodgers minor league organization. I’m a shortstop trying to rise up the ranks, and it’s a stacked position for the club, but I’m giving it my best shot. I’m riding a 9 game hitting streak right now, so hopefully the higher ups notice me.