So, I can admit that the beginning of the year was a lot busier than I expected (A LOT busier). \u00c2\u00a0I pubbed my middle grade noir mystery, Harper Madigan: Junior High Private Eye. \u00c2\u00a0I expanded from doing commissions on DeviantArt to an actual Etsy business. \u00c2\u00a0I was taking grad school classes. \u00c2\u00a0I spent my spring break working a (stressful) temp job. \u00c2\u00a0And I finished up another temp job earlier this month.<\/p>\n
If I never work another 9-5 job, I will not be shedding any tears. \u00c2\u00a0I am seriously not cut out for it. \u00c2\u00a0Probably most of us aren’t. \u00c2\u00a0I keep reading about how more and more of us are turning to freelance work, so I know it’s not just me.<\/p>\n
But anyway! \u00c2\u00a0Some of you have been asking about The Trials of Renegade X and how it’s coming along. \u00c2\u00a0And now that my workload has mellowed out and the nervous breakdown meter is no longer on orange alert, I’ve finally been able to sit down with this book again and make some progress. \u00c2\u00a0(For those of you not reading this directly from my site, the word count bar is up to 5,700, about 8% of the expected total.)<\/p>\n
And this isn’t really a surprise, but I LOVE this story. \u00c2\u00a0Even though I’ve had it planned out for months, it’s hard to get back into writing when I haven’t done it in a while, and especially when I haven’t been writing regularly. \u00c2\u00a0But the more time I spend working on this, the more I love it and the more into it I am. \u00c2\u00a0I’ve crossed the threshold of “Juggling all this stuff is hard! *WHINE*” to “OMG, I can’t wait to put in this and this and this, and THIS cool thing goes here, and wait, there was a better way to phrase that sentence I wrote five pages ago…” \u00c2\u00a0It’s like the difference between pushing a piano upstairs and sliding down the banister. \u00c2\u00a0(Not that I can slide down banisters. \u00c2\u00a0But, you know, if I *could,* then I’m sure that’s what it would be like. \u00c2\u00a0For the record, I’m pretty sure I can’t push a piano upstairs either. \u00c2\u00a0In fact, I’m more likely to pull off a really awesome banister slide than I am to move a piano at all<\/em>.)<\/p>\n And The Trials of Renegade X now has a Facebook page<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0It’s where I’m posting my daily word count. \u00c2\u00a0Go there, press like, and you can watch the book grow (and shrink and then grow again, as books are wont to do…) and show your support and tell your friends and all that. \u00c2\u00a0I mean, you do<\/em> have friends, don’t you? \u00c2\u00a0And you wouldn’t want to be accused of depriving them of something awesome, right? \u00c2\u00a0RIGHT? *makes squinty accusing eyes*<\/p>\n Ahem.<\/p>\n Anyway, you might be wondering when this book will be done, and, more importantly, when can you have it??? \u00c2\u00a0Well, according to my estimations–*types random numbers in giant calculator with one of those paper rolls coming out the back*–I should be done with the first draft in 2 – 3 months. \u00c2\u00a0But you never know when I might get crazy obsessed and not be able to stop myself from doing anything besides writing. \u00c2\u00a0But you also never know when life will get completely overwhelming and get in the way. \u00c2\u00a0So, yeah, 2 – 3 months. \u00c2\u00a0Then there’s editing and revising to do. \u00c2\u00a0And then–THEN–you can have it. \u00c2\u00a0And by my calculations, that means it will be out some time this fall, late November at the latest. \u00c2\u00a0Which means it’ll be out in time for the holidays and you can surprise all your friends you “forgot” to link to the FB page with copies and you will be crowned the best gift giver ever. \u00c2\u00a0(Or at least until next year.)<\/p>\n So that’s the scoop on the sequel. \u00c2\u00a0I’ll know more about the release date as I get closer to finishing the book. \u00c2\u00a0In the mean time, go read Harper Madigan<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0It’s awesome and it made this Top Ten Underappreciated Books List<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So, I can admit that the beginning of the year was a lot busier than I expected (A LOT busier). \u00c2\u00a0I pubbed my middle grade noir mystery, Harper Madigan: Junior High Private Eye. \u00c2\u00a0I expanded from doing commissions on DeviantArt to an actual Etsy business. \u00c2\u00a0I was taking grad school classes. \u00c2\u00a0I spent my spring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"views":391,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chelseamcampbell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chelseamcampbell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chelseamcampbell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chelseamcampbell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chelseamcampbell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=769"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chelseamcampbell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":770,"href":"https:\/\/www.chelseamcampbell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769\/revisions\/770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chelseamcampbell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chelseamcampbell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chelseamcampbell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}