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Posts Tagged ‘Multiple Projects’

Making Plans

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 21, 2012| 4 Comments »

When I look ahead, I’m feeling a little scattered, so it’s time to lay out a plan again.

E-Publishing:

  1. “Heart of Oak” is out. I’ve made four sales so far–two on Amazon and two on Smashwords. Not exactly setting the world on fire, but then I haven’t done very much to try to promote it, either. Actually, “Heart of Oak” is likely to be part of the promotion when I eventually get BLOOD WILL TELL out.
  2. “Becoming Lioness” is another novelette, currently out on submission. I should be hearing in the next week or so. If it comes back, it’ll be my next e-publishing venture.
  3. “The Music Box” is a novella I had shelved because it’s really much more romance than fantasy. The speculative element is very slight and, in fact, you could remove it altogether and the story wouldn’t be noticeably changed. But I’ve always liked it anyway, so I keep coming back to it. So, I’m halfway through a revision right now. I’ll probably try to get a critique or two. Then I’ll either submit it to the same market that has “Becoming Lioness” now or just e-pub it.
  4. All this leads up to e-publishing BLOOD WILL TELL probably at the end of April or the beginning of May. It’s ready to go except for the specific e-publishing formatting, but that’ll be more complicated than for the shorter works. One or more of the shorter works published in advance of this will probably then be used as giveaways to help pomote the novel.
  5. I’ll need to make the revisions to BLOOD IS THICKER, the sequel to BLOOD WILL TELL, so I can e-publish this sometime later this year.
  6. Then I’ll have to write the third book in the series BLOOD STAINS, so that I can e-publish it no later than this time next year.

Traditional Publishing:

I haven’t given up on this.

  1. I’m still querying MAGE STORM, at least until I get FIRE AND EARTH (formerly SEVEN STARS) ready to query.
  2. I need to finish up the last little details to get FIRE AND EARTH ready to start querying, probably next month. I think the query’s good–for this pass anyway. Experience tells me I’ll probably do a revision or two during the querying process. I do need to polish up the synopsis. I’ve got some feedback coming in on the first chapter. I’ll need to give that a shine and also make one more pass through the whole thing before starting to query.
  3. MAGIC’S FOOL is out for critiques now. I’ll need to make revisions to that, too, when all the critiques come back.
  4. I’ve started work on MAGIC’S APPRENTICE, sequel to MAGIC’S FOOL, but I’ll probably be setting this aside, soon. It really doesn’t make much sense to devote a lot of time to the sequel before I even start querying the first book.
  5. I’m just about ready to start work on the first draft of THE BARD’S GIFT, my young adult alternate history (with dragons).

All right. No wonder I’m feeling a little scattered, is it? Now all I have to do is prioritize. For the moment:

  1. Finish the revision to “The Music Box” and decide what to do with it.
  2. Get ready to query FIRE AND EARTH.
  3. Start THE BARD’S GIFT.
  4. Revisions to MAGIC’S FOOL.
  5. Prepare BLOOD WILL TELL for e-publishing.

That ought to keep me busy for the next couple of months.

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General Update

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , on February 5, 2012| 6 Comments »

Today, I think I’ll do a general update on what I’ve been working on and what I expect to work on. In chronological order, they are:

BLOOD WILL TELL:

 Paranormal Romance. This is the one I’m seriously considering e-publishing. It’s just not enough like anything I’m writing now or plan to write for it to be worthwhile continuing to look for an agent for it.

Here’s the cover I’ve come up with.

MAGE STORM: Middle Grade Fantasy. I’m continuing to query this one. Just had a request for the full manuscript last week. Fingers crossed.

SEVEN STARS: Young Adult Fantasy. This one has been resting so I can look at it with fresh eyes. It’s just about time to take it out again to do what I hope will be the final polishing edit. I’m going to start work on the query and the synopsis just as soon as I finish up this revision of MAGIC’S FOOL.

MAGIC’S FOOL: Middle Grade Fantasy. I’m on the last chapter of the fourth draft. Typically, it’s turning out to be one of the hardest. Here I thought I was going to skate to the end. Ha!

This one goes out to readers next month. Then, I’m sure, there’ll be more revisions.

BLOOD IS THICKER: Paranormal Romance. This is the sequel to BLOOD WILL TELL. It’s still in first draft, with some revision notes from alpha readers. I don’t usually put my first drafts up for critique, but somehow both BLOOD WILL TELL and BLOOD IS THICKER ended up that way. I’m reasonably happy with about two-thirds of it, but I hate the last third or so. Well, that’s what first drafts are for.

THE BARD’S GIFT: Young Adult Alternate History. I’ve kind of fallen behind in the research for this one. I need to get back on it.

However, it’s anybody’s guess whether the next thing I write will be THE BARD’S GIFT or MAGIC’S APPRENTICE (the sequel to MAGIC’S FOOL). I’m kind of into those characters right now. Still, it would be smarter to write something different at least until I have an idea how MAGIC’S FOOL will go. Of course, there’s also that retelling of “Little Furball” I’ve been thinking about.

