March Update: Ephemera and Agents

Beware the ides of March!

Only not really. Honestly, this ides of March promises to be relatively uneventful.

Unlike the last month.

I got my freelance editing work done, which was great, but then Jack and I both got sick. He has pneumonia and is still fighting, but I finally feel better, at least. We're slowly getting back into things.

Mostly these days I've been dealing with mud from giant puppy paws. Come on, spring. Give me a break here. I really, really need an office so I don't spend so much time sitting at my kitchen table thinking about doing dishes and mopping up after the puppy.

But it's not quite time for that yet. I'm making progress as a freelance editor and aspiring novelist, but I still have a long way to go before I can justify an office.

Which brings me to novel progress. The bad news is, I haven't done much work on Towers of Kansas. Once I got the scenes in order and wrote detailed notes about what to put in the next chapter to make it fit into my outline, I put it away.

The good news is, I am basically finished with Monsters of Lawrence. I have done the huge structural edit based on beta reader feedback. I read back through it to make sure all those changes fit. I went back through it yet again to copy edit it so that it's pretty damn polished. As long as my two theta readers don't call me out on anything glaring, it's done. It's ready.

And I have already written a query letter, a short synopsis, and sent queries to five agents.

I felt like I was going to throw up for a few days after that. It's been a week. I know the next 5-7 weeks are going to drag on forever while I await the inevitable rejections. But. I have started the process. Monsters of Lawrence is that much closer to being birthed into the world.

I need to figure out what project to work on next. I will probably hold off on ToK for a little while. As much as I love my characters for the world of Mythos books, I am feeling quite a bit of fatigue. Which I guess isn't surprising, since I've read MoL at least ten times, ToK at least five so far and it's not even done. Well, it's done in my head. I just need to write it. And ideas for the third and final book (tentatively Scions of Mythos) keep coming so that a lot of the book is planned even if I don't know exactly what all happens yet.

But. I'm thinking about writing another adventure novella (once I have five of those, I'm going to start putting those out under a pseudonym and see what happens), and then it's either Online Dating for Demons or Druid Wars. Probably Demons. I'm not sure I'm ready to tackle Druid Wars yet.

For the record, the Shadowhunters TV series kinda makes me want to gouge my eyes out. Not because it's bad, but because every week I'm like...shit. MoL totally looks like I wrote Shadowhunters fanfiction. And not even the sexy kind. It makes me depressed. I can only hope that because the show is doing so well that maybe agents/publishers will want more of the same kind of thing.

If not, I'll just self-publish it and hope I have better luck with one of my other novels.

Can't ever sit still. Gotta keep writing. Gotta keep editing.

Wow, this entry got a little long. Next month maybe I'll spend some time talking about music and writing. I paid for Amazon Prime and I've really been enjoying all of the music. I've been building soundtracks for different writing projects. It's been fun. And inspiring.

February Update: My overflowing plate

Things have really picked up since my last update. I made it through developmental edits for Monsters of Lawrence. It's currently on the cooling rack before I do one final pass. And then I will start submitting it. So I need to research publishers and agents and figure out how to write a query letter and synopsis.

But my editing load has also picked up, so I'm not sure when I'll do that. I have a short story and a novel coming from Rachel, Kevin's debut novel, beta reads for two friends, and a new client starting in June.

In there, I have a work trip to Portland for the ACES conference, ConQuest, and an audition for Listen to Your Mother.

I have an overflowing plate.

On top of it all, I've been trying to make headway on Towers of Kansas, the sequel to Monsters of Lawrence (and the second book in Diana's trilogy). I wrote a new beginning for it, reorganized scenes and rewrote some more, and then tore it apart and reorganized it again. I'm still not sure the scenes are in the right order, but I have it pretty close, I think. It's like one of those slide number puzzles. Every time you move one of the tiles, it changes where all of the rest of them are. But I've got it close enough that I think I can start writing forward now. I've added around 8,000 words to it, although I've also taken away at least a couple thousand.

