Book Covers, VII, and BrewDog - It's Gonna Be a Good Week

Things are starting to take shape finally.

Usually, my schedule is quite full during the day. I often have to put things on hold to take care of personal issues or client work, but I have a good feeling about this week. Perhaps I should knock on wood at this point. Every time I say that things are going to be good this week, it’s like the universe says, “Hold my beer.”

Still, there are a lot of fun things scheduled, and recent events have kind of lit a fire under me to get a few of my projects completed. Mostly because I have no idea how long I’ll have a steady income. It’s a long story, and I’m not sure how much I can talk about it given the nature of my contract. But let’s just say that I really need to get some things moving very soon.

The era of procrastination has got to come to an end.

Wrapping Up the Cover, Maybe?

This week, the plan is to do three live writing sprints on the YouTube channel. Today, I have to work on a few client projects, but the rest of the time should be spent working on the cover of Shadows of Atlantic City. I would love the book to be published this month and have copies ready for my next event.

I also need to spend time going over the book once more to make sure all of the “i”s are dotted and the “t”s are crossed. Besides, I know that some of the beta readers have left comments for me to go over. So, we’re still a few weeks away from publishing.

Anyway, as long as I don’t have too many things crop up during the week, I should have the cover ready. But that also depends on whether the test audience likes the design. Otherwise, it’s back to the drawing board. Nonetheless, it’s been a lot of fun working on this book as a whole.

Working On VII for Wattpad

I’m about halfway through rewriting and finishing VII on Wattpad. The plan is to work on it on Thursday and Friday. With any luck, the book will be close to complete. I have four more chapters to rewrite and then the final chapter to wrap up the story.

It’s been nearly 9 years since I started VII on Wattpad. That’s a long time to wait for something to get finished, I know. But one of my goals for 2025 is to wrap up all the loose ends I have scattered across the Internet. Once I finish VII, I’m moving on to finish Skeletal on Inkitt and the Despair audiobook.

However, I am debating on reworking Despair and re-recording it. Like VII, I’ve come a long way since I started writing the storyline. And I have a lot of ideas that will give it a bit more umph overall. And as I continue working on The Witcham Chronicles, the development of Despair becomes more pressing.

But let’s not put the cart before the horse. I still have to finish VII before I move on to another project.

Getting Things Set Up for BrewDog

I am attending the author event at the BrewDog local brewery here in Denver. It’s only a three-hour event, but it’s in a popular spot and doesn’t have a table fee. So, we’ll have to see just how many people stop by for a book and a beer.

This is my second outing as an author. I learned quite a bit from Read Between the Stars last year, but I’m not sure if I’ll have everything ready by July 19th. It’s kind of short notice, as there are a lot of things I want to order and have shipped beforehand. For instance, I think it would be fitting to have some of the glassware from the WriterSanctuary store to sell at the brewery.

I also need to get a bookstand for the table, create a few QR codes for books and merch, and decide what all I’m taking to the event. We’re finding out if it’s OK with BrewDog to livestream the event, so I don’t know if it’ll be on YouTube yet. I have a little over a month to prepare, which sounds like it should be plenty of time. But when I ordered my books last time, it took a little over a month. Unless Shadows is ready to go this week, I might only have Kingmaker and A Freelancer’s Tale at this one.

Working On More Merch

Speaking of merchandise, I’ve set up a good chunk of time this week to work on some more designs. I would love to get the antagonist from Shadows on a few more things, such as notebooks and maybe some shirts. The design I created is just amazing, I think. It took a total of about three hours to edit the skeleton in the cloak in Photoshop, and he came out better than I thought he would.

Unfortunately, I might have to redesign him for a larger size. I didn’t think to make the image larger than 600 x 600 pixels, and that is just too small to print on anything large without having a lot of degradation of the graphic. To be honest, I didn’t think it was going to look that good and was just doing something small for the tumbler and coffee mugs.

No matter what, though, I’m working on more products this week. I’d love to have more than just six things available in my store, especially since there are so many things I’d love to have myself.

Focusing On Time Management Still

This week, I’m still working on time management. As I said earlier, the procrastination has got to come to a screeching halt. My financial future isn’t as secure as it was a couple of weeks ago, and I have got to make something happen before it’s too late.

Luckily, a lot of opportunities have been coming forth. So, I have a choice: I can either ignore them and just maintain the status quo and cross my fingers that things don’t go sideways, or I can take advantage of my position and work to improve my future as both a creator and an author.

Too many people will just merely maintain the status quo because of feelings of self-doubt. But as the saying goes, “Fortune favors the bold.” You can’t sit idly by and hope things get better. You have to take action to make your dreams come true. Sometimes that means having to turn your routines upside down or stepping outside of your comfort zone.

It won’t always be sunshine and rainbows. But how will you know if you don’t take that chance? Some of the best things that have happened in my life came from me thinking to myself, “What the hell, let’s do it.”