Editing, Editing, and more Editing

A week of editing my next book, celebrating a couple of birthdays, looking at cloud transfers, and much more.

Good morning,

Hey, this is actually my 52nd newsletter! That's pretty cool. I've been doing this for a year now. Kind of awesome. I didn't know what I would think of this when I started, but I've really grown to love it. I enjoy each week telling you all about what's going on in my writing life, Some of my personal life, and stuff I'm reading and enjoying. It's a lot of fun deciding what I'm going to talk about each week on here. I hope you've enjoyed these newsletters over the last year, and I hope you'll continue reading and enjoying everything I share here. Thank you so much for being a part of this over the last year. I really appreciate each one of you.

Got the cover art for my next book Paper Nightmare last week. So awesome and super excited about it. My graphic artist did an amazing job with the cover and I couldn't be happier. Really excited to show it to you all. Somewhere on this post will be a picture of it. I'm never sure where it adds photos to when I add them, but I'm sure it's here somewhere. Can't wait to finish up that book and have it in your hands!

While I'm on the subject, spent a lot of time last week moving through the final round of edits on Paper Nightmare. That's been a hell of a process. When I wrote that book years back, it was on an old iPad I had at the time, and I honestly can't even remember what writing program it was. Needless to say, it added in a lot of issues with document and writing platform transfers, and all of that over the years. So now I'm going back through and finding extra spacing that had been there from that former program. Literally moving through each chapter a word at a time. I have to do that to get to the end of each sentence, then make sure the correct amount of spacing is there. It's fun because these chapters are mostly over 4000 words each. So yeah, it's a process. But, while I'm doing that I am also changing some words because I just don't like the sound of them, and actually Adding in or deleting sentences. This final round is really making the book so much better. I'm really loving the story a lot more now, and I'm sure you will love it too.

We spent some of our time this last week looking at apartments with our oldest daughter. She turns 18 very soon, and for some reason doesn't want to live at home with me and my wife anymore. I understand it completely. That whole becoming an adult and wanting your independence thing. So I am Sure she will do just fine with her own place. It's actually been kind of fun going and checking out these apartments. Some of them we have found are really nice, and some, well, not so nice. One in fact we quickly ran out of. I won't go into details, but let's just say it was goddamn gross. If you're going to show an apartment, maybe clean it and get rid of the bugs first. That was gross. She's been working on lining up more apartments to go look at, and wrote down a list of her favorite so far, and pros and cons for each. I thought that was a great idea and really will help her to narrow down which apartments she wants to fill out an application for when she does turn 18.

Despite having fun going and looking at those apartments with her, I do feel a bit sad. I know it's exciting when you turn 18 to get your own place and show how independent you are, but as a parent it's actually kind of sad. Your kids are growing up and moving out. Obviously I knew this day would come, but still feel a bit sad about the whole thing. I have spent countless hours talking with her, sharing music with her and just enjoying time together with her. So, as proud as I am of her and how independent she is and how hard she works at her job and college, I'm still a bit sad that She will be moving out in the near future. I guess it's all just part of growing up and getting older.

Speaking of time flying by, our youngest daughter turned 14 over the weekend. That just seems crazy. It feels like it wasn't that long ago I was walking her to preschool. Crazy to think she's already 14 years old. Soon she will be taking the drivers permit test, and shortly after that she will be learning to drive with my wife. That's kind of a scary thought really. My wife and I took her out for dinner, and then actually came back home and hung out and played a board game together. It was a fun evening sharing that time with her. I know she's getting older and hanging out with her parents isn't cool anymore, but I'm glad we got to spend that time with her. Soon enough she'll be working and going to school and I won't have the kind of time I have with her now. So I am cherishing those moments while I still have them. Happy birthday peanut, so proud of the young woman you have become. Love you kiddo.

And, we had one more birthday over the weekend. Our granddaughter actually turned one on Sunday. It doesn't seem real that she's already a year old. She is our little squish. Love hearing her say Papa and Nana, and pup pup, and everything else She excitedly says. Love spending time with her and enjoying holding books while she flips through them. She is Papa's little sweetheart. Had a fun time at her birthday party on Saturday, and glad everyone could come together to celebrate her. Love our little squish.

Finished reading Queen of Teeth by Hailey Piper. This book was pretty good. Some fun body horror and a creepy creature feature. Really enjoyed the bloody and grotesque things Hailey put in this book, and where the story went. A fun and entertaining read.

Currently reading: Night's Edge by Liz Kerin.

Currently listening: rocking out to the Near Misses playlist I built on Spotify which includes all of their songs they've released. Love this band, and love their music, check them out! Also rocking out to my Greta Van Fleet playlist while I edit. It's always a good day for some Greta.

Currently watching: American Rust season 2 on Amazon Prime Video. We actually finished season two this last week. Sad to say the show isn't coming back for a third season either. Which sucks because I really got into it and was loving it. Despite that, check out the two seasons that are available, it's a great show. Also enjoyed more Iowa Hawkeyes and Michigan Wolverines football.

It's shaping up to be a busy week for me. This morning I have to finish up this newsletter and get it out, make up another yummy batch of my blind man chili, then try to get more editing work done while I can. I have to donate plasma this afternoon so not sure how much editing I'll get to work on after that. I'm almost finished with the final round of edits on Paper Nightmare. I just have to finish going back through chapter 10, then the short story that inspired the book, then the afterword I wrote. Once I finish those up it is done. So just trying to continue pushing forward and getting it done. My wife does want to sit down with me and go through it to make sure I didn't miss anything. So we'll have to figure out when in our schedule we can do that. Hoping on an October release for this book. Fingers crossed with that.

Otherwise, I've been working on looking at switching my cloud back up for all of my writing projects from Dropbox to iCloud. It's been a tedious process of working with a test project I created and making sure everything functions fine on iCloud. I'm limited on space I have for cloud storage on Dropbox, and honestly, their upgrade plans are Ridiculous for pricing. It's a lot cheaper to upgrade my iCloud for more storage and shift everything over to that. Just trying to make sure that if I do this I don't run into any problems, or lose anything in the process. So I've really been working on Testing everything and looking at how everything functions with that. So far though it seems to be working out great. So, I might be sitting down and moving all of my projects over to iCloud. Oh what fun.

All right, well I'm going to go get to work on a batch of chili, then grab my MacBook and sit back down and get more editing done. Hopefully you're having a great day, and a wonderful morning. Enjoy a cup of coffee, and I'll talk to you soon my friends.

Thank you for reading this weeks newsletter. I hope to see you back here next week. Be yourself, be original, and be bloody.

- Matthew R. Taylor