One of the things I needed to do before doing anything more on book 2 of the B'vellah War series was to download the Messengers books to my Kindle and go through them looking for foreshadowing I may have forgotten, minor characters who need to return, plot ideas and general continuity things. I'm big on continuity. I was reading through book 1 and saw a ton of things that needed fixing. Most of it was simple, but the farther I got the more depressed and discouraged I felt. I couldn't believe what I was seeing or imagine how I'd missed so many things. That was hundreds of thousands of words ago. My style and skills have changed. But surely not that much, right? I couldn't believe all the junk that needed fixing. I was horrified and printed the book out to make fixes. I noticed on page one that my printout didn't match what was on my Kindle. That's when I started to freak. It looked like Amazon had not properly received the final files I uploaded way back when.
Fortunately, it turned out that my account is set to a previous version of the books and not the live version of today. Downloading anew did nothing. I had to get Amazon to update my account before downloading would give me the current version. I'd been freaking out thinking people were downloading that other version.
Once I started going through the live version, which I was afraid to do at first, it went much better. There are still things that need fixing. Too many exclamation points. Verb tenses that are harder to read. I'm not happy with all the dialogue. I'm on the lookout for voice problems. It wouldn't hurt a thing to trim the book down so it flows faster. One thing I'm happy with is the humanity of the characters. Despite any rough or embarrassing things I'm seeing, I see gold shining under the dirt.
And then a miracle happened.
I got an email this week from CreateSpace that they couldn't make a deposit, because my bank information was wrong. I changed banks in early 2014 after someone charged almost $120 to my account, and my bank wouldn't help me. I forgot to change my info at CreateSpace, because nobody ever bought my books in paperback. Well, last summer and fall someone bought 5 books. How did that happen?
I'm waiting on $2.56 to appear in my account.
That Don't Work
Sometimes I talk about the technical side of writing. I've decided to make a blog about things that don't work in books I read or things that don't make a lick of sense. I might also talk about things in life that don't work or don't make sense. The idea is to offer helpful writing advice in a humorous way. This is a natural for a YouTube channel. Check it out here.
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