Back in black, I hit the sack
I’ve been too long, I’m glad to be back~Back in Black, AC/DC
It has been a hot minute, hasn’t it?
In my last major communication, I shared that I was taking a break from the blog for a while. This was in part because of the birth of my first son—he’s doing very well, thank you, and is becoming more of a charmer by the day—and because I knew I needed to put significantly more time into Halfwhisker. This book deserved the attention, and I also needed to finish it so I could finally get to work on other projects.
How’d that go?
Well, Halfwhisker is not in its final draft yet—but it’s getting there. If it weren’t for some recent major setbacks to my editing process… Well, more on that soon. Let’s just say there’s a lot of good things happening there, but, per the norm, it’s not going as quickly as I wanted it to.
In the midst of such shake-ups, I read an article by John A Douglas titled The Problem is Not Your Book, Its Your Platform… and it hit me pretty hard. I’ve been neglecting my platform. I don’t know how I’m going to make the time investment work out, but I need to invest in this platform or my books are most likely going to languish in obscurity,1 regardless of their quality. I don’t want to take a chance on some algorithm, or random person who happens to have a platform, happening to pick me up and get my name out there—I won’t complain if that happens, but I’d also rather maximize my odds, and attempt to create more stability, by building up something in the meantime.2
So, I’m back! My current goal is a newsletter a month, then an article or two a month. I think I can manage that schedule while putting the time into my books that I think they need and deserve.
If you’re interested in sticking around for the journey, consider subscribing below! I’ve got an acceptably amount of variety going on, and you won’t want to miss it.
Writing and Publishing
Looking Back
In my absence, I finished Part 6 of Halfwhisker (Rattankoig). I also began the final process of stitching each part together and structuring the book in a more traditional manner—with chapters and such. So far Part 1 (Whiskerroot) has received this treatment, having been broken into nine chapters, a prologue, and a forward of sorts, and an interlude following it. Each of the nine chapters have chapter names and pre-chapter quotes. I got started on doing all of this with part two… then I broke my reMarkable,3 which is the device I use for most of my editing. I limped along using my computer in the roughly two weeks it took to repair and replace the thing, but work on this project essentially ground to a halt during that time.
Looking Forward
As of today, everything is back to normal! So, other than figuring out how to make time for blog posts, I’ll be going full-steam ahead once more. Next up, roughly in this order:
- Finish reading parts 2–6 of Halfwhisker, making such edits as I see necessary and marking where good chapter breaks could be.
- Applying chapter breaks, naming each chapter, and writing a pre-chapter quote for each.
- Writing interludes.
I also have an idea for how I want to rewrite the last few thousand words of Part 6 (Rattankoig), which I think will give it more punch and will better support what I think the themes and goals of the book to be.
After that? I plan on hiring an editor to help me with my final polishes (and potentially a launch strategy); I also need an artist for the cover (and, hopefully, some internal art), etc.4 Then I’m going to start publication! I’m also going to explore options for an audiobook, including AI.
The Blog
Almost nothing has been posted in the blog since my last newsletter, save for one little gem: an interview!
- Something Quick: McKay Smith, author and interviewer, talks with me about life, books, and Inner Demon.
My Reading List
At this moment, I’m reading an indie novel called The Breach of Nivenrile, by Samuel Lieb Moore.
This book is fun! Unfortunately, I doubt I will finish it before its November 7th publication date (I’m reading an ARC copy), which means I won’t be able to provide a full review on that exact date; I’ve already apologized to Moore, though he was unbothered. Here are two things I can say thus far: First, reading this book is giving me feelings like I’m a young man cracking open The Diamond Throne, or a Shannara book, or attempting to read The Lord of the Rings for the first time. Second, if the book ends as strong as it starts, this will be an easy and high recommendation.
Note that I’m not finished with it yet, so take however many grains of salt you need to—but, at the time of writing, I am well pleased. I don’t know where Moore is planning on selling his work (probably Amazon), but go check out his X profile and I’m sure you’ll quickly find out.
Beyond that, I have no reading plans. I started reading The Breach of Nivenrile because of my aforementioned issues with being able to edit Halfwhisker—I had unexpected free time. Now I don’t want to drop Moore’s book to be picked up cold a while later, but I also need to focus on Halfwhisker as much as I can, so I probably won’t be reading for pleasure once I finish with this Nivenrile book, at least until Halfwhisker is ready to go to an editor.
Finally—An Off-Topic Recommendation
Buy this dang game.
Castles of Mad King Ludwig is ridiculously fun and ridiculously high-quality. The gameplay is fairly interactive, and simple, involving players vying to purchase rooms for a castle they are building, then carefully placing said rooms to ensure they gain as many points as possible. There’s sufficient interaction between players to keep the experience social, while not so much that you’ll get exhausted or never have a moment to yourself to strategize. Plays two to four players normally, one to five with the optional expansion.
My biggest complaint about Castles is its set-up time. As you can see in the picture, the game has a lot of pieces, which means it takes not-insignificant time to set up and take down. The astonishingly good in-box organization system helps with this a lot (I wish every board game was as in-the-box packing-friendly as this game is), but doesn’t remove the issue.
I play this game every chance I get—which, with littles who would eat the small cardboard pieces running around, isn’t a lot, but it’s a whole heck of a lot more than the many other board games I have gathering dust in my closet.
- Did you know Mr Beast published a book somewhat recently, The Most Dangerous Games? (What a painfully bland title.) Word on the street is it’s terrible. It’s also evidence that platform trumps just about everything in publishing success, unfortunately. ↩︎
- Admittedly, WordPress (and blogs in general) don’t have the greatest visibility, but I figure that eventually investing in ads will help with the “getting found” aspect—I want this to be a centralized place where readers can easily find all things Boo Ludlow Books and then stay. ↩︎
- I write new material on my laptop, then I convert what I wrote to a PDF and edit it on the reMarkable. I find I am a much, much better editor when working by hand in a pen-and-paper–adjacent environment than when editing directly on the computer—although it does cost some extra time to have to go back and actually apply my hand-written notes to the manuscript. ↩︎
- Not sure which direction I’m going to go with this. I really like the art style of Mouseguard, and I think something like that would work well for Halfwhisker; on the other hand, a friend showed me the work of an artist named Lily Seika Jones, and if she does book covers then I might be interested in going that direction. We’ll see! Cost will also be a limiting factor. ↩︎
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