Tag: Publishing

Ten Days… But Who's Counting?

I swore, swore to the old gods and the new…

I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

As the month wears on and my store seems to be doing decently in the things we are tracking, my mind ever so lightly flickers between work and play. Ten days, eight business days; Then it will have been four weeks since I submitted my novel. Strangely enough, I haven’t been freaking out as much now as I was, in fact, I’m pretty sure that I won’t get this one and that feels fine.

Do I still check my email all the time? Yes.

Do I get excited when I see any new email? Of course.

The craziest part of it all is that I’m actually here with a completed novel and that I’ve begun plotting the next two for Jefferson. I’m extremely happy with the direction they head in and the overall character development for both Jefferson and his antagonist.

Another fun thing I’m working on is a mature themed novel that takes place in the distant future of my world. This allows for Jefferson and characters from the novel to become legend and for the magic that began in his novel to have evolved into many different types and merge with society.

Well for now, another week down, another one and a bit to go. Here’s to hoping that I hear something this week! Either way, back to work for now!

The Work Week

*Check email* *Be Disappointed* *Check email again*

The funniest part about the above chain of events is that I’ve been repeating this roughly one hundred times a day without considering publishers probably aren’t even returning to work until this week.

Hilarious.

On the other hand, since submitting my story to HarperCollins I’ve been talking a lot more about my story… and carrying a bit more stress. My wonderful work colleagues asked me if everything was okay to which I told them of my submission. A few people understood, but more than a few asked me more questions about it.

What’s it about? How did you come up with that? How many words is it? When did you write it? How long did it take you? Why did you write it? When will they get back to you?

Not that I thought my coworkers were cold, unfeeling monsters, but I’d always just considered the fact that my work life and my personal life were very separate and that I don’t fit the mold that my company unofficially has. It felt good to have people getting excited and interested in my story and as I looked around, I felt a bit better about the team I work with.

Although I also spoke at length with a customer who was having trouble with her eReader about it as well, which was a weird feeling and also pretty exciting. The questions she was asking were actually very deep questions that made me think long and hard.

What sets your novel about magic apart from Harry Potter and other such stories? How does the magic work in your novel? Do you have enough female characters?

Admittedly, I don’t have as many leading ladies as I should, although Jefferson is near ambiguous enough to be either. To be honest, it wouldn’t kill me as a person to think of him either way, even if someone suggested I changed him to a female lead, I’d still love the story. Strange to think the protagonist could be either, but my antagonist must be a male. I have a very strongly defined image of him and could even write a novel about his journey before he met Jefferson. In fact, that’s not a bad idea.

The world of Jefferson’s story has seven novels in my head. Three directly including Jefferson, one prequel about Gabriel and three novels (much more mature) set hundreds of years after the events of Jefferson’s Trilogy explaining the division of the land and how magic has progressed over the course of time. I’ve already begun on the first one of that trilogy and the word count’s just over fifty thousand!

For today, my writing is turning to some background on Jefferson’s world and the characters within it. While I’m waiting for any news (hopefully) from HarperCollins, I’ll be fleshing out the depth of my story. As for you fellow writers out there, how goes your own writing? Did you make a New Year’s Writing Resolution? Let me know, maybe we can help each other!

 

The Wednesday Post

Today I swallowed the giant lump in my throat and even though my stomach is still doing backflips, I think I’ve made the right call.

Sometimes the stars align and something comes up. An opportunity maybe. I’ve been researching how to submit my story to publishing houses for quite awhile now and today (of all days) I came across HarperCollins’ Wednesday Post website. Apparently every Wednesday, they open the flood gates through this website and unsolicited manuscripts (such as my own) can be submitted. I find this out on a Tuesday night while editing my novel.

Coincidence? Maybe.

They ask for the first fifty pages or three chapters of your novel. After rereading and editing them one last time I just went ahead and did it.

Screen Shot 2015-12-30 at 1.56.13 AM
Oh man, that feels odd. Like baring your soul to a complete stranger.

Am I freaking out right now? Yep. It doesn’t help that it’s two in the morning and I work in… oh god, I should sleep. Do I expect anything to come of this?

Hell no.

Just like I didn’t get a date with the first girl I asked out, I expect this will be a lesson in rejection. Worst thing is, I don’t get a nifty rejection notice. Just nothing back after four weeks. This is about to be the longest four weeks in history. Also any email with HarperCollins in it will make me freak out (so Barnes & Noble… keep your publisher call outs to a minimum) but I’m ready.

I want to tell this story.

I want everyone to meet my characters.

I want to be as successful in writing as I am at work.

Maybe if I stare at the photo below, maybe, just maybe, my dream will come true.

Good luck Jefferson and crew. Hopefully everyone will get to meet you soon.

Jefferson & The Magician's Curse
Cover by Fena at http://pheeena.com/ – I don’t want her work to go to waste!

