4/28/19

Those of you that follow me on Twitter already know that I successfully submitted Ge-Mi: Part Two to LT3.  For everyone else, Ge-Mi: Part Two was officially submitted to LT3!  I got confirmation that they received it, so now it's just a waiting game.  LT3's website says it's a 6 to 8 week waiting period while they evaluate the manuscript.  If they accept it, I should be signing the contract sometime in June and the book should be released anywhere from 9 to 12 months after that. 

So what's next?  Editing, of course.  I'm still working on the edits for the reprint of My Truest Love.  After that I'm expecting the edits for the reprint of Wings of the Stars.  The Coup and the Prince might have a copy edit or galley coming my way in the next few weeks, and then the second round of edits for Ground of Resurrection will arrive.  Editing continues to take the bulk of my writing time, but once that list is done, I'm expecting to have a few months without any edits. 

Which means, I finally get to write again!  Di-Na: Part One is, of course, high on my to-do list, but that list is incredibly long right now.  I think I need to focus on the stories that have languished the longest.  I really, really want to finish off my Oracle series and The Oracle's Current, so that's on the top of my list, and I also want to finish my fairy tale project.  There's also Codified and Dragon Spy, which are both patiently waiting for a bit of my attention.  There's so much still to do and I'm looking forward to finally having the time to actually do it! 

4/28/18

In my last post I stated I had a great new scene planned out for Dragon Spy and I wanted to restart working on Ground of Resurrection.  I literally had both manuscripts open on my computer and after I posted my blog, that scene in Dragon Spy began to take shape.  I wrote a few hundred words of good stuff (Lumie is making a mess, which is a ton of fun to write) and I was excited about where it was taking me, and then oddly, I paused.  I went into the depths of my computer and for some reason I dug out The Sentinel's Prophesy. 

Longtime readers of my blog will remember a few years back (to 2014) I had a good idea for a side story in my Oracle series that I felt would give it the extra bit of world building the series was missing.  That side story is The Sentinel's Prophesy, but despite my really wanting to write it, the story never really came together.  It has been sitting on my computer, untouched, for over a year now.  In the past week I have added over 10k words to the story and it is now complete!  After over four years of working on this story (a story that shouldn't have taken me more than a few months to write), I have finally finished it.  Of course, I do still need to reread it and give it a first edit.  The section I wrote a while ago and the section I just finished are a bit separated, so I need to smooth that out too.  Otherwise, I'm going to leave the story to sit for about a month before I pull it out for final editing and to get it ready to submit.  Hopefully, LT3 will accept it. 

What does this mean for the rest of the series?  Well, the contract for the first book, The Oracle's Flame, was just renewed.  I feel like that's a good sign that LT3 will be interested in also renewing The Oracle's Hatchling, book two, when it comes up for renewal in September.  I am really hoping it will not take me another four years to write the final book in the series, The Oracle's Current, but I am very stuck on that story and am wondering if it might be better to completely scrap what I have and start over.  Either way, Current will need a while yet before it starts chugging along again. Until then, I'm going to remain happy over finally getting Prophesy complete! 

July was supposed to be my comeback month, but I am still plagued with writer's block.  I am having a lot of trouble finding the motivation to keep working on any of my works-in-progress.  It's honestly a bit maddening.  I want to write, I do, but it's just not happening.  July ended up not being a good month for my goals.

1. Editing.  I returned the edits for Dragon Soldier and Elemental Ride to LT3.  I'm still working on the edits for The Case of the Wandering Wolves.  I have also received the edits for Ge-Mi: Part One, so have been trying to get those completed as well. 
    
   
2. Magnified, Book Three.  I haven't touched this book all month.  I wanted to, especially since I know what I need to do to finish the scene I working on, but it just wasn't happening. 
    
   
3. Ge-Mi: Part Two.  I tried to get some planning accomplished in this story.  I know the overall plot, but am missing a lot of final details that are needed to have a smoothly-flowing story.  Once I have those details figured out I should be able to return to writing this story. 
    
   
4. The Oracle's Current.  This is the story I wanted to work on the most, however when I read through what I have written I realized there is a lot of editing that needs to be done.  It's missing something, which is why I think this story has been sitting stagnant for so long.  I need to figure out what that something is so I can finally complete it. 
   

July is a wonderful month.  Everything is warm, but it isn't scorching outside yet.  My birthday is coming soon.  And, of course, I usually have a great time with writing.  This has always been my "last month of freedom" before that hellish six week job I've been doing every summer, except this summer I don't have to go back!  I have my full time job, which, admittedly, I'm still settling in to, and it is so much better.  With all that to look forward to, I'm really hoping writing will start picking up again. 

1. Edits.  I still have to finish the edits for Dragon Soldier.  I'm delinquent on getting them back, so they're a priority right now.  I also have the first round of edits for Elemental Ride and the second round of edits for The Case of the Wandering Wolves in my inbox.  The first round of edits for Ge-Mi: Part One are on their way as well.  That's a lot to do, so I need to get cracking. 
    
