Going to make this quick

Hey guys, just checking in for the first time since I've decided NOT to attempt only big, life altering posts anymore. In all honesty, it's rather freeing since I'm not waiting for a spark of insight to happen before I post.


So, what's been happening? Queries are big talk in my world right now. The quest for an agent is one thing, but this is a quest for the "right" agent, so there's a lot more research and thought put into who I send my work to than I originally lied to myself about. That said, I did get a request for a full manuscript that made my day and since I've rewritten my query (for the umpteenth time), I've noticed I get a lot more personal rejections. (If you aren't in the writing world, just know that 'personal' rejections are actually a positive.)


Also, I'm past 20,000 words on Wild Type, and have been doing lots of really interesting research about explorers in the 18th and 19th centuries. Most of it is just interesting, but some elements have been really useful for me. Also, I've been looking at Lewis & Clark pretty carefully since their journey west is similar in some ways to my main character's journey west. (And I'm reading Manifest Destiny, the comic put out by Image, which makes Lewis and Clark into monster hunters and Sacagawea is pretty well badass. Not research, but fun.) Anyway, Wild Type will be out of first draft stage come the end of June. I'm on track for that.


Lastly, edits of The Unruly are going strong, I'm a week behind my regular schedule, but it's due to some necessary restructuring and I'll recover that ground over the next two weeks and be back on track (my preplanned track) to finishing all edits of that book before the end of the year.


Otherwise, I'm good. Been an Olympic watching addict and reading The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin. I just finished The Drowning Girl by Caitlin Kiernan and it was flipping amazing. Sometimes you realize when the bar has been raised and Kiernan certainly did it. It will be a long time before I find a book as good as that again.


Ha, and I said this would be quick. Okay, forget that. I apparently can't make it quick so you'll have to settle for this long "quick" post. Thanks for reading!

Sports, and Stuff, and Decisions

I've been thinking a lot about the blog lately. A LOT. Mostly, I've been entertaining the idea of maintaining balance while still managing to keep up with my contact with you. So here are my thoughts, right up front: I'm going to stop waiting for those big moments when I have "something major" to say or address. Too often I'm waiting for something pivotal to happen, so no post happens at all or they end up several weeks apart. Not that suddenly my blog, which I hope people enjoy, will turn to fluff, but that there will be some lighter elements too so it feels less daunting to me to write in it regularly. That's first.






Second, sports, I suppose. Feels like this should be a longer post already because I have a lot to say about sports as a whole but here's the simple meat of what I want to say about that. My firmed-up, writing discipline came from NaNoWriMo. I know how to write, I was taught great things about writing, but NaNo gave me that kick in the ass to sit down and have some damn self-discipline. How that relates to sports is this: When NaNo time comes in November, the NFL is in full swing. I get super excited for football because when I see football, I associate that with whole blocks of writing time I can squeeze in while in front of the TV. That said, the Superbowl just ended football season for me, so now we're on to the Olympics. That's right, if you're a wanna-be writer, don't just sit there and watch the "games," write through them. Squeeze out that writing time. I'm doing it right now to create this post.






Lastly, stuff. My stuff. What's been happening for me since the last post. I've put my query in a contest to get feedback and that's helped tremendously. I've written over 15K words on Wild Type, my current WIP, and I've edited up to chapter six in The Unruly, the sequel to The Flame Wars. Basically, that's it. I have another round of queries going out to agents coming, so that always takes a lot of work to research and prepare and reread and reread and reread again. Otherwise, I keep a steady pace of edits and new writing daily. SELF-discipline is the key there. And self-reliance. Never underestimate the power of "self."






Have thoughts on my thoughts? Share in the comments below.