El Sporadic Update – The 20% Mark

So I am now officially 1/5th of the way to my target of 100,000 words. For only writing one hour a day, I am making fantastic progress! This waking up early thing has been the most rewarding and probably challenging thing I have ever done. I mean yesterday was my day off and I did four loads of laundry, three loads of dishes, cleaned the house, BBQ’d some lunch, still got in some writing and critiquing and then still cooked dinner as well! Perhaps there is some truth to all those crazy people who say wake up with a purpose and you will achieve higher levels of productivity and success! I still hate mornings (I don’t drink coffee or tea… so mornings are hard…)

That being said, I haven’t broken my story into chapters or gone back over any of my writing thus far. I am doing what some may call SOMP Writing (Seat-Of-My-Pants) with little or no planning at all. I have found this style of writing extremely rewarding. I know the direction I want to go in, so I am now ensuring that people feel the way I want them to while dropping subtle hints about who the antagonist is. For the moment, it seems magic is the evident antagonist as young Jefferson is trying to figure out how far he can push himself and good magic has its limits.

The world I have built is roughly based around travelling circuses and a time where Magicians stole the show with their tricks. However, these magicians are part of an order which secretly protects the rest of the world from the dark magics. The way magic works in my world is good magic only can draw upon the life force of the user exhausting their energy levels or depending on the power of the spell, causing harm to the user. This restricts the use of overly powerful spells, as they come at great risk. However the forbidden arts or dark magic are based off of using the life force of others and those around you. As this does not fatigue the user or harm them, extremely powerful spells can be used with little regard for the lives around them. Because of the power at no risk and the harm to others, use of magic in that way is forbidden.

This has made some battles interesting and good characters will fall victim to the evils of the world. More so than the bad guys. In this sense I am writing a story in which of course the good guys win, but at what cost? I have been enjoying the characters I have brought into the story thus far and I feel it is moving along at a decent pace. Will this turn into a trilogy? No. I sincerely doubt it. The plot kind of goes as such: Jefferson gets recruited. Jefferson becomes integral to recruiting new members. Antagonist appears. Jefferson builds order to fight Antagonist. Good triumphs, but who survives?

So at the moment I have just begun my second plot point where for the next 20000 words will be recruiting and adding a few more members to the order, while staging the appearance of the antagonist. I already know that those 20000 words will be roughly the hardest points for our protagonist which strengthen his resolve to build the order stronger in the next 20000. The final 20000 will start off with the end, and then the aftermath. Maybe if I still love writing about this world, I can toss in the possibility for a second story.

In the meantime, as a sidebar to this story I have been involved in critiquing the works of others on a website called Review Fuse. In order to get three reviews, I must give three reviews. This type of reading and editing all for my own benefit has been both fun and challenging. Sometimes people will have fantastic writing skills, but have written the most boring story ever. Character developments fall flat, moments which could be epic run dry and I actually read a story that had none of the following: A plot, Characters, A setting, Dialog. It was eight paragraphs of this writer telling me things, about names with no people attached and I don’t think I could have cared less. He introduced drugs, killed one of them off and apparently no one in his story noticed or cared that the guy had died. I guess I felt as empathetic as they did. Not at all.

Still, everything counted, I am writing at least 2000 words a day between my story, my blog and my reviews. It has felt great to get back into it and with the resolve to finish this story. The earlier I finish, the more time I have to edit. Also I have another million ideas to write about after this, so I guess I will continue to get up at five in the morning to write until I am a millionaire telling stories to the world. If I can get paid to write, there is no greater honor and that is the dream!

For everyone out there, I’d like to thank you for supporting me. Whether you are family, friend or total stranger. If you’re a writer yourself or know one, pass this blog along as I would love feedback on the existing stories I have out there and the past work I have done. I’m hoping to get my final three reviews on Circle of Vengeance so I can slap it up on the iBooks store (it’ll be free!) and perhaps even the kindle store! That’s the near future, hopefully if everything goes well and smoothly it will be up by the end of the month. Maybe it’ll be up in time for my birthday! That would definitely be the best birthday present ever! Until the next sporadic update, adios amigos!

Week 1: Progress, Meet Challenge

At five in the morning for the past week, my alarm has sounded and I have grumbled my way from my bed. The beginning of this week was the biggest challenge, changing from waking up at six-thirty to five. You may ask why, but then again you may not care. Either way the reason is I havent been able to actually get to sleep before eleven. Even if I went to bed at ten, I’d be wide awake until then. However I’d be lying if I said the labours weren’t worth the rewards!

Jefferson & The Magician's Curse
Cover by Fena over at http://pheeena.com/

The total word count for my story is roughly fourteen thousand words which is fourteen percent of my goal. The thing that keeps driving me now is the wonderful cover above, I was able to get when I took part in NaNoWriMo last year. I accomplished a fifth of my target because my routine got shot about halfway through. The only way to