I will endeavor to keep this update brief. There is not a lot to say, though a lot was written in the last 31 days.
First, the bad news. I received 3 more agent rejections in July (two on the same night, and both arriving a little after 2 AM) bringing me to a total of 5. It’s discouraging, but I knew it was likely that I would have to spend a lot of time and deal with a great deal of disappointment. I am not giving up, and I still have several more pending. We will see what the future holds.
I also am armed with a much-improved synopsis. I still want to tweak it a little, but that will be going out into the world this month. Stay tuned.
So now the actual writing news. I had a great month of July working on book 2. So much so that the short story I wanted to work on was completely ignored. Well, not completely; I did some research and outlining, prepping everything so that I can start work on that when I have the time.
But real progress was made in the big project. I wrote more than 15K words in July and got into such a great rhythm that I even passed the dialogue I had pre-written. That is a rare occurrence, so much so that I left a note commemorating that occurrence for myself and for future historians who will surely want to dissect and absorb every bit of prose I have written.
Well, probably just for myself.
So that leaves me with quite a lot done, but still a large chunk of story to go. This book is running long, so there may be a substantial amount of editing once I am done. I am already sitting at 90K words, and I have 8-9 chapters left to go. I originally thought this would land at around 120k words, but I think it will be closer to 130k. While that is not considered overly long, it may need to go in for a trim. I will get the whole thing out, then look for places to whittle it down. There is one short chapter that could be lifted out altogether, but I would like to preserve it if I can because I like the way it shifts the perspective on what the characters have experienced up to that point.
Following up on last month’s post – no, I did not get as far as I wanted to, but I am still pleased with what I did. I struggled with one part and that slowed me down, but once I cleared that hurdle I moved at a steady clip the rest of the month.
My goal for the rest of the summer is to complete the next 3-4 chapters, setting me up to write the climactic events in the fall. That means a lot of typing in the morning and a lot of dialogue writing in my notebooks in the afternoons. It also means I did not accomplish the goal of finishing the book this summer, but I will be a lot closer than I was before.
Finally, I have a very important event this coming month – in August I will be attending Terrificon with my family. And while we are there, we will surely be stopping by the Wayward Raven Media booth to chat about how awesome We Suck at Comics Volume 2 turned out and maybe, just maybe, to sign a few copies with my incredible wife. What a thrill and honor that will be. I might even post a picture or 2!
Well I tried to keep it short. No wonder the book keeps getting longer. I will work more at being concise for these posts. And, more than likely, fail miserably. Here are my 2025 goals, which you probably skip because you know them already.
1 – I want finish editing book one of my YA series to the point that I consider it good enough for publication (it probably won’t be, but I want to get it as far as I can take it). Even though I am sending this out into the world now, I am still working on tweaking this book and trimming it down a little.
2 – I want to begin querying agents to see if I can publish that book, and its sequels, traditionally. Queries are out. Five rejections so far. I am not giving up despite the disappointment. If you can’t handle rejection, don’t become a writer.
3 – I want to finish the first draft of book 2 in that series and go through at least 1 round of edits. A productive July for me; if I can duplicate that it August, I will be close to reaching this goal.
4 – I want to have a completed outline for book 3 with an aim at starting the writing process this year as well. I made some real progress on this in May and I have a list of things to research and prep. I am feeling good about this one.
5 – I want to have at least two short stories accepted for publication. I have several short stories looking for homes. Hopefully I will find something that excites me that I can submit to.