Friday 15 October 2010

I see Red Things

This is my weekend. This pretty pile of paper. Draft two of a story with ugly sentences in red and notes on things to fix in the margins. By the end of Sunday, I want to have almost no red and most of the comment boxes deleted.

I need this story out the door by next week so I can concentrate on finalising my NaNoWriMo plans. Walter (my dictaphone) is also holding three stories for me--one most definitely pants, one WTF, and one shiver-down-my-spine-creepy. I'd also like to edit one or two of the stories on my jingle bell line before hibernating in my new book. Ooh, new book. Excited now. Excited is so much better than overwhelmed.

In pretty news, Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits is now available to buy at Amazon.com - treble the excitement. I expect to be a millionaire by next week. In the ranking sense that is. My book's rank started (okay, first time I checked in) at 97,677, and has steadily dropped to 153,853 during the day. Boy, those guys sell a lot of books. That's 60,000ish shifted in about 7 hours. Bloody hell. Of course, I might be getting the math totally wrong, but still, they're mega busy and that's good for us right. People are buying books. Now I need to torture people into buying mine.

Something is wrong with that last sentence.

19 comments:

Anthony Rapino said...

Can those of us who've already pre-ordered skip the torture? Please? :-D

Those are some hefty edits. I haven't seen that much red since The Shining. Baddum-Chhh. :-P

Cate Gardner said...

You're excused.

*All work and no twittering, makes Cate a dull girl.*

Aaron Polson said...

Oh...red ink. *shudders*

Unknown said...

Your drafts are far neater and margins far prettier than any draft I've ever written--nay, scrawled. :)

Patrick Rutigliano said...

It tends to go that way, Cate. My collection debuted at around 90,000 in August and is now somewhere over 2,000,000. However, don't worry this early on; those rankings change hourly (or so I'm told), and even a single sale can bump you up significantly.

Cate Gardner said...

I appear to be overly fond of the colour, Aaron. Though I hope to abolish it by Sunday.

I thank Mr Grim (my laptop) for that, Gef. :D

Resists buying her own book (today). Ha, thanks Patrick. I suspect I'll be obsessed for about a week and then I'll forget to check.

Milo James Fowler said...

Any plans on making your book available via el Kindle?

K.C. Shaw said...

Red ink is far scarier than blood. Well, in certain circumstances. :)

Simon said...

Cate, the world inside your head is a wonderful place. Thank you for sharing it with us, and don't ever change. We'd all be worse off if you became 'normal'.

(Hopefully that bit of flannel will get me out of being tortured too. I bruise easily.)
`
:D

Alan W. Davidson said...

Please work on the creepy 'shiver down the spine' story. Halloween is almost here...

Cate Gardner said...

I'll have to ask Aaron, Milo. Good question.

It is, Kate.

I am normal, Simon :P

I will, Alan.

craighallam said...

Man, you're so organised! My notes and revisions live in a dusty filing cabinet in my occipital lobe. I should take a leaf out of your book, give you the leaf and keep the rest for myself :oD

Cate Gardner said...

:D Craig. Yeah my lobes are rather dusty too.

Tuonela said...

I like lobes. With shell pasta.

And I definitely wanna know know what made your spine shiver, Cate...

Hmm, my verification word is "bloid"

Cate Gardner said...

Ian, I think you should write a story about a bloid. Like now.

Steven Pirie said...

I'm going to buy a copy at the end of the month.

How did you make your trailer (I want one of those)?

Cate Gardner said...

Ah, thanks Steven.

To make the trailer I used Photoshop and Windows Movie Maker. :D

Barry Napier said...

I only WISH I could have gotten that much done over the weekend.

Cate Gardner said...

Me too, erm...