Writing on the Side

For those of you playing at home, I sent out 18 queries for the YA in September.  Results thus far:

Full request: 1
Partial request: 1
Rejections: 7
No response: 9

My first book still has two fulls out: one requested a year ago from a non-responding agent, and one recent submission.  I need to sub that out to two more editors I have in mind before I trunk it for a little while.  I had enough response for it that I'm hesitant to give up on it altogether, but now just might not be its time.

In other news, I cleaned my room thoroughly yesterday, did all my filing, and pulled out the 25,000 words I've completed on Book Two as well as all the feedback I had accumulated on it before I dropped it to work on the YA.  My intention is to start writing 20 minutes (or 500 words) a day as soon as I can get caught up with the big pile of grading that haunts me and wrap up the PTA membership drive (yes, I'm a PTA mom.  2nd VP, to be exact.  Shut up.).

Ah, the overwhelm.

I probably should have posted this sooner for better record-keeping, but I completed the final revision of my YA last weekend while on a writer's retreat with my writing group.  It was a LONG weekend, but well worth the effort!  I'm finally happy with the finished product.

I also sent out a respectable 17 queries last weekend, and have already received a request for the full and forwarded it to the agent!  (Got two rejections, too-- but who's counting those?)  So it's been a good week in my personal writing universe.

Now I'm in that listless place again where I don't really know what to work on next.  Fortunately, I have about 100 student essays I collected this week to entertain me.

One thing about my life?  Never boring.

Life has been hectic, so I haven't had much time to blog, let alone keep up with my f-list, so if something extremely cool has happened to you lately and I missed it, please let me know in the comments!  :)

Basically, it's week four of the semester, and essays start coming in today.  I have managed to complete the first major revision of the YA and query the agent I met at WorldCon; we'll see if she wants to read further.

Otherwise, that's pretty much it.  On the horizon:

- final read-through and polish of the YA
- more queries
- finish the Eternal Short Story
- finish Book Two

Book One is still on hold; I'm not sure what to do with that yet if the person currently reading it passes, though I have some ideas.

For those of you playing at home, I have finished typing in all of my changes (and I've made a few more, of course; I just can't help myself).  I'm seriously tired of this book right now, but I think it's a much stronger draft overall.

While the ending is significantly rewritten, there are still holes to fill, and I need to amp up the action a little bit.  I have a few other little things to research (yuck! research!) and another overall polish to do, but I think I've now got a solid second draft.

I have generated lots, and lots and LOTS of new words today, but I don't feel like counting them because they're all mixed in all over the place, spliced in with the old ending.  Suffice it to say, I've been writing for over four hours today, and I think I've got a good handle on the ending.  Here's hoping it's improved.  I may have to rewrite it some more, but I'm getting ready to call this rewrite almost done.

I've got to revise the prologue, then enter in all of the chicken scrawls I've made on all the other chapters (most of my revisions I do on paper; I can  just see the changes better that way).  I'm going to take a break for a couple of hours right now, then come back to that project tonight.  With luck (and maybe some Motrin-- my back is killing me!) I should have a complete second draft before I go to sleep-- whenever hellish time of night that might be.

Thanks to the most excellent (and useful) long-distance butt-kicking of ecgriffith, I have now revised chapters 22, 23, 24, and half of 25 (the half that's written, that is-- the rest of 25 will be filled out with new writing, which will take a little longer).  This project now seems decidedly less overwhelming, though the bulk of the actual rewrite still looms.  Still, I'm getting there.

Tomorrow all of my students are writing sample essays (so I can see what they know and what they don't).  What this means for me is MEGA amounts of uninterrupted writing time!  Go me!  Some days, I LOVE my job!

This also means no excuses.  No kids fighting, no cats lying on my revisions, no phone calls, no escaping to the gym or cleaning around the house to do.  No internet.  Just me, my papers, and my pen.

Hopefully, I'll finish my "work" day with good news to report.

And I'm not getting much done.  But somehow, I'm okay with that today.

Tomorrow I plan on beginning the grueling last five chapters of the YA revision, which entails a rather significant rewrite.  By Tuesday I have to have three different syllabi finished and copied for the first day of school.  I also am behind on crits for my Second Breakfasts, which I plan to work on tomorrow and Monday as well.

I feel like I should be stressing a little more about all this, but instead-- Meh.  It'll all get done eventually.

Before I go (back to) sleep tonight, I will have revised through the end of Chapter 18.  The worst is yet to come-- a total rewrite of the ending-- but I'm trying not to think about that just yet.

My new! improved! goal is to have this entire rewrite hammered out by the end of the week so I can start querying while I do the final dust and polish.  Meeting the agent provided just the motivation I needed to get this done.  That and the fact that the Fall semester starts next week, but I'm trying to to dwell on that either.

Wish me luck!

I worked through half of chapter nine this weekend, then realized that I needed to go back through chapters 7-9 again with the feedback that both my in-person and online crit groups have given me.  Not so much for chapters 7 & 8 as chapter 9, during which Important Things are Discussed.  I already know some of the things that I need to rework, but the nuances (and, ok, my critters' super-awesome helpful suggestions) I couldn't remember without looking directly at the information.

