Contracts And Vigilantes, But No Contract Virgilantes

[madwriter]

Because I'm the way I am, I went over my contract from Musa Publishing for The Matter of Camelot multiple times with a fine-toothed comb over the past four days, including firing a couple of questions at Musa's finance folks. This isn't to say that there was anything bad in the contract. Rather, it was excellent, good terms and multiple reversion clauses to cover a variety of situations. Musa also has a good reputation for royalty transparency--you see your sales in real time via a personal account there--and monthly royalty payments, including directly to Paypal if you like. This is just me being obsessively careful.

At any rate, I signed and delivered the contract this afternoon--munching on Spicy Nacho Doritos and Dr. Pepper, as I've mentioned elsewhere. So now the second guessing begins. This second guessing is also not a reflection of Musa. This is just the next stage in the Great Tier of Second Guessing that author me goes through. It starts with Should I really be writing this book? and progresses in stages through Now that the book is going to be published, was that a good idea? My own neuroses, which I tend not to chronicle here, and only am now because this is my first solo-authored novel publication.

I just have to remind myself that there were plenty of times in the past where I wished I could be on this level of the second-guessing tier.

Now the business part needs to get underway, which will have to include my settling whether or not to have an author page above and beyond Live Journal, Dreamwidth, and Facebook. Actually, no, it's settled; I know I should have one, I just haven't buckled down to do it yet. Until now I hadn't thought I had enough content to justify one, but now I've run out of reasons to put it off.

Like having an exercise routine, I suppose doing an author page will make me feel a lot better for having done it, and make me wonder why I didn't do it a long time ago. Once I get over the self-doubt hurdle I'll be fine.

At any rate, despite the lack of Progress Reports here, work on Arizona has mostly been ongoing. Today I had a group of vigilantes, based loosely on a historical event, deciding to take the war against the Apache into their own hands.

PROGRESS REPORT FOR 3/2-3/2013

New Words: 3700 (3300 / 350) on chapter 8 (renamed "The Burning Land") of Arizona. A vigilante group that's practically a family reunion for the Becketts and the Marraks heads into the Verde Valley looking for Apache to kill, and then break apart from arguments when they succeed horribly.

Total Words: 262000.

Book Year: 1864.

Reason For Stopping: Yesterday I stopped at the end of the scene so I could do more research for the next one. Today was just adding to what I wrote yesterday.

Mammalian Assistance: None. Friday, Vegas, and Hayes all came in and then almost immediately turned and left because they remembered that the heater was on and would rather be doing things like this.

Exercise: Giving Tucker an extended morning walk around the neighborhood. Extended because I was following a slow-moving car roaming around to make sure this wasn't yet another instance of someone dumping an animal in our neighborhood.

Stimulants: Nestle chocolate milk / Dr. Pepper.

Today's Opening Passage: Actually yesterday's, and I won't bother posting one for today since it was just adding a bit here and there:

The dreams came first, before the substance: Kate was walking atop ramparts of walls that didn’t really exist around her home, keeping an eye to the east. In the dream she questioned nothing, only that she was a woman warrior, guarding family and home and all those under her care from danger. She wielded her short double-barreled Coach shotgun, had her Colt revolver holstered, and the knife in her boot usually used for killing snakes. She vaguely felt like she’d been patrolling this wall for many dreams, though remembered none of them—but knew that this night was the first time the lone Apache carrying a lance appeared in the flat distance.

Darling Du Jour: Nothing springs out at me.

Submissions In February: 2, including subbing To Murder an Empire to Musa.

Total Submissions Out Right Now: 4.

Non-Research / Review Reading: Bring Down the Sun by Judith Tarr / dancinghorse.