I am going on a holiday to visit gardens and castles in Kent, England! It will be the first time since my marriage nearly 20 years ago that I’ll be travelling without my husband and kids. I’m scared stiff to say the least.
What if hubby doesn’t manage to handle the kids? After all, they’re both in puberty and very easily annoyed. What if they have to live on muesli and pancakes for the whole week? What if it keeps raining and our house is flooded? What if my dog stops eating because he misses me so much? What if… But probably not.
My mind knows exactly that everything will go well. It’s just this over-active imagination dumping horrors on me. I wonder how people who aren’t authors cope with these things. I can sit down and write a story where all the bad things happen increasing the catastrophes until the world explodes. After that, I can set aside my worries because my emotional side finally understands how unlikely these things are. But what do you do (no, not you, author. The one beside you)? Let me know, please. I’m curious.
Yesterday, I discovered a feature on my Goodreads profile that allows me to invite my Facebook and Twitter friends. I was reluctant to use it since it felt a little spammy to me. Then, I thought, “But they’re my friends already and if they don’t want to follow me on Goodreads, they don’t have to.” I clicked the button. This morning, I woke up nearly 100 new friends. My eyes nearly popped out of my head.
Thank you so much, friends!
Now, if some of you have actually read stories by me and liked them, please stay informed by joining my newsletter (you’ll get a full YA Fantasy novel by me plus two short stories by fellow authors as a reward). It’s guaranteed spam-free. I’ll only mail when I’ve got news for you (releases and special offers). Sign up now. Thanks.
My Monday Cup of Tea (ehm Cocoa): Pre-Publishing Blues
It’s Pentecost today, and I feel more down that I have in quite a while. Everything related to “Paralan’s Children” is ready to go. I even managed to get a few people to request a pre-publication copy for reviewing (if you want one please contact me at reviews_at_katharinagerlach.com, replace _at_ with @), and now I feel drained. All energy seems to be gone. When I look at the amount of work that still needs to be done for the next few books (I’ve got two more novels and several short stories lined up for publication this year, plus an anthology for Holly Lisle), I wonder how other small publishers manage. Don’t they have a life?
I know this feeling will pass (especially when I manage to sleep some more), but at the moment I’m feeling blue. I hope you are feeling better. Please let me know what brings you down in the comments.
I had meant to publish my next novel “Paralan’s Children” next week. Unfortunately, I fell ill last week and struggled a lot with keeping up to date with all the stuff that needs to be done. Therefore I decided to push publication back for another week or two.
I’m really sorry I have to do that, but it’s better to publish a good product a little late than rushing things and doing a sloppy job.
My Monday Cup of Tea (ehm Cocoa): hickup in the German social security system
During the last two weeks, my life exploded once more. My middle girl broke her thumb and we spent endless time at doctors. I’m very grateful for the German health-care system (all expenses were paid by an insurance), but the bureaucracy that goes with it drove me nuts.
My daughter broke her thumb on a school outing, therefore, my normal insurance doesn’t have to pay. There is a special insurance for accidents that happen during publicly funded events (like school outings), but they insist on using specially appointed doctors. Unfortunately, not many of those live around where I live, so we had to drive for quite a while before we found one. I’ve got a whole folder with an x-ray and written reports from all the docs we saw, and I’m mightily fed up. Unfortunately, the thumb is not healing the way it should, so I expect to spend more time driving around. Sigh.
That said I’m still on track with my projects. In a few days, I’ll announce the upcoming publication of the print-book of “Scotland’s Guardians”, and soon after, I’ll let you know which title will be published next and when. I hope you’re all mighty curious. 😉
