Oh, Blogland… How is it September already? Surely that’s illegal? It ought to be illegal for summer to go by without my enjoying a single hike! I want to talk to time’s manager!
August Goals
- Read + Revise Victoria
- Read 4 Books
- Survive this month
How'd I Do?
- Read + Revise Victoria
- Yep! I have read it through (twice!) and finished the first round of revision!
- Read 4 Books
- Hahahahahahahaha. No.
- Survive this month
- I suppose that, since I am typing this, I am technically alive, which would suggest survival. Sanity is a separate matter…
Total Word Count: 2,497
If July was lovely, then August was…. bustling. Between twitter pitch events, day-job responsibilities ramping up, a writing conference, a family reunion, and a pretty ambitious set of goals, it’s a miracle I’m upright! It’s also been hot as balls this month and when I tell you I am sick of sweating…
Anyway. The piece really worth talking about here is the revision. It was kind of a blur, to be honest. I had the printed manuscript, got some feedback during the conference (in addition to the wonderful feedback my critique partners have been giving me these last few months), and dove into reading.
I knew that this manuscript was different. That it wouldn’t require quite the same style of revision that I’m used to because it’s so faithfully plotted off of the source material. But that didn’t mean I was prepared for how taxing it would be to revise a non-linear, document-based book. It’s a lot of moving pieces, literally.
But, I also wasn’t prepared for how clear and present the story would be. Usually I have to sort of excavate the story from all the plot I’ve put on the page, then clean it up and make sure it’s all in the right place, packing as much punch as possible. But with Victoria all the plot AND story was there, clear as day. Just needed to brush off some of the dust and polish it to a shine.
I don’t think it’s shining just yet, but it’s close. Close enough that I’ll be sending the full manuscript to some beta readers very, very soon. Which is nuts. And that I was able to get to this point in the busiest month of my summer?!?
Let’s look at how I made this happen.
Hours Check
- Reading: 6.5 Hours
- Just one book completed this month, but it was a really good one!
- Willamette Writers Meetings: 7 Hours
- I did not count conference time in this because then the numbers would be off the charts!
- Website Management: 12.5 Hours
- Man, this thing takes a lot of time. But I wrote and posted a bit this month, and the newsletter went out on time, so I’m happy!
- Twitter Pitch Events: 2.5 Hours
- I’d never participated in a twitter pitch event before. Writing a pitch for your novel, along with all the required hashtags, in only 280 characters??? Is SO. EFFING. HARD. So hard! But I’m really glad I did it. Not only did I get an agent like which led to a full manuscript request (still pending), but it also made me much more confident in talking about my book. I highly recommend giving it a shot if you have the time and energy.
- Short Story Submissions: 3.5 Hours
- A relatively quiet month for story submissions. No major rejections, and no good news (yet).
- Queries: 1 Hour
- An extremely quiet month for querying. Other than sending my query package to the agent who liked on of my twitter pitches, it’s been very quiet on the querying front.
- Victoria Revision: 10 Hours
- As I said earlier, this went incredibly quickly. Much quicker than I anticipated. I feel good about the manuscript and am looking forward to getting away from it for a week or two while betas have it. Then I can get it tweaked and polished by October and call it DONE.
- SFWA Application: .5 Hours
I received payment for The Lament of Kivu Lacus back in July, which means I’ve officially qualified to be a Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) Associate Member! WAY back in 2018, when I first started publishing short fiction again, I decided I wanted to earn a membership within two years. Well, it turns out publishing is slow af and I have absolutely zero control over story acceptances. But, four years still feels pretty damn good. Not gonna lie.
- Miscellaneous Revision: 1 Hour
- I decided to polish up a couple of flash fiction pieces I had lying around and send them out. Didn’t take long, and I haven’t heard anything about them yet. Fingers crossed!
- Beta Reading: 5.5 Hours
- One of my critique partners has finished the rough draft of her novel and got a TON of requests during her pitches at the Willamette Writers Conference. She’s been panicking about getting it ready to submit, so I put Victoria aside for a week and helped her out. I am very excited about this book and I can’t wait for you all to read it some day. It’s just a matter of time.
- Podcast: 4 Hours
- We recorded and edited and it will be out this Friday! Are you caught up?
- Bell Biv Derailed Edits: .5 Hours
- I received my edit letter from the editor. It was blissfully brief, and I was able to hammer out the changes and send it back the same day. It feels good, man.
Total Hours: 54.5
I won’t lie, I thought that number would be higher. I felt so fucking busy, like I was barely home. And then once I was there was the looming threat of returning to work putting a damper on everything. But really, this was a very good month! Let’s hope September can keep up…
September Goals
- Write Victoria Query Package Rough Draft
- Read 20 minutes/day
- Finish Victoria Revision #2
These are pretty straightforward goals, don’t you think? I’ve finished the first round of revisions on Victoria and am sending it to beta readers later this week. While they read, I’m going to work on the query letter, synopsis, and some twitter pitches. I want to get these going since I’m hoping to need them in October, and I like the perspective they give me on the book before I’m finished with it.
Although thinking about writing a synopsis for a non-linear, epistolary book makes me want to curl into a tiny ball and sob for all eternity…
And once that’s done and I’ve received thoughts and feedback from betas and critique partners, I’ll need to do the next round of revisions. If I can get that done by October 1st, then I can spend a week or so polishing the manuscript before I send it off to Neon Hemlock for their novella open call.
Now, the reading 20 minutes a day is a different take on the reading goals I usually post. There’s a reason for that. For the month of September, the hosts of Top Shelf Librarians are participating in the Trevor Project’s 20 Minute Back to School Reading Challenge fundraiser!
Basically, the four of us (two of us? Heather and I for sure, Matt and Laurel TBD) will be reading 20 minutes each day of September to raise funds for the Trevor Project, which is the world’s largest suicide prevention and mental health organization for LGBTQ youth. We’ve already raised $50 (thanks Lani!) and we’re trying to reach a goal of $200.
You can donate here. I’ll be posting updates on twitter (both @BZelwen and @Liboozians) so be sure to follow along and chip in what you can! We’d really appreciate it.
Until next time, Bloggarts.
BZ