But I feel like it might have to take back burner while I make it through my paying editing jobs. Which, don't get me wrong, I'm excited about. But it's also hard, because over the last two months, when I haven't been busy at work, I've been working on writing and editing my own stuff. It's exciting and terrifying and also a little sad, because I know it'll probably be at least another decade before I can quit the day job and follow the dream of being a full-time writer and freelance editor. If ever.

I'm also still writing a short story for the Confabulator Cafe each month. I've stopped submitting short stories for publication now, deciding that my time is better spent on novels at this point. I'm also relieved I put the collection on hold. Bottle Cap isn't doing a table at ConQuest anymore, which was a majority of the reason I wanted to do it in the first place. That was a solid decision.

I also started a reading blog with a fellow writer. We're doing a re-read of the Shannara series by Terry Brooks. If you want to read along with us, we do about five chapters a week. Check us out at The Paranor Review!

I feel incredibly lucky to have so many fun things I am a part of right now. True, it's exhausting, and sometimes I spend a few days introverting and goofing around without working, but those days help me recharge. I am also fortunate enough to have an amazing group of writing friends who make sure I get everything I need, from emotional support to idea sounding boards.

Living the dream, friends. Halfway to my end goal of being published by the time I'm 40, and I feel like I've made hella progress. It's been a fun ride. This year has been huge, and looks like it will continue on out of control, picking up speed, until it's a runaway train.

Rachel did promise me a Crazy Train to Awesome Town. Here we come!

January Update: Seasonal Depression and Changing Goals

While I've only been regularly updating for the whole last year, the one reoccurring theme over the last five years this blog has existed is my eternal struggle with winter. I've finally admitted to myself that I suffer from pretty acute SAD (seasonal affective disorder). The dark, cold months at the beginning of the year send me to an even darker place inside of me. Half the time I don't even realize I'm there. One of the biggest challenges with this mood downturn is it affects my motivation, not only for day-to-day things like chores, but fun stuff like hanging out with friends and writing.

The first week of January was lost to this mood, until one of my good friends checked in on me, and the rest of my friends helped dig me out. I'm doing better now, although I'm still fighting with a cold, hoping it doesn't turn sinus infection.

In the midst of this low mood, I dug into Monsters of Lawrence, as I had planned to do this January. That first day was terrible. I skimmed through the first paragraph of the first twenty or so chapters, and was shocked and sickened by how mundane and downright poorly written it was in so many places. This is not a novel that showcases my writing talent. So during that day, I almost quit. This novel needed so much more than the quick cleanup job I thought it needed.

However, the next day, I tore into it. Ok, so it needs more work than I expected. I know what it needs, at least. With my sharpened editorial skills I've honed over the last two years, I began intensive surgery. I cut apart chapters, I spliced chapters together, I breathed new life into dead scenes and sentences, all the while working to implement the changes I had discussed with my beta readers.

I've been working on it nearly every day for the last week now. It's slow going, folks. But, I already feel a thousand times more confident about it. It's still a mess. I compared it to cleaning a closet: you have to pull everything out, creating a gigantic, disorganized mess before you can start to put things back in a more organized, logical way. It will take at least another pass once I'm done tearing this draft apart to clean up any scars I've left, make sure I didn't leave any surgical implements inside the body. But it should be better, faster, stronger when I'm done rebuilding. The bones are good. Most of the second half of the book only needs minor adjustments.

In light of this project, though, I got to thinking about my collection. The little collection that could. My sad attempt to be part of the cool kids table at Conquest. It's not meant to be, friends. I examined my reasons for wanting to put it together, and the work doesn't justify the end result. So, for now, I will continue to write short stories each month for the Cafe, and maybe someday, once I have a novel or two published and some fans who like me, I'll self-publish a collection.

The only thing I lament after coming to this decision is that it will be that much longer until my gorgeous cover sees the light of day. So I am sharing it here, so at least it is out there. Enjoy, friends. You saw it here first.