July was a weird month for me, mainly because it’s my birthday month and I ended up having to last minute prep for a summer class I wasn’t sure if I would be teaching. Surprise, I’m teaching it, and I found out like last week that it was a-go. If you aren’t in academia, everything depends on enrollment, and in this case, I was not privy to how many students had signed up until the admins told me. If it looks like I did A LOT in the admin section, I have been panic working in case I did end up teaching that class. Anywho, here were my goals for July:
- Finish Writing The Reanimator’s Heart
- Start Editing the beginning of The Reanimator’s Heart
- Figure out what to do with old room furniture/prep for reno
- Start drafting newsletter freebie, at least a little bit
- Do the cover reveal
- Start making release graphics
- Read 8 books
- Crochet something?? Or do some other art project??
I can already tell you, the last bit did not happen. I didn’t crochet or do any art projects at all this past month, but I did play some video games.
Books
I aimed for 8, nearly failed, but I did read 8 books this month. Thank god for graphic novels.
- The Unmatchmakers by Jackie Lau- 4 stars, parents with baggage try to break their adult children’s budding romance and create havoc in the process (Kobo only)
- The Facemaker by Lindsey Fitzharris- 4 stars, fascinating read about the man who became the leading plastic surgeon during WWI and the people who influenced him
- A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall- 5 stars, I LOVED this book, a Regency story featuring a trans woman who falls for her ex-best friend. It is just so emotional and lovely.
- Saga volume 5 by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples- 5 stars, rereading for volume 10
- A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske- 4 stars, an Edwardian MM story where a civil servant stumbles into the world of magic
- Lore Olympus volume 2 by Rachel Smythe- 4 stars, I love watching Hades and Persephone get closer, letting their walls down while also dealing with less than savory characters
- The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Stephen Brusatte- 4 stars, highly interesting read about the evolution of dinosaurs from their origins to their extinction
- Saga vol 6 by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples- 4 stars, rereading for volume 10
Admin/Behind the Scenes Author Stuff
- Finished throwing out all the trash from my room/office reno. Everything is empty at this point and ready to go, but now, that room is hot and hard to work in. The reno is now on haitus until September because I’m not sweating to death and having paint peel off the walls from the high temperatures.
- FINISHED WRITING The Reanimator’s Heart! The main draft of it is DONE. I AM FREE.
- Made lots of promo graphics for TRH
- Made a book trailer for TRH
- Finished beta reading a book for a friend and send them their feedback
- Prepared for that summer class that was semi sprung on me by creating a Blackboard, tweaking the syllabus, setting up my virtual workspace in the basement (I look like I’m in a hostage video, but it’s better than the 100 degree office)
- Made the syllabi for my fall classes
- Got all my cover stuff squared away for TRH
- Had the cover reveal for TRH and launched the preorders (see blog post below for links)
- Set up the preorder for TRH at all major retailers
- Started working on a freebie story for my newsletter subscribers (won’t be out for a while)
- Edited some bits of TRH that I had on my list that were in need of tweaking (larger things like resplicing a chapter)
Blogs Posted
- June 2022 Wrap-Up
- My Editing Process
- Cover Reveal for The Reanimator’s Heart
- The Indie Author Cover Design Process
- July Newsletter (also cover reveal)
Writing
I feel like I spent a good chunk of July feeling behind, panicking, catching up, falling behind, repeat. Luckily, I managed to pull ahead and finish The Reanimator’s Heart at 97,680 words (pre-edits). This total is also not counting work I’ve done on the newsletter freebie story during the last week of the month.
- Week 1- wrote 3/3 days, 1,000 words total, 333 words/day
- Week 2- wrote 6/7 days, 3,200 words total, 533 words/day
- Week 3- wrote 5/7 days, 2,700 words total, 540 words/day
- Week 4- wrote 5/7 days, 4,100 words total, 820 words/day
- Week 5- wrote 4/7 days, 3,680 words total, 920 words/day (finished the book on Thursday)
I am very proud of the work I’ve done on The Reanimator’s Heart, so I’m really hoping you all will like it too when it comes out in October. As you can see, once I got toward the end, I sort of hurtled through the last few weeks. I’m finding it interesting to track the speed and fluidity of my writing at different stages in the story. Act I takes forever, Act II part 2 takes a long time, but Act III seems to flow so well once I get going.
Hopes for August
- Stay on top of my summer class stuff (that runs from the beginning to the middle of August)
- Set up the Blackboards for my fall classes (*quiet sobbing because I hate doing it*)
- Edit the majority of The Reanimator’s Heart
- Continue working on the newsletter freebie story
- More graphics for TRH
- Set up Google form for ARC copies of TRH
- Read 8 books
Kara Jorgensen 
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