Fun Videos From November – I love these videos! Which is your favorite? Tell me, and I’ll give you a book! Click here.
Or, you can join my newsletter and get my free newsletter, with the best videos I find each month and free audiobooks! Just click now. Here are some of my audiobooks:
Enjoy all four novels in audiobook, paperback, or Kindle format!
And here’s your first fun video:
Robot Chicken and Emperor Palpatine Parody
No doubt I’m the last to discover Robot Chicken and its hilarious parody of ‘Star Wars’, but I laughed as hard as anyone. Did you know about this? Did you like it? As always, personal comments and emails get a free book. Click here.
Fun Videos – Your Second Video
Here you have another type of fun: fun history. You don’t believe there is such a thing? Take a look at these color photos from a hundred years ago and be amazed.
All the people in the photos are dead, yet they still seem alive and like people you can meet on the street.
What Is Your Third Fun Video?
Imagine life as a video game. Now imagine you’re playing it as any animal you wish. Which would you choose? If we narrow it down to playing a fish, which would you pick? This video looks at fish as characters in a video game. Who do you think is best? Give me an answer and I’ll give you a book, if you click here.
Fish as video game characters
Are You Not Entertained?
It’s hard to listen to this and not be enertained.
I love jazz! Did you know that?
I like jazz so much, I’ll give you another jazz video in a completely different style.
Fun Videos – Final Comments
Preview of a tiny portion of my next book Secret Supers in Space
My book Secret Supers in Space is coming out December 9th! Join my newsletter and find out the final cover today! Click now to get the cover and much more! The newsletter also has videos just like these, plus free book offers from me and other authors.
My Second Draft – What I Never Imagined – Here is my second installment of this series in real-time. I just finished my second draft and sent it to my editor. I’ll have the third installment in the future. Be sure to read the first post on my first draft here. Click here.
So, what shocked my socks off about this second draft?
By the way, this book is the third in my Secret Supers series. It covers the adventures of four disabled middle schoolers who become superheroes. Here’s the first book:
Secret Supers – click for free audiobook.
My Second Draft – My First Surprise
I finished my first draft last week and contacted my editor. She informed me that she has a six-week lead time. I didn’t know that. Oops!
Why is this a problem? I wanted the book completed by November 14th and the Christmas shopping season. I ASSumed she had a four-week lead time. My error.
My second error is that I promised it to her by Columbus Day October 10th and didn’t get it to her until today. That’s a double oops. So my publishing timeline is probably shot.
You see, when you’re a self-published author like me, you’re responsible to keep yourself on schedule and meet deadlines–or your sales suffer.
But why was I late? I have multiple excuses, but basically, it’s poor planning.
My second novel in the series, Villain’s Vacation. Click for a free copy
My Second Surprise in My Second Draft
Remember I mentioned being self-published? That means I contact and contract with an illustrator for each of my books. Fortunately, I’ve found a great illustrator, Sean “Fuzzy” Flanagan. I contacted him the same day as my editor about doing a cover illustration. He had the time to do it in October. Hurray!
We met yesterday via Zoom and Facebook conference and brainstormed a good cover we both loved. We also brainstormed the chapter icons. I love them! All my books have them. Here’s a sample:
Chapter 1 icon of Villain’s Vacation. Click to get a copy
So what’s the problem? The cover we both wanted depicted a scene I hadn’t written. It was in the back of my mind for the whole book. So I spent yesterday afternoon writing it. But that was one reason I didn’t get my book to my editor yesterday.
The Other Reason I was Late
Just adding a new scene isn’t enough. With every second draft, after I clear off all the Grammarly errors and made all my points of view correct, I read the whole book aloud.
It’s amazing what you discover when you do that with a book you’ve just written. I find inconsistencies in point of view. I find awkward sentences. And I discover plot inconsistencies.
I read really fast and I don’t read every word–unless I read it aloud.
One last pitch: find out when my new book comes out through my newsletter. Subscribe here.
Finishing My First Draft and Starting My Second of my latest book, Secret Supers in Space. What an adventure! Let me tell you about how it all happened.
First, this book is the third in my Secret Supers series. The first is:
Secret Supers – click for to get yours
Jeremy Gentle fell flat on his face at therapy. That was normal since he had cerebral palsy. But his new superpower wasn’t normal.
Then things got weirder when his best friend, Dan Elanga, got a different superpower. But Dan was still blind.
Kayla Verdera and Aubrey Wilcosky, two girls in their middle-school special ed class, discovered they too had new superpowers. Kayla was mute and needed a walker. Aubrey lost two legs and used crutches. But they were as powerful as the boys.
What should the four friends do? Jeremy knew if the word got out, it’d be a media circus. Then they started fighting crime, as the Secret Supers. Who knew a disability could be a perfect disguise? No one would ever think of disabled kids as superheroes. Then they ran into problems they never expected.
Secret Supers blurb
Then I wrote the second novel:
Villain’s Vacation cover. Click for your copy!
Four disabled seventh-graders with superpowers take a vacation at Coaster World. They need a break from fighting criminals. Ever since the beginning of the school year when they acquired their unusual abilities, they’ve been training and using those powers to fight crime in their town.
Little do they know the arch-villain they recently defeated also loves coasters and is vacationing at Coaster World. Worse, the villain wants revenge. Nothing less than turning these teens to a life of crime will satisfy.
Can Jeremy, Dan, Kayla, and Aubrey withstand the villain’s attacks? Or will they become Super Villains?
You can only find out by reading the adventure ‘Villain’s Vacation’.
Cover blurb
And now, I’ll tell you about my WIP, Secret Supers in Space.
We Interrupt This First Draft to Edit Another Book
I began SSS in November 2021 as my novel for Write a Novel in November Month. But instead of writing fifty thousand words, I wrote 3,940. My stats from my tracking spreadsheet as of November 30, 2021.
Start Words
End words
Words
Words/hour
Running total of words
Running total of time
3,837
3,973
136
70.34
3,973
21:29:00
from my writing log spreadsheet
Why so few? I spent more than half my time editing my non-fiction book, The Gospel Medley.
The Gospel Medley cover. Click to get
Why did the Gospel Medley get priority? 1) It was almost done and 2) I’d been working on it for forty years.
Everything Takes Longer Than You Think
“Everything” includes editing my non-fiction book. I didn’t finish that until April 2022. By the end of April, my stats were:
Start Words
End words
Words
Words/hour
Running total of words
Running total of time
6,101
6,129
28
14.00
6,129
42:43:00
from my writing log spreadsheet
Why did I write so little in 42 hours devoted to the book? Research.
I had to research Space Camp. That included its curriculum, the space simulations it runs, and when they occur during the week. I watched Youtube videos and learned a lot.
You see, as I write the first draft if I have a question I must answer it before I can write anything else. You might say, ‘Just guess and check it later.’ But no–I can’t write something factually wrong. It drives me nuts.
Some might say I’m already nuts.
Nut expert.
Why Did It Take Five Months to Write 30,000 Words?
You’re right. It’s odd it took me that long. One excuse is I had several book conventions–ten from March to September. I love them, but each takes up three to four days of my time: preparation, travel, selling, and documentation, where I record my sales.
Here are my final stats:
Start Words
End words
Words
Words/hour
Running total of words
Running total of time
35,389
36,796
1,407
686.34
36,796
149:10:00
from my writing log spreadsheet
You ask me, “Andy, what took you one hundred hours to write 30,000 words?” The answer is more research. I studied SpaceX, the Dragon capsule, the International Space Station, the docking procedure, the undocking procedure, the landing procedure, and where the Dragon capsule lands. I studied the map of Florida, the Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico for hiding places for my villains.