Oh, and somewhere in there I’ve got to get back to writing a few short stories. I have half a dozen ideas stacked up, now. And I really do need to follow up that Honorabe Mention from Writers of the Future. I just have to find the tme.

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Getting Around Blocks

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »

A while back, I posted that I was stuck near the end of BLOOD IS THICKER. I’d lost the momentum and was having trouble getting it back. I played around with designing a cover for BLOOD WILL TELL for a while. (That’s still a work in progress, but it’s getting better.) But sooner or later, I had to come back and just find a way to finish BLOOD IS THICKER.

Well, this last week, I have. And here’s what I did:

I went ahead and wrote the last chapter. I had it all pretty much in my head anyway. That I could write with no problem. It was the stuff in between where I was and that ending that was the problem.

I outlined the half-dozen scenes I needed to get there. Generally, I’m more of a discovery writer than a plotter, but in an emergency I can outline. I usually just don’t find them very useful. I’m too apt to depart from them and end up being a pantser anyway. But, for a handful of scenes, it works fine.

Then I gave myself an assignment. Every day I would write one–just one–of those scenes. After that, I would let myself work on the second draft of MAGIC’S FOOL.

And that has been working for me. Just one more scene to go and then I can skip to the bottom and type “The End”.

Whew!

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Multiple Projects Status

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , on September 21, 2011| 9 Comments »

So far, I’m liking this multiple projects approach. It doesn’t matter when I sit down to right, there’s always something I can work on.

In the next week or so, I’ll be wrapping up some revisions to SEVEN STARS. I need to work on one early action scene that got a little too much in the head and not enough in the action. It needs just a touch or two of scene-setting, too. I think I’ve got one other scene I want to look at. And then I want to work a bit on the opening. I’m afraid the main character feels just a little too old in that scene. SEVEN STARS is young adult, after all. So I want to add just a touch, a few paragraphs at most, to show her true age before she shows her competent professional side on page 2. I don’t want her actual age to come as a surprise on page 5. And, while she is sure of herself, she needs to have enough youthful and human traits to make her sympathetic before everything falls apart for her in chapter 2.

MAGIC’S FOOL hasn’t advanced very far, yet. But I know what I’m going to do next. I just have to let the scene work out in my head a little more.

Fortunately, that’s not stopping me from writing, because I’ve also got BLOOD IS THICKER. Like its prequel, BLOOD WILL TELL, this one is just plain fun to work on. I’m well into chapter 3, which sets up a couple of conflicts that will parallel the main conflict. Chapter 4 is where the bottom is going to drop out and things go from “Okay, that’s a problem, but we can work around it” to “What just happened and what the heck do we do now.” That’s where the fun is really going to start.

Gearing up for some edits on MAGE STORM, too. I’d like to get that one back out into circulation. I’m just not confident in the first three chapters right now. Only the most critical chapters in the whole thing, right? Actually, I think the first chapter’s pretty good. A couple of quick edits are probably all it needs. Its the second and third chapters where I’m afraid I lost my way in the last revision. I’m just not sure I get my main character to where he needs to be to make the decision to strike out on his own. And, um, too much dialogue–internal and external–for middle grade. Really. Cut to the action (instead of cutting the action).

Yep, I think that’ll keep me busy into next month.

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Multitasking

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , on September 14, 2011| 9 Comments »

First a little housekeeping. Some of you who visited this blog more than three months ago or so may have noticed that several pages were missing from the worlds tab. They related to the world of my first two novels–the same world as MAGIC’S FOOL. But also the same world as a short story I had entered in Writers of the Future. Since the judging of that contest is blind (nobody knows whose story they’re reading), I hid those pages. Since “Becoming Lioness” didn’t place, I’ve put them back.

Now, on to the meat of today’s topic. I’ve decided to try something different. I’m going to have two projects going at once–not, as often happens, one in revision and one in first draft. No, I’m going to try two first drafts at the same time. No idea if I can pull this off, especially with two such different stories. I guess I’ll find out.

The reason I’m doing this is that I’m pretty much stopped on MAGIC’S FOOL. Not blocked. I know what comes next. I can write it. I just don’t. I’ve been trying to figure out why this is. At first, I thought it was my concern over the central conflict. Having had to break up the much longer THE SHAMAN’S CURSE into pieces left me with a more internal conflict for the first story and that worries me a little, especially for a middle grade story.

But, having thought about that, I decided that I should follow Kevin J. Anderson’s advice and just dare to be bad (at first). Get the first draft down and then I can worry about fixing it. That doesn’t seem to have increased my enthusiasm for this project, though.

Now, I think I know what it is. MAGIC’S FOOL is a twice-told tale. I’ve already told the story. True, I’ve reimagined some elements of it, moved some things around, deleted others. But still, I’ve already told this story once. This is the reason some of us (like me) don’t outline extensively. Once I’ve told a story, the excitement isn’t the same.

That doesn’t mean I’m giving up on MAGIC’S FOOL. I just think I’m going to have to approach it differently than I do most first drafts. Instead of immersing myself in it and coming up for air with a completed first draft after six to eight weeks, I’m going to have to go more slowly. I think I may have to be content to just get a chunk done at a time–a chapter or two, perhaps.

