Uncategorized – Page 2 – Jennifer M. Baldwin

Yeah… not done yet. New deadline! January 13. (This is the nice part about being my own publisher…)

But…

I’m probably not gonna make that January 13 deadline either. It’s a busy time for me at work: Midterms. So that means I might have to reschedule this new deadline…

I am apparently the worst at meeting deadlines. The worst part of all is that I don’t feel like I’ve been goofing off (she said as she wrote this not-her-novel blog post). I’ve been doing work for my “real” job, taking care of my family, doing as much limited house cleaning as I can sneak in, eating. There haven’t been a lot of random Lord of the Rings marathons (okay, maybe one…), or binge watching Orange Is the New Black (which is what I was doing last year in January when we had an epic amount of snow/freeze days at my school) (I have been binge watching Comic Book Men, but that’s usually when I’m feeding my infant or playing with her on the floor, so it’s not like that’s interfering with my writing time).

I suppose I need to have more realistic goals. I have to face the fact that I’m not gonna be Johnny and Sean and write a zillion words this year. My original publishing plan for 2015 was to release three full-length novels plus a few short stories. I’m fearing this will not happen. I hate taking it slow; I want to get my stuff out there! But maybe the more realistic goal is to go at the pace my life allows. And my life right now does involve taking care of and raising a human being, so that’s kinda important.

2015: The year I try to live with more realistic goals.

New rough draft deadline: January 20

I am under no illusions that I am the only author to use the mythology behind the thirteen treasures of Britain in her stories. I know that there are other books and novels that use the thirteen treasures. However, until my husband mentioned it the other day, I did not know that there is an actual book series called “13 Treasures” (complete with the number 13 instead of the word thirteen in the title).

Clever readers of this blog may have noticed that I have since changed my novel’s title. No longer will I be using the “13 Treasures of Britain” moniker; instead, I have gone slightly more traditional and changed the novel’s title to “The Thirteen Treasures of Britain.” I’m still kinda miffed about this title business; I liked using the number 13 in my title because it had a sort of irreverence about it, and my story is an irreverent take on Arthurian stories and myths. However, I am even less keen on having my book be almost identical in name to the “13 Treasures” series of children’s fiction. I still want to keep the thirteen treasures as part of my title, so I figure the best way to distinguish my book from this other book is to go with the more formal, written-out name of “thirteen treasures.”

It’s not a huge deal, but it is sort of annoying to find out someone else has pretty much used my idea. Thankfully, my “Thirteen Treasures of Britain” story is completely different from this children’s series, so there are no worries on that front.

Maybe I should name my book: “The Thirteen Treasures of Britain (or How Merlin Lost His Beard and Tried to Save the World).” [This is only slightly a joke. But then, I love really long titles for things. Maybe I will change it to this…]