Notes from the Editing Cave

I’m still here. I’ve just been head down on the Planet Mercenary project.
23 Sections in the book

Sections 1-4 completely laid out
Sections 5-6 in layout
Sections 7-10 need a final editing pass from me before layout
Sections 11-14 need a final pass from me before being handed off to our editor
Sections 15-19 Howard has some final writing to do in these chapters
Section 20 currently being edited
Section 21 needs some writing from Howard
Section 22 currently being edited.
Section 23 index, glossary, etc which will start when layout is done.

My goals: make sure that everyone always has something to be working on. I don’t want layout guy waiting on me. I don’t want editor waiting on me. I don’t want Howard waiting on me. This means task swapping a lot.

I’m also conferring with artists to fill the remaining art gaps. It is hours of intense focus work every day. But by next week my schedule should begin to open up. I will be done with the mechanics heavy portions of the book. The remainder is cool worldbuilding stuff upon which players can build fun adventures, or Schlock Mercenary fans can just have fun reading.

The whole thing is visibly closer to being done. Yet in the middle of each day it feels like I’ll never be able to do all I need to do. And sometimes fatigue whispers to me that I’ve done it all wrong, everything is ruined. So I take a breath and I dive back in, because ruined or not, I have promises to keep.

Oh, and the Defaced Seventy Maxims books arrived yesterday, so there are 1000 packages to ship. I have that in front of me too.