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Archive for the ‘Writing Progress Report’ Category

2010 Recap Addendum

I figured maybe I should post my submission/rejection stats for 2010 as well (all the cool kids are doing it… or something).

So here are the rough totals:

Current Race Score: 41
Current eRace Score: 3

Stories submitted: 34
Novels submitted: 3
Total Rejections: 151
Personal rejections: 93
Stories Sold: 3
Novels Sold: 0
Rewrite requests: 2 (one rejected, one pending)
Stories currently being held for “final” consideration: 4
Full novels out: 1
Writers of the Future results: Q1- HM, Q2- Semi-finalist, Q3- HM, Q4- unknown

So yeah. A ton of rejection, a few sales, lots of personal rejections, some interest in a couple of my novels, and mostly just me needing to get more work done, get better at writing, and get more out. If you count my 2009 totals into the rejections I’m at well over 200. W00t? But at least it is one measure that I’m submitting and writing and submitting more. Hopefully I can double or triple everything (rejections, sales, race scores etc) for 2011.

Chwedl Status: DONE

I intend to write up a nice long and thoughtful post about the process of writing this novel.

Since I just finished it in one marathon session, I think that post can wait.

For now, all you get is my YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATAAAAAAAAAAAA.

Done.  Too short, probably a hideous mess that no one will ever want to read, but done.  Done.

Hey, there’s a reason they call it a rough draft, and that editing was invented.

But hey. Done.

Writing Progress Report and Lists!

Because we know how much the internet loves lists.  Sorry, no bullets.

First, got another nice rejection.  I entered into my tracking sheet and then for fun counted up the number of rejections and looked at how many are form and how many came with a note.  I have 15 rejections so far for short stories.  6 are form letter, 1 is a negative comment, and 8 are ‘positive’ rejections (good writing, well received, send more, that sort of comment).  So the positive rejections out number the negative or form letter ones.  Apparently this is a good thing and a sign of tremendous progress.  I’m just keeping my head down and figuring out where to send what next.  15 down, 485 rejections left to go!

On to the lists!

Things in progress:

Chwedl: 61,000 words so far, but I’ve hit a snag since I realized I needed to go back and add an entire thread of motivation to make the actions of my main char in the events ahead far more plausible.  I aim to have the draft of this done by mid September.

Casimir Hypogean: rewrite is sitting at about 9k I think.  This is what I’ll get to before the end of this year.  I aim to write the two sequels next year as soon as I’m done with the rewrite.  I thought long and hard about bothering to write sequels to an unsold book (conventional wisdom says don’t!), but I think I’m going to ignore that wisdom this time.  I’m unpublished, which means I don’t exactly have deadlines on other things at the moment, plus given an optimistic publishing time-frame, say this book was picked up for publication and then they wanted the sequels written.  It could be anywhere from 3-6 years from finishing the first before I’d even begin a sequel.  That’s too long for me, right now.  I have the story and world firmly in mind and while the first book works fine as a stand-alone, the second two are definitely tied together and I want them to work well as a unit.  Even if I spend another year writing these three books, I’ll still have learned something about writing (and writing a series) whether they sell or not.  So that’s my justification.

Steampunk detective novel:  started doing some research for the setting of the first one.  It’ll likely be a year before I start writing it, but I do love me some research.

Romance novel that has hijacked my brains:  I might start this just to see where it goes.  Series romance is only 70k words generally, so maybe I can tinker with it in my “spare” writing time.  I certainly love to read romances, so maybe I’ll try writing one.  This one involves a girl with a beautiful singing voice and a violent past and of course a handsome composer/violinist, an opera house, and dark secrets.  (No masked men living underneath the opera house, sorry…)

Werewolves in Space: now a novella!  I had the idea at Worldcon to turn this into a novella sort of prequel to a later novel.  I’ve actually cut the werewolf and love story from the plot.  I wasn’t sure this novel ever had enough plot to really sustain 100k words, so I think this will be a good compromise.  Now I just have to keep it under 17k words.

Short stories:  I have so many percolating in my brains at the moment, I’m going to have to write one a week just to clear my plate.  I’m hoping I can revive Monday Short Story Day starting next Monday.  Sampling of stories includes: Rusalka story, ‘glitter kitten’, ‘shrub daughter’, ‘I, vermin’, jellyfish in space, ‘sparks’, time traveling thief, ‘Tesla’s Daughter’, world as we know it ends (telemarketer) story, ‘The insanity of Mr Leads’, ‘Maskmaker’, and Bloodgood’s cat origin mystery story.  My notes make more sense than this list, somewhat.

On the plus side, I now have 9 short stories out making the rounds, which isn’t bad considering back in Feb when I started I only had two.

Time to prioritize and write like a madwoman.  It’s funny, before Worldcon I never considered myself that prolific, but I think I’m right in the middle as far as I can tell from the sampling I got there about other people’s work habits.  The last six weeks have been a total momentum killer, however.  Between Worldcon, Flu, Alaska, and moving, I’ve gotten almost nothing done (1 short story written, 2 revised, only about half a chapter on Chwedl).  Time to get back in the habit of the everyday and get some projects finished.  I’m giving myself a mini-deadline on the Werewolves in Space novella because I’d like to have it done in time for this quarter of WoTF contest.