So today's plan is to incorporate some of those changes onto the same hard copy I'm using for my rewrite.  My summer school students are writing in-class essays for most of the class period today, so I should have plenty of time between class and my super-long break between classes (aka "office hours") to get 7-9 done so I can move on to 10, 11 & 12, all of which also need more extensive revision.

I'm catching up though!  I'm hoping to be caught up on the "revise a chapter a day" plan by the end of this week, even with the chapters that need more rewriting.  It helps that I've (at least temporarily) gotten over the bad case of book hate I've been suffering from for the last couple of months.  I need to take advantage and ride this wave for as long as I can until the book hate settles in again.

Isn't writing fun?

Today I buckled down and revised the rest of chapter four of the YA on my hard copy-- then went on to chapters five and six.  None of these changes are typed in yet, of course, and I still have feedback I need to review for five and six from my online crit group (though I think I've covered many of their issues already) but it's a start!

Now I'm only SIX days behind on my New! Improved! revise a chapter a day plan for July.  Somehow that makes me feel a little better.  I may even catch up at some point! 

Okay, here it is, my public mea culpa in which I outline all the things I did NOT get done during June and reset my goals for July.  Because I need to have goals, whether I accomplish them or not.

So in June, I was supposed to revise a chapter a day of the YA.  Ideally, I then would have had a complete revision by June 30th.  I did make it all the way through the end of Chapter Three.  Unfortunately, that means that this project has now moved to July.  Fortunately, as it's only July 2nd, I can now pretend that I don't have any more revisions to tackle until July 4th, when I can once more attempt the dreaded, soul-sucking Chapter Four.  We'll see how this goes.

As for the other goals, well, the Eternal Short Story is still eternally unfinished, though it's a little bit closer to done.  Nothing else has been done.  Submissions are effectively stalled, and I still have not heard from that agent who has my full of Book One, so I'm guessing I need to start subbing that out to the two publishers I'd like to take a look at it before I bury it under the bed.

So that's it!  Mostly I'm just going to focus on revisions of the YA so I can start subbing that by the end of summer.  If I can get that out, I'll be satisfied.

Managed to settle down and bust out 767 words on the Eternal Short Story today.  I'm finally getting a handle on it, though it's far from done.

Tired now.  Going to nap, work a little html magic, and maybe see a movie by myself, since I have no kids, no husband, and no houseguests until at least 4:30. 

The chapter-a-day revision plan is currently on hiatus, but will return soon (and, hopefully, with a vengeance).  Stay tuned.

I finally managed to finish revision of Chapter Two, which took me the better part of three days (grrrr).  Why, you ask?  Because I effectively rewrote almost every word in the entire chapter.  I also took about 5 pages of a later chapter and worked them in here, so those were rewritten too (so somewhere around Chapter Six I will catch up to my revise-a-chapter-a-day plan, right?).  Despite all kinds of angst about whether or not I'm doing the right thing by totally restructuring, and whether or not the rewrite sucks, blah blah blah, I am pleased with the end result.

Now I've got to work for a couple of hours, and then hopefully I'll have the energy to start Chapter Three, since I'm technically supposed to be on Chapter Four today.  I'm not going to beat myself up if I don't get to it, though; after all, June does have more days in it than I have chapters to revise, so in theory I'm still on track for having this revision done by the end of June.

Okay, I've been gearing up for this for some time, but haven't gotten around to it yet: it's time to shout out some goals for June! I need goals to motivate me; in the absence of them I sort of just flounder around and think about writing, revising, etc., but never really do. So here they are, in all their glory, so you all can hold me accountable:

• Revise Rat's Tale.  I'd really like to start sending this out before WorldCon, so my plan is to revise a chapter a day in June.  As there are fewer than 30 chapters in the book, this is definitely a reasonable goal, even taking into consideration some major rewrites and rearranging that I'm already planning. 
• Finish the Eternal Short Story once!  And for all!  Just to get it out of my brain.  I'd like to have this done by June 15th so I can inflict it on my crit group.
• Revise and horror-up the dark little short story I wrote a while back as catharsis and see if I can send it off somewhere.
• Figure out which novel I'm going to tackle once Rat is out the door.  While this is a project I probably won't start until July or August, I need to decide whether I'm going to finish Book Two (especially since Book One has yet to find an agent or publisher-- see next bullet), actually write Book Three as a stand-alone, marketable book instead of third in a trilogy (which may actually work, the more I think about it) or the PTA spy novel (which makes me laugh-- and laughing is good).  I also have an idea for a not-quite-sequel to Rat that I'm considering.  I don't have a firm plot in mind for it yet, but it would tell a self-contained story from the ever-popular Kiri's POV, and maybe even further some things that I didn't really touch on fully in Rat.
• Last, but definitely not least, I need to make some decisions about Book One.  At least one agent still has the full on her desk.  However, I am leaning toward sending the full out to two publishers by the end of summer to see what happens.  According to the guidelines of one publisher, this book is right up their alley.  The other might at least give it a read based on my VP cred.  If they both reject, then I will consider Book One officially trunked.

