August Update: Stats and Plans

I'm going to start this entry with some stats, just for funsies.

First, some word count updates:

• Words written so far in August: 14,005
• Words written so far this year: 68,684
• Words written so far on SoM: 30,362

So that's coming along.

I even wrote a Cafe story this month, so I've now written four stories for the Cafe so far. Only two more to meet my goal for the year.

Here's an update on where I'm at with literary agent queries:

• Partial requests: 2
• Rejections: 31
• Closed (no response): 21
• Outstanding: 5

The longest I've waited for a response so far was 82 days. The fasted was two days. I've closed a couple out at 121 days, but mostly I close them between 60-80 days. It's been 76 days since the request for 100 pages and 35 days since the request for the first 10 pages.

I expect to be waiting on the partials for at least another 1-3 months.

I still have one more I want to query when she opens in October, and that will make 60.

After that, I have some decisions to make.

Or rather, I've made some decisions already, but after all that, we'll see if they stick.

One thing I've been worried about the whole time querying MoL is that it's too long. It's too long for the genre and too long for a debut author. A rejection I received yesterday confirmed that.

And while I know all that is arbitrary, and if an agent truly loves the project and my writing, word count is something they will either overlook or plan on working with me to pare down. But I've thought more than once that it might be what's keeping me from finding an agent for this book.

I just keep coming back to the fact that this book was the book of my heart. Yes, I could cut it down to meet some arbitrary industry standard. Truth is--and call me a diva for this--but I don't want to. For better or worse, it is what I want it to be. Everything I left in I felt was important to the plot or the larger world or series.

So maybe I don't debut with this novel. Maybe I debut with something else. Maybe, once I've gotten a "no" or gotten no response from all 60 agents, I trunk it. Trunk the whole series. Not forever. Maybe just until I write a few more books in different worlds that are shorter or don't have vampires or whatever else they keep passing on it for. Maybe when I have some fans, maybe an agent, I can say, hey, any interest in this complete trilogy with series potential? It may not be a best-selling series, but it might make us a few extra bucks. And they can be like, sure, we liked your shorter stuff. Let's see how this longer stuff does. Or if they don't want to take the chance, then I'll self-publish it.

And maybe they're right. Maybe it's too long. Maybe people won't read it. Maybe Emily and Aron and the girls and Jack are the only ones who will ever actually like it because they know me and they know Lawrence.

But I can't see having three books finished and ready for a professional editor as ever being a bad thing.

So. My goal for the next couple of months is to get as much of SoM written as I can. I know after NaNo I'll lose momentum and it might not get finished until next year. But. If I can leave it at 50k-60k, at least I'll have a solid foundation to work from. My first goal was to get it to 30k. It's harder to walk away from something that big. If I can double that in the next month or two, I will feel ok about setting it aside for NaNo and the holidays.

And hell, if I hit November 1 and it's still going like it has been the last week (I had a 4k day today and a 2k day a couple days ago and a couple 1.5k days before that...although I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that most of the month, I had mostly zero days and a few 250-word days), I may not want to stop. I may skip NaNo and my Something New to finish this up. And that's ok, too.

But I've learned my fucking lesson with this. No more 125k-word books. At least not that I want to query.

Although Druid Wars 1, my next big project I plan on querying, is too short, coming in at less than 70k. Oiy. I just can't win, here. Online Dating for Demons I think is even shorter (although I have plans to beef it up in the dev edit).

Why can't I just write the books I want to write and tell them in however many words they need to be told in?

I guess I can if I self-publish. Yet another compelling reason to skip traditional publishing completely.

That being said, I may not revisit the self-publishing idea for another year or two. I don't have to do this all now or even next year. I can take my time.

That's kind of been the theme of the last few updates.

I've got time.

I just need to relax and just write.

I still have over three years to reach my goal. I'm only 36. And hey, if it takes until I'm 41 or 45 or even 50, so be it. There's no rush. The longer I wait, the more I have ready to publish.

So just relax and write. And keep writing.

No matter what, just keep writing. That's the only part that really matters in all of this.