Another week where the warriors of doubt are digging at my back once more. 

Received back chapters 11 to 13 with comments from my PE for less tell, more show. Understand and accept the constructive comment, but now I'm thinking, what have I missed that my PE saw. I thought there was a lot of show, graphic show but if he, an acknowledged expert is saying it, I'm thinking do I need another re-write? Should I review the remaining chapters again before sending any more - thereby saving me money?
I'm on the "I hate publishing" week. I guess another glance over chapters 14 to 16 won't hurt before I send them? Damn, damn, damn, I was hoping to focus on the Red Anthology which I'm editing for the Inspiration Writing Group.
On a different area, the cover is also getting me down. I like the draft which I did myself, but thoughts of copyright are plaguing me. I found, and paid, for copyright of a liner silhouette, now I'm wondering whether I should use a different scenery silhouette and maybe pay for copyrights on that too.
It was much easier with WOTW, the character was drawn for the book and paid for. The photo-shot I took of the gates was public property because it was viewed from the road and I obtained consent from the owner. 

The Aqua scene shot for the front cover came from an American weather news station in Wisconsin USA. I have just e-mailed them regarding copyright use.

I have also looked on Fiverr.com & Fivesquid for eligible illustrators but mostly its folk in Pakistan offering erotic Ebook covers using stock photos of male 6 packs! As nice as they are to look at, and there are many in my novel, because there's a lot of sexual shenanigans, it's not about the sex - I hope - so I don't want that blazing across the front cover - though I am aware it could sell a lot of books. On second thoughts...

I'm a bit wary of taking the plunge with the website offers, but hey it's only five quid and if I post them on here we can all have a good laugh about it. Watch this space.

Aquasapien- Book 1 Metamorphosis is now polished. I could polish it some more, but I think I could over do it. 
There are 10 chapters in Part One - polished and proof edited, and 13 chapters in Part Two. The whole story currently stands at 124,000+ words. This will be a decent-sized book of around 500+ pages. My proof editor is currently in France going through chapters 11 to 13 and I've parcelled up the remaining chapters into 4 chunks for him to continue.   

He comments about one of the scenes taking him by surprise, but I haven't told him there are a couple more to follow like that.

I've spent some time this week mocking up the cover and I like what I've done. It's very similar to the draft on my novels page, but I've started working with the draft blurb for the back cover.
This is what I've got so far.

The person with everything has everything to lose…
 
JOHN REDSHAW is a man who loves life. An elite mercenary soldier of Unit One, he excels in stealth techniques, weaponry and martial arts.  He is also a consummate lover and never short of company.

Returning from yet another successful mission, he unknowingly comes into contact with another lifeform. His body begins to alter and his life starts to unravel, one mission at a time, as his humanity is torn away.
 
He must adapt, or face this world — alone
 
I'm hoping to find a cover illustrator off Fivesquid, but so far folk there only want to do e-books and I can do that. I'll need both covers and the spine doing. The last person I used for WOTW was good, but expensive, plus I'd like some texture and have the black areas embossed.

I also need to consider costs. The costs are higher this time because there is more to this book, the printing will be higher too so the price will have to reflect it. I might browse the bookshelves at Waterstones to gather some ideas.

Exciting though - 2nd publication.
 
 

With it being the Easter break, I thought I'd have time aplenty to get rocketing through my next publication. I forgot real life tends to intervene. The washing machine broke down three weeks ago, and though I have a fabulous neighbour who is kindly letting us use theirs, traipsing next door in the dead of night, without make-up on, in a onesie, isn't my idea of fun.

Part one of Aqua, had a bit of a set back when my, also fabulous and highly recommended, proof editor Graham Pierrepoint, spotted several issues which included the characters lacking a bit of bite.  Though he did acknowledge the ADULT scences, took him by surprise. I suppose after WOTW he might have naturally expected fluffy bunny rabbits and kittens.

This meant a re-write on chapters 6 to 10 and another re-submission to Graham for part one. His comments also led me to review (for the seventh time) the rest of the book. Resulting in more re-writes, which I hope improve the readability (Did I just invent another word?)

While going through the layout yesterday I noticed something else I hadn't taken into account - chapter length. My original  prologue became chapter one some time ago, which I know is short at 6 pages, but as I've worked further through the story I've realised two of my chapters are vast. Generally they are between 18 and 25 pages, but these are 48 and 44! So, do I re-organise some of the chapters so they are all roughly the same length or, will my readers manage the extra long chapters? It's going to take some more thinking on my part, but I let you know the outcome in my next blog.

Meanwhile, in addition to Aqua, I'm also editing another book for the Inspirations Writing group, which I run. We are producing an Anthology, hopefully also coming out this year. The Red Anthology contains a number of short stories by local authors. Each story is different, from various genres, but they all have in common the word or colour RED. If it does well, you can expect other colours of the rainbow to appear in due course. Members have been sent the timeline and the final deadline for first drafts is 31st May so people reading this, still have time to join the group.

Another shameless plug - I'm at the Feel Good Festival at the Winter Gardens tomorrow supporting Soroptimist International. We really do need to get more members for the Thanet club (thanetsoroptimists.com)  so if you're interested come along tomorrow - admission to the event is free.