So that’s the report for August 2009.  We’ll see where I’m at in December or there abouts.

Writing Projects Update n Stuff

It’s been a while since I wrote up a comprehensive “what I’m doing/going to do/hate etc…” sort of progress report, so here goes!

Currently in submission process:

Space Bones, Rusalka (poem), and Delilah.

Number of rejections in 2009:   2 (1 form,  1 w/comments)

Projects I’m editing:

Delilah (though I might have worn myself out on that…)

Blade Bearer- currently waiting until it gets critiqued at NorWesCon

Monsters- need to tweak the middle and change the ending.

Novels in progress:

Chwedl- 56k words, currently working on how to solve problem of finding two matching stones on a beach.  Goal is to be done by April or so (hello/goodbye spring break!)

Casimir Hypogean- rewrite is approx 7k words now, currently on hiatus due to massive hate of this novel and stuckness with how to pull threads together.

Werewolves in Space- outlined but probably holding off until after Thesis.

War Witches- is going to be my thesis. I have basic character ideas and some plot.  Also, now I have a list of books to start reading this summer or there abouts for research since this is going to be the toughest project I’ve taken on yet between historical/cultural accuracy issues and the whole slavery thing.

Nadia’s Tale- semi-outlined (this is a sequel to Casimir Hypogean) (working title).

As yet Unamed Third Lorean novel- the final novel in the Casimir Hypogean world.  Yes, the plot of this cropped up when I realized there was no good way to end the second book without a giant war/cultural clusterdoom.

Darkside of Revenge- A novel which started as a short story idea in my head and has quickly tried to utterly dominate my thinking for the last couple of months despite being aggressively back-burnered.  I’m not even sure this story works beyond one dimension (revenge stories are awfully hard to do well), but it would mean I get to write about horses and a lot of clever murder/revenge/cool made up horse culture.  And that would be freaking awesome.  Stupid novel. Go away!  (scribbles down some more notes).

Epic Sprawling Node Novel- I think I’m about 10 years out from being sophisticated enough to write this novel. It has everything:  conspiracy, dragons, an apocalypse, angels, prophesy, demons, love, war, and pirates.

Epic Sprawling Fantasy Novel with Maps- I’m about 3 or 4 years away from being cool enough to write this.  And probably a few hundred hours of research on the cultures I want to shamelessly appropriate to make this tale of gladiators, slavery, nomadic/magical OE horse people, blood rituals, and godhood work at all properly.

Projects I’d like to start:

More flash fiction.  I think I’m going to set myself a goal of writing a decent bit of flash and editing it each month.  I suck most at dialogue and beginnings, so really, writing something super short should help me tighten up at least one of those problems.

Revive Monday short story day.  It got me Space Bones, after all, which is so far my favorite story that I’ve ever written.

I also think I should try to write some more speculative poetry, mostly for a lark because I do think it’s passing strange that I don’t really write it, oh, ever.

To sum up:  I have too much to do.  Why am I still awake?

Writing Update July

Saturday the 5th is my last day of work.  Starting next week, I’m launching into being a full time writer (well, and student once that starts, but it is for writing, so it hopefully won’t slow me down too much).

So it is time for an update on what I’m working on and what I intend for the next 6 months or so.

Things That Need Doing:

Dangerous novel rewrite/2-3 months.

Poetry chapbook for school funding: I meant to do this, still might.

Monsters short story rewrite: By September

Delilah short story revision: End of July

Bladebearer short story rewrite: By September

Projects that will be started and/or finished in 2008:

Bad Day graphic novel (the written part at least, we’ll see how Law School treats my artist). This is about half done now (the writing part).

Past Dark graphic novels (started hopefully, definitely not finished since that could take a long time).  This is partially done, not sure when/if it will be finished (the writing part).

Werewolves in Space novel: outlined fully now, will be started next.

Chwedl novel: outlined fully, have about 200 handwritten words so far.  I think this will be my “when tired of staring at computer screen” project since I’m crazily writing it by hand.

Writing Projects Update

I think I’m going to do quasi-monthly updates on what I’m doing so I can later see what my progress looks like.

Right now I’m working on/time to completion:

Dangerous novel rewrite/2-3 months.  Word count: 0

Poetry chapbook for school funding/next week.

Monsters short story revision /next two weeks.

Delilah short story revision for S&S maybe/next week.

Aefryr short story revision (for S&S maybe?)/next two weeks.

Some Like it Hot short story revision (for S&S maybe?)/next two weeks.

Projects that will be started and/or finished in 2008:

Bad Day graphic novel (the written part at least, we’ll see how Law School treats my artist).

Past Dark graphic novels (started hopefully, definitely not finished since that could take a long time).

Werewolves in Space novel (started at least.)

Chwedl novel (started).

Two more as yet unnamed and undecided short stories (my goal is to write at least 4 a year along with a novel every year).

(Why yes, I do love me the multi-tasking, why do you ask?)