   
2. Magnified, Book Three.  I need to think of a title for this.  It will be something-fied, but I haven't figured out what will work just yet.  I also want to finish writing the prologue this month.  It's only about 7k words to write, which is doable. 
    
3. Ge-Mi: Part Two.  With part one now having a release date, I realized I need to get cracking on part two.  Mostly I need to start planning out the overall plot, which will require a good bit of work considering I haven't thought about this story in a long while. 
    
   
4. The Oracle's Current.  Speaking of stories I haven't touched in a while, I think this story wins that bet.  It is long past time I finish writing this and complete the fifth and final part of this story set in the Oracle universe.  There's a side story I want to write too, The Sentinel's Prophesy, but let me stick to one story at a time.  When Current is finally completed I'll return to Prophesy. 

I got a lot accomplished this month, except I wasn't able to tick off every item on my goals list like I was supposed to.  Instead I let my muses take me where they would.  Luckily for me, that was my number three goal, so it wasn't like I was completely deviating from my to-do list.  I just wish I was able to do more.  Here's how I did:

1. The Oracle's Current.  Saying I couldn't get inspired to work on this story isn't correct.  The problem is that I was more inspired to work on some of my other stories this month.  No matter how badly I wanted to get Current off my to-do list, the last thing I wanted was to force it.  Current would turn out really bad if I did that.  I know I'll return to working on this soon enough. 
    
2. Anthologies/Collections.  Okay, I didn't do too badly here.  The Case of the Wandering Wolves has been submitted to LT3.  I was able to go through everything the beta readers had left me and I think (hope!) I fixed it all.  I should hear from LT3 soon.  My Roughhouse Raiders story exploded this month.  I came up with a title, Elemental Ride, and wrote over 15k words.  I should have it ready to go well before the deadline.  Third on this list was working on The Red Apple Witch, the story I want to submit to LT3's Fairytale call.  I wasn't able to get anything done in that story.  I'm stuck on a transition scene, which I struggle with, so until I figure that out this story will remain stagnant. 
    
   
3. Other Writing.  This is where I did really well this month.  Dragon Spy continued to grow, as I hoped it would.  The story is at the halfway point where it needs to transition over to the action part, but I struggle with transitions so Spy will take a little longer to get going again.  I began working on Dragon Adventure, a fun little mini-book to help bridge the time gap between the end of Dragon Soldier and the beginning of Spy.  I also started work on a Hanukkah story.  I haven't written contemporary in a while, so it's a nice break from everything else I'm working on. 

September is going to be an interesting writing month for me.  During the first week I'll be finishing up at the job, so writing time will still be limited.  The second week will mostly be about recovering from the previous six weeks.  At the same time my school year position is restarting so I'll be doing a lot of setup for that.  The final two weeks of the month are filled with High Holiday preparation and celebration, which inevitably takes away a lot of writing time.  I don't like the fact that my goals list is therefore going to be as sparse as August's was, but I don't think I have any other choice.  Here's what I think I can accomplish in September:

1. Fix the Mistakes.  I have begun reading through everything I was able to get written while at my job and have found an interesting issue.  Autocorrect was on and it took exception to entire words and phrases in my stories.  There's a lot of very hilarious issues that I need to find and fix. 
    
   
2. Write.  I was always planning to pick up my stories where I left off in July before the job started and I'm sticking to that.  I got a lot accomplished in Justified and Kelpie Blue and really want to see where the stories will take me.  I also want to work on The Oracle's Current, my superhero story, and Dragon Soldier.  Ideally I would like to finish one of them so I can get it off my to-do list entirely, but that might be too much to ask. 
    
   
3. Write, Part 2.  The deadline for LT3's Private Dicks call is coming up soon.  I have the edits back from both beta readers for The Case of the Wandering Wolves so now I need to consolidate their recommendations, fix the issues, and get the story ready to submit before October 31st.  LT3 also recently put out a very interesting call for urban fantasy Roughhouse Raiders stories.  I started working on a story for it last month and want to continue making progress on this month. 

Only one more week to go at my summer job.  I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  The good news is that I did get the Microsoft Word app to work on my phone so I was actually able to get some writing done.  I would have liked to do more, but I can't be disappointed with the progress I was able to make given the difficult circumstances. 

1. Survive.  Yep, still breathing.  This last week at work is much easier to get through, so at this point I'm very willing to say I did, in fact, survive. 
   
   
2. Work on The Oracle's Current.  I only got a few hundred words written in this story over the last month.  There were just too many other things I needed to focus on and this one had to be put aside.  I will get back to it soon, though. 
   
   
3. Work on Kelpie Blue.  I got a lot done.  The parallels with my job that my main character had to endure were really able to catapult my writing.  I've reached the point in the story where my MC moves on to better things, which is perfect as now I'm moving on from my own job and don't need the parallels to keep working on the story. 
   
   
4. Work on my superhero story.  See my excuse for The Oracle's Current.  I also realized that while I do know where the story goes next, I have no idea how to write it.  I'm stuck so I think this story will have to remain stagnant for the moment.