First off, how’d I do in August?
Keep my short stories on submissionQuery agents- First edit pass on my new manuscript
Prep for my panels at When Words CollideHave fun at When Words Collide, regardless of Prix Aurora resultsWrite a chapter for An Excuse for WhiskeyDiscuss Whiskey edits with Sandra Wickham at WWC
Stretch goals:
- Finish revising a short story I’ve been noodling with and send it out
Not as great as I’d hoped. There were a number of sitting ducks on that list, so I should’ve been able to hit everything. The big one, well, one of the big ones is off the plate. My new urban fantasy novel is out the door and awaiting resposnse from agents.That means one of my yearly goals just bit the dust!
Revise 2015 WiP for submission to agents and editors.
I have some more queries to send out yet, but a few of the agencies I wanted to submit to were closed until after Labour Day.
As for the new manuscript, I got about three quarters of the way through my first round of edits, and have written roughly half the scenes and connective tissue I felt the first draft was missing. I love the early bits of the book to pieces. The middle and end still feel pretty rough, but hey, that’s why I revise. My first drafts come out super rough, and more about finding the story than the prose and I build them up, and polish them as I go forward.
When Words Collide was a good time. Unfortunately, the warp and weft of the con didn’t leave Sandra and I a lot of time to work on our book. We did decide that we need to do a reread of the early material as we drive to the novel’s climax. Unfortunately, we didn’t actually plot out the finale of the book. We’ve definitely been letting some early threads lie fallow. A nature of the beast that is collaborative writing, I think. I’m pretty good about being able to hold a whole book in my head while I write, but I’m not Professor X (despite my hairline) so when half of the book is hiding in Sandra’s brain, I’m not surprised that things have slipped. Still, we’ll figure it out. I love the world and characters we’ve created, so I can’t wait for folks to be able to read this one! I figure we have roughly three chapters each left to deliver to finish our first draft.
I didn’t win a Prix Aurora award, but I did have a blast driving with Samantha Beiko (12/10 would road trip again) despite my car not wanting to completely cooperate, and hanging with Clare Marshall is always awesome. Especially since she was a birthday princess that weekend! We skipped the dead dog to watch Dragonheart and drink whiskey.
I sent out what stories I had that weren’t already on submission and had likely markets available to them…which was not many this time around. A few stories are going to get trunked at the end of this year, I think. Which is why I really wanted to hit that stretch goal (and getting more new stories out this year was a part of my yearly goals list too).
And for September:
September is very busy at the day job, so I’m not going to push too hard. Especially since I have an out of town convention and a Winnipeg Writers Festival appearance to prep for.
- Keep my short stories on submission
- Send out more novel queries to agents
- Edits on my new WiP: finish currrent draft and at least one more to boot
- Finish revising a short story I’ve been noodling with and send it out
- Attend Sask Expo and have fun (and sell some books, maybe?)
Write on!
Chadwick Ginther 