Draft three of what is now officially titled Hillsborough Hall is done. I’m doing line edits now – massaging scenes and arcs, getting my details straight. It will go back out to a few betas, back to me to fix stuff, and then we … are … away.
I love this little book. Instinctively it feels solid, it feels right, and self-publishing it feels right too. My rational brain, however, is locked into an ongoing whine of panic. I have spent a great deal of my life measuring my worth by gatekeepers: grades and test scores and teacher evaluations, job performance and salary, social media numbers … all the numbers, all the acceptances and percentiles and awards and prizes, all the things that I can point to and say look, I am a good person.
Even with Vacui Magia, most of those stories had already been published, and praised. But this time? This time feels like I’m getting ready to jump into the deep end of the pool, and I don’t even know what temperature the water is, much less if I’ll be able to swim.
It’s going to be an interesting summer.
Last night we watched Network, which seems to be getting a little revived buzz, but has there actually been a time since 1976 when it wasn’t relevant? I’m only slightly older than the movie and yanno, I can’t think of a time when the ideas it puts forth didn’t make depressing sense. It’s been some years since I saw it last, though, and wow, but that Ned Beatty speech still makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Worth watching just for that.