News of the book publishing process + a little advice-reasoning from E.G.

Good evening/afternoon/and maybe even morning, gentlemen!

Perhaps you expected the continuation of the post about "ethnographic fantasy", but life is making adjustments - now Eirik Godvirdson has two texts of a rather large form on the agenda of active work in parallel (one of which is a direct continuation of what is being prepared for publication in paper) and publishing issues themselves. All this requires time and mental strength, with a fairly large amount.

As well as writing articles on craft and art in literature - journalism is no less important to us than artistic texts, and we do not want to work on it at all, according to the residual principle. Therefore, for the time being, we will suspend writing the cycle of the name of a Non-cardboard Hero - and pay attention to just the current news. We thought about it a little bit - and decided that all this near-publishing cuisine, which usually remains behind the scenes, can also be quite interesting to people who have no experience in communicating with the publisher, so we will cover the news on the publication process of our book "Adventures at the Red Creek Ranch" as interesting news arrives Well, gentlemen, we report: one of the important stages of preparing the book for publication - work with proofreading and editorial edits - has been completed.

It was interesting and informative, and required a lot of attention - maybe later we will tell you in detail about the subtleties of proofreading on the part of the author, if you are interested, of course.

What will happen next? Next we are waiting for the layout. The layout is a fully made-up and marked-up electronic version of the book, with a cover and all the illustrations, with various chops, vignettes and all that - everything that will then fall on real paper pages.

It will also need to be viewed, subtracted with the author's eye and tracked so that everything is as it should be. The layout is, in fact, the first acquaintance with the future book - not the text (which the author can quote by heart in places after many auto-edits, deductions and edits), but the image of the book. When the layout is ready, it will be possible to announce the finish line - so we are waiting with a very working mood: the terms of the author's proofreading and approval by the author of the layout are regulated in the contract, and for us, for example, it is two weeks. Зit all sounds very, very businesslike, doesn't it?

Yes, of course. But this is also a very, very creative work - however, it requires maximum care and concentration,

So we are waiting for the layout during this month - and then we will dive into working on it.

You need to understand that working with a publisher is always a collaboration, which means that the first and most necessary skill here is the ability to convey information to the person working with you in parallel. The most important skill, I would say!

Here, in general, the news we have is as follows. But the post is not all about it! Yes, we also put some "+advice" in the title - so, it will partly be related to the previous paragraph. Indirectly, but still.

And it sounds like this - if you really write, and you want to continue doing it, and do it successfully, fruitfully and with certain prospects for the development of this path for yourself, then our advice is: try to get rid of excessive exaltation in your work. Believe me, it is not necessary either in the process of writing, or even more so in the process of subsequent work on the text, whether it is the first rough auto-editing or thoughtful and attentive proofreading of an almost finished layout, to run around the ceiling, talk to the reflection in the mirror, stick to the walls and heating batteries with long, heartfelt monologues. It's just not worth it. Do you know why? Because it takes time and effort. Running around, talking with inanimate objects and unrestrained emotionalization (about and without) of these forces and time takes a lot. You'd be surprised how much.

And these are important, useful and valuable resources, which are always sorely lacking for any creative person - especially if he still has some other, non-writing life in parallel. We - Eirik Godvirdson-have. And the so-called "normal job" (which is necessary, of course, to live, and not to live to work), there are friends, family. There are also several hobbies - not "a few more", but just a few hobbies. Because writing is not a hobby for us - it's a business. No, the BUSINESS. Like a work, yes. No less important. And what we don't have is time for exalted races, which are, in fact, a form of creative procrastination. How to deal with procrastination and the painful state of "I don't want to or can't write" - we told here, from our own experience, of course, but what helped us can help you! This, of course, is not the only way - however, almost never, in our memory and our experience, those very exalted races did not help. They can almost not interfere, or even bring pleasure - however, the fact remains that they absorb time and energy like a black hole - light and any energy in general. But this is such a "thing in itself" - and it has very, very little in common with writing as a matter of fact. Such things, gentlemen.

Finally, here is a drawing with a prospector looking for gold. This is one of the drawings that will accompany the historical reference in a future book. Hard work, as this prospector tells us, is the key to success. Well, there is no reason not to believe this statement!