And that's it!  In reality, that's a lot for June, but I'm an optimist.  If I get through even half of this list I'll feel productive again.

Okay, my short story writing friends!  I need motivation to finish up and/ or revise three short stories lying neglected in my documents file.  I'm thinking about entering some contests.

One short story is fantasy, one is sci-fi/ space fantasy, one leans toward horror/ gen. literary fiction.  So far, I'm looking at the Tom Howard Contest and the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Contest.  Know anything about these?  Do you have suggestions for other contests?  Warnings?  General advice?

Thanks!

I finished grading one class set of papers (30), so I rewarded myself by writing another 451  words on Thief.  I'm not thrilled with this scene, though.  This story is going to be the death of me.  Writing short stories is hard!  Isn't this supposed to be fun?  Whine, whine, whine....

At least I've got words on the page.  I'm setting aside some time tomorrow morning to write some more, so maybe those words won't suck in the sunlight.  Meanwhile, I'm going to bed so I can rest up for the busy week I've got ahead of me.  If I don't hit the ground running tomorrow, I'm not going to make it.

384 words today on Thief, which brings it to just under 2,000.  More importantly, I figured out some very important story questions that have been nagging at me for quite some time.  I'm looking forward to getting back into the story this weekend, although I don't think I'll be back up to 500 words a day-- or even daily writing goals, for that matter-- until I get some serious work done on the pile of essays that I haven't really dented yet.  

Nor will I have a chance to get real work done on the essay problem until Sunday, as tomorrow is Opening Day for softball and Girl Scout cookie pickup (naturally, both at the same time and across town).  I've already taken to carrying little batches of essays with me like baby albatross that suck up room in my purse and make my shoulder hurt.  Essay season sucks.

Nevertheless, I'm hoping to finish a draft of Thief by... let's say the end of February.  Ambitious, no?  We'll find out.

So it's been 8 whole days since I finished my novel, and I'm finally starting to feel like a slacker (despite graded essays to the contrary).  I think I need to start writing every day again.  The hard part is deciding what to work on.  I keep dismissing my short stories by telling myself that they'll be done in such a short time that I'll find myself in the "what next?" phase again.  The reality is, writing short stories IS HARD and I don't wanna!  Even if they are half-finished!  Even though it would be nice to have three completed short stories sitting in slush piles all at the same time!  Even though I can practically hear jeffsoesbe cheering me on!

But first, I have an application due tomorrow for a Real Job at a Community College that needs editing and printing.  I have a few papers to grade ASAP.  And-- here's the kicker-- I'm taking a cycling class for the first time tonight.  I fully expect to be in a wheelchair by morning.

So if all of those stars align and I get everything done, then Project Short Story begins tonight.  Otherwise, I'm back in the saddle on Friday.   

First off, thanks so much to everyone for your congratulations and support!  I don't think writing really is as solitary an exercise as we like to believe.  I know I really value my community of writing friends, and I couldn't have gotten through this novel without all of the pushing, prodding, nagging and cheering of all of you every step of the way!

But now that the time-suck that was this novel is done (at least until I begin the revision), I am trying to come up with a list of other ways to fill that time.  For I find that I spent much of yesterday and this morning following the lead of Mr. Earbrass (as 

jeffsoesbe most excellently suggested in yesterday's comments):   

"The next day Mr. Earbrass is conscious but very little more. He wanders through the house, leaving doors open and empty tea cups on the floor. From time to time the thought occurs to him that he really ought to go and dress, and he gets up several minutes later, only to sit down again in the first chair he comes to. The better part of a week will have elapsed before he has recovered enough to do anything more helpful."
 
This is good enough for now, but I would go nuts if I spent the better part of a week wandering aimlessly through my house.  Instead, these are the projects I've got on the to-do list so far:

- finish "The Thief of Names," a short story I started approximately 100 years ago that still isn't finished.
- finish "Under the Leaves of Orpheus," the short story I started at VP last October (hello, my homework STILL isn't done!  I suck!)
- finish Book Two (aka The Northern Queen), the as-now approximately 26,000 word sequel to the pile of paper I lovingly refer to as Book One.
- revise (and retitle) The Rat's Tale (but it's not time yet-- needs to sit).
- begin my as-yet-untitled PTA novel (yeah, baby!  It's cooking in my brain-oven as we speak!)

My main writing goals this year were to finish two books (Rat and Queen) and finish and send out my two short stories.  My marketing goals are to continue pimping out Book One to agents first, then a couple of editors, and begin marketing Rat.  I don't have any firm plans to attend writer's conferences this year at this point, although I am looking into attending Worldcon and perhaps Baycon.  I may also hit Comic-Con, because it's practically in my backyard.

Wow, look at that really intimidating list of things I could be working on!  And hey, time for lunch. . . maybe a nap. . . does that cat need waxing. . . ?

 

1,911 words later, I am finished with the full first draft of The Rat's Tale.  Woohoo!

Finishing a book always feels like such a relief; at the same time, it's a quiet victory.  No roaring crowds, no finish line, no ticker tape parade, no victory dance, just the quiet tap-tap-tap of the keyboard falling into silence.

Final count: 84,506 words.

Now what?