Meredith Mansfield, Author

I’m in that transition phase. I finished up the revision on BLOOD WILL TELL, at least until I can get a reader or two. I’m ready to start the second draft of SEVEN STARS. The problem is, it just takes me a couple of days to get my head out of one story and into the other.

So, during the transition, I’ve been working a little on  polishing up the start of SEVEN STARS, but I’ve also been working on a few other things.

1. I polished up “Heart of Oak”, cut about 300 words (not as many as I wanted to, but as many as I felt I could) and sent it out again. It had been sitting on my hard drive for almost a month. Not going to find a home that way. At 9500 words, there aren’t that many appropriate markets for this one. It may turn out to be my first e-published story later this year.
2. I’ve worked on my query for MAGE STORM. This is actually going to work out well, since it appears one of my writer’s forums will have a query challenge next month. I’m not actually planning on sending out any more queries until the middle of May. That’s when I go to my second-ever writer’s event. Agents Day, hosted by the local chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. I’ll be getting a critique of the beginning of MAGE STORM there. Might as well wait and see what I can polish up before the next round of queries.
3. I’m looking over another short story, “The Bard’s Gift” to see if I can polish it up a little before sending it back out again. It’s been sitting on my hard drive almost as long as “Heart of Oak”.