October 24th, 2019.
A bald and bearded man sits in his black boxers and faded red Foo Fighters t-shirt, typing up a blog post in a dimly lit room where the bookshelves resemble his state of mind… Chaos.
March 8th, 2020.
A bald and bearded man sits at his dining room table… in his blue boxers and worn grey Denon and Marantz t-shirt, typing up a blog post. The room is brighter this time and the bookshelf is in another room, but organized.
It may alarm you, but these men… are the same.
DUN DUN DUNNNNNN.
Full disclosure, I write after I shower, hence my eveningwear. Also, it’s certainly not as sexy as it sounds (imagine Mr. Potato Head with a beard, a body, and a laptop; that about sums me up).
So… moving right along…
I’ve been doing a few things since I burnt myself out at the end of October and I feel like I owe it to you lovely folks out there to A) Let you know I’m still alive and B) I’m still writing. For the sake of making a massive post, I’m going to bullet point the whole thing, because it’s been an insane few months.
Since October 2019 I have:
- Been knocked back for the Grief compilation I submitted to.
- Received a reply back from the lovely editor at Pantera Press I’d submitted my novel to. Unfortunately, it was a pass, but seriously the most positive rejection I’m likely to ever come across. Also, she liked my style and the book and mentioned the door isn’t closed…
- Moved up in the TOR Queue, I’m now sitting pretty at 95.
- Been knocked back by the ever-lovely Alex Adsett. If I’d managed to land her as my agent, I’d be laughing, but the fact I even got to send her my manuscript is the dream. She’s pretty much THE agent in Australia for fantasy, so my hopes weren’t too high.
- Checked my email roughly 4,752,836,433 times (but who’s counting) as my novel is still in with two publishers.
- Started on Margaret Atwood’s Writing Masterclass.
- Purchased more books to read, whiteboards and notebooks.
- Plotted out and written (as of this moment) 78.5k words for Jefferson & The Eternal Mana. Around 21.5k to go… ish…
- Begun plotting out my third novel, Jefferson & The Celestial of Spells.
- Made a list of all the agents I’m going to query when I get my holidays in a few weeks (so long as it gets approved).
- Been to two writing events in the past month; one for editing and one for becoming an author (and making money at it).
And last, but not least.
- Not slept very much.
Not tonight, but probably my next day off, I’m going to try and remember to write a blog post on the Working With An Editor session I had last weekend and the So You Want To Be A Writer session I had today. Also, it’s been requested that when I go my querying for agents, I document it and do a blog post on my process and the such. I’m more than happy to, just know it’s a bit of a novice teaching the novices, so who knows if it’s right or not? At least you may be able to learn what not to do!
Either way, I’ll keep at it! Hopefully, it won’t be another few months without a post!
-TJ