Feedback continues to filter in for Cold Iron. It seems to be pretty positive, and I think I’m mostly at the ‘fussing’ stage of editing. Instead of worrying about big chunks of narrative or major character turns, I’m ensuring that spacing, spelling, grammar, and other tiny things are all in order. The time is fast approaching when it will be ready for public consumption.
To that end I’ve retained the services of a graphic designer. Now, I do have access to things like Photoshop. I can do some photo editing and image manipulation that produces passable to decent results. But there is no way I’m going to make my first true commercial fiction endeavor come off like amateur night. A professional photo shoot (which turned out extremely well, thanks to the talents of J.R. Blackwell) deserves professional design. I have a few tips on how to proceed after that process is complete, and I will admit to feeling a little nervous about the whole thing.
In the meantime, three major characters have been interviewed, an outline has taken shape, and soon actual prose for some science-fiction pulp-inspired adventure is going to start hitting paper. I may also start putting together elements for a Cold Iron follow-up (depending on how the rest of the test read process goes) and of course I’m waiting to hear back from Angry Robot on Cities of Light, which may get another round of edits & test reads regardless of what is said. So there are a lot of irons in the fire, as they say. Some loose ends to tie up. A few fingers in several pies.
I’m going to stop before I start mixing those metaphors.