But that’s not enough writing for me. The one thing I know for sure is that I won’t get anywhere by standing still. So I’m also, as of this morning, starting on BLOOD IS THICKER, the first sequel to BLOOD WILL TELL. (see a theme, there? Fooled you. It’s not what you think. No vampires, here.)

I normally just write down the ideas for sequels and move on to something new because, if the first book doesn’t sell the odds are even worse for the sequel. In terms of traditional publishing, you’re better off working on something different.

But, traditional publishing is no longer the only game in town and BLOOD WILL TELL is my prime candidate for e-publishing if I can’t generate some real interest in it this go-round. And, with e-publishing, it’s an advantage to have sequels to bring out relatively soon after the first book.

I have to start seriously thinking about that. December or January would probably be the optimal time to e-publish, if that’s what I’m going to do. And I really need the time to figure out what I’m going to do about a cover.

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Writing Schedule

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , on July 13, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Subject to change. Let’s face it, if anyone offers to buy either MAGE STORM or BLOOD WILL TELL, I’ll switch these priorities to basically whatever they want, probably the continuation of either of those series.

I’ve finished the revisions to BLOOD WILL TELL. Now I need to rework the query and probably the synopsis and start sending it out again.

I’ve also finished the revisions to MAGE STORM, so I need to check the query and synopsis and start sending it back out, too.

Conventional wisdom says not to try to query two books at the same time, but this is one convention I’m willing to buck. I’ve got two ready for market. They’re very different stories for different markets. I see no reason not to query both of them.

Of the next books I’m ready to start on, the first book of the series tentatively titled THE HARBINGER (although I’m actually not sure whether that will be the title of the series or of one of the later books in the series) is calling to me. That is probably the very best way to choose what to work on next. The working title is MAGIC’S FOOL. If the story is ready, I can generally write a first draft in about four to six weeks.

Well before that, the first readers’ critiques of SEVEN STARS will be back. (I’ve got one already.) So I’ll take care of those revisions, essentially the third draft, and then set it aside to rest for at least six months.

Then, I’ll start on BLOOD IS THICKER, the sequel to BLOOD WILL TELL. If I don’t get any bites on BWT, this is the series I’m thinking of taking to e-publishing next year.

By then I’ll be ready for the second draft of MAGIC’S FOOL, followed by the second draft of BLOOD IS THICKER.

That ought to keep me busy for the next few months, anyway.

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Switching Gears

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , on May 18, 2011| Leave a Comment »

After Agents Day, I switched my focus back to MAGE STORM, naturally. I’ve just completed a read through with minor revisions. I didn’t find too much that needed changing to meet the agent’s questions from the synopsis. I did try to bring out a couple of things a little more and trimmed a little from the middle. I want to go over that middle section again and then suck in a deep breath and send it off.

I still need to go over the new query again and take a serious look at that synopsis.

Then, I need to get back to my priorities from before Agents Day, mainly the second draft of SEVEN STARS and a revision to my quarter three Writers of the Future entry, if I can get it done in time. I’ve got some serious brainstorming to do on that one. I need to find a way to make the magic system a little more new and unique, if I can. Oh, and there are revisions to BLOOD WILL TELL, too.

And critiques to do, as usual.

Well, whatever else happens, I’m not going to be bored.

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Working on Multiple Projects

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , on April 13, 2011| Leave a Comment »

My primary writing task right now is the revision to BLOOD WILL TELL. That’s been going very well–nine chapters in just the last four days. But I’m a believer in Kevin J. Anderson’s Tip #4 for Writing Productivity (among others), so I’m rarely working on just one thing.

Tip #4 is to have multiple projects in different phases. The different kinds of effort don’t conflict because you’re using different parts of your brain and being able to switch off when you hit a sticking point or just get tired of one thing keeps you working on your writing, not surfing the internet.

So, my main task is this revision, but at the same time, I’m:

  1. Brainstorming and doing some research on the next story (THE BARD’S GIFT).
  2. Getting ready to start the second draft of SEVEN STARS.
  3. Working on selling the last completed story (MAGE STORM). Right now, that means reworking the query and synopsis for another round of submissions.
  4. Making various revisions to three short stories.
  5. Making decisions about what to do with an older story (DREAMER’S ROSE).
  6. Preparing for the Agents Day event next month.
  7. And doing a number of critiques. In fact, I expect the number of critiques to begin picking up dramatically next week when the first round of exchanges for the Hatrack River Writers Workshop WotF Critique Group starts up.

Sometimes these things dovetail in unexpected ways. For the Agents Day, I had to reduce my one-and-a-half page synopsis for MAGE STORM to a single page. That was in interestng exercise in itself and not one I probably would have forced myself to do otherwise. But, like writing elevator pitches, it forces you to concentrate on what’s really important and what’s a distraction 0r at best a subplot.

And the elevator pitch for MAGE STORM has made me concentrate more on what’s key in that story. I think I carried the last query pitch too far into the story, so that gives me ideas on what to change in the next round.

Gotta love synergy.

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