Business Diary: May 20, 2021

Yesterday’s goals and how I did:

* Add a social media post to our Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts.

Done!

lois duncan playing the accordion quotation

This is the third social media post, and I’m trying to vary them between word definitions discovered through working on “Brown Suit” and quotations from “The Career Indie Author Quote Book.” I’m also targeting quotes by living writers who are on social media, in hopes they’ll echo them and expose this site to new readers.

I’m also discovering that I like not doing the expected. These types of quotation posts, done through Book Brush, tend to have generic backgrounds. I like discovering images that coexist with the quotation. This one, of Lois playing the accordion as a teen, seemed to me to echo her quote about creating characters. Authors aren’t supposed to play accordions; yet Lois Duncan did. If she was a fictional character, what would she be like? Would she make for a more interesting person? Could it come into the story in some way? If Harry met Sally, and discovered her playing “Lady of Spain” on her Wurlitzer, would he like her more?

* Spend at least 3 hours on Brown Suit’s footnotes. Since I’m trying to do about 25 a day, this will take much longer.

This was more difficult. There were several disruptions to the schedule, plus I was mentally fatigued from yesterday’s work. But I did buckle down in the last hour or two, and knocked off a dozen footnotes. Definite progress.

Down to 257 footnotes.

* Edit “Chinese in Popular Culture” at dentist

Done! I see I’ll have to rewrite sections of it. Instead of providing an interpretative overview of the subject, it would be better to create a sort of scrapbook look at the variety of ways Chinese show up in popular culture. The examples are far more diverse and somewhat surprising, and doesn’t lend itself to a neat conclusion.

* Update the book festival page on Peschel Press

Done! Too many festivals have been canceled, or remaining Zoom-only events, and frankly I’m Zoomed out. I did see a festival we could apply to for later this year.

Today, I will:

* Add a social media post to our Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts.

* Continue working on Brown Suit’s footnotes. Goal: 25.

* Rewrite the beginning of the “Chinese in Popular Culture” section for “Blue Ploermell.”

* Move over some more sections of the Wimsey Annotations.

* Post Teresa’s review of “The Adventure of the Clapham Cook” to the Peschel Press website.

That’s enough.