Woot Woot!

Finally! After a couple months of work I have just finished the first rough cut of Jethro 2 First to Fight! YES!
It wasn't easy writing about a cat with a certain feline "helper" of my very own.

(yes I know it's horrid picture, the lighting is low and what can I say? My camera phone is only 2meg)
Now I have a few things to tidy up before I can pass it on to Thomas, Gord, Jacob, and the other guys. :)

1: I need to finish adding my notes. I've got 2 and a half pages (front and back) of notes to add. Some of them are from Thomas who related to me stories of when he was in the corps. :)
Problem:

A certain furrball has a thing for paper and pens. He loves sitting on them and holding them hostage.
(Yes that's a roll of TP in the corner. Don't ask.)

2: I've got a bit of light reading ahead of me, I want to add a few more things to the book. A little um... more detail?

I've already been pecking at the NCO guide and the Light infantry guide. The Making starships and Stargates was a little disappointing. I've got some notes in the Energy weapons book. The alien book I skimmed twice but I have my own aliens really. :)

3: I've got a consistency edit to do. I need to make sure I've got the names of people, places, and things right, plus the names of weapons, tech, and what not within shouting distance of what I had before. Always fun.

4: I do a quick editing pass of my own, first with a spell check, then mostly with 'Find', looking for the usual culprits.

5: Add the Appendix, Author's Afterward, and clean up the other stuff. Oh, and add another sneak peek. :)

Then I can pass it on to the guys and turn my attention to the cover art....

That is if a certain someone will let me. lol

I am hoping I'll have this all done and off to Thomas by the first, but don't quote me! lol The family is out of school and making plans for the next week. I am playing things by ear. Then there are the birthdays... sigh

Still, I am a bit giddy and in an awesome mood. YEAH!

Grumpy, tired, sore...

No, I'm not renaming the 7 dwarfs. Tempting, but no. It is what I am right now after going to the dentist yesterday. It was my 5th visit in my entire life, 1st in 10 years. The doctor had fun, he did 1 filling, the nurse did a cleaning, and then the two of them ganged up on me to pull the roots of one shattered tooth (#32) and then they spent 15 minutes yanking out my upper molar. (cusbid, bicuspid, whatever) I bet a lot of you know the disconcerting sound and exquisite feeling of teeth cracking in your mouth as it is yanked around. I have that memory stuck in my head now. That and the fun of spitting blood for the past 24 hours. Ugh.

He offered Vicadin, I'm too stubborn (IE pig headed) I turned it down in favor of my Acetaminophen... which is barely working. GRR

Eating is fun. Sooo much fun. I am glad he insisted on just the one side. Though it might have helped me loose more weight...

The fun thing is I get to go back later to get another upper molar removed, and a filling, these on my left side. Joy. Happy go lucky, joy joy. I so can't wait. NOT.

So, you know I'm going to take revenge and make some poor sap of a character go through that too eventually. Hey, If I have to suffer, someone else might as well too. Learning experience. Hmm... one of the cats maybe... (oops! Telegraphing, sorry Rick)

It's hot (105) here the past week or so, it's currently cool. humid. and raining right now though. The heat has had the family come over almost daily to swim or play board games. That's sort of put a crimp in getting any writing done. I did get a few things done though.

News:
I had a doctor's visit 2 weeks ago, I have lost 17 pounds and I am trying to loose another 17 by my next visit. It's hard though, with the heat I just want to sleep or watch TV. My octocore PC likes to overheat when the afternoon hits, I usually have to abandon it. Since dad's home by that time and being a general pain in the posterior, I guess it's okay. (NOT)

I finished roughing out another short story for 13 Degrees of Separation. That's 11 down, 2 to go. Unfortunately I can't let the volunteers have it until after they see Jethro 2. lol (Ain't I a stinker?)

Speaking of the other 2 shorts, I have both blocked out, and I've pecked at Leo a little.

I also finished chapter 5 and parts of 6-9 of Jethro 2. I have received a ton of research material from Amazon over the past couple of weeks, I'm going to be reading a lot. I got stuff on Bootcamp, Military culture, NCO guide book, um... Oh, Effects of Direct Energy Weapons, an alien book, that make a planet book, and a bunch of others. :)
So, even though I may be vegging I will be doing something semi-productive. :)

I've pecked at book 6 of WE some more, generally cleaning up a few plot points. I'm going to have to do a bit of a rewrite on some things, I mean, I wrote the plot for that book long before I finished New Dawn. (yeah that long ago) So, things have evolved since then.

On the editing front:
Good news: (I think) Mechmaster reported that he's around the 200 page mark of Princess Rescue Inc. He has a 100 pages left. I don't know if he made progress or not. I'm too lazy to check my previous post. lol

Bad News: After 3 weeks my 'niece' has given up trying to edit Afraid of the Dark and passed it back to me. She hasn't passed on editing Plague Planet, but scifi isn't her cup of tea. She said it was too hard working for family, with everyone riding her about the project. She did say there were few grammar errors but only got about 100 pages into the 600 page book. I hope that's a good sign, since 3 people other than me have had a go at it.

But, that leads me to good news, I'm tired of waiting, and I've been patiently thumped over and over that 'gee, maybe 4 volunteers reading the book got most of the bugs out'. and "You can always update it with corrections later" (thanks guys) So, now that I have my own copy of MS word 2007, I will fix the TOC (again) and do one last read and then release Plague Planet, hopefully within the next 72 hours. (no promises, I may get invaded again)

So look for this cover:

EDIT: I just finished uploading it to Amazon and B&N. Nook users may have some issues, Nookpress looks funky and I haven't figured them out yet. But it's on it's way...

Coming in 12-48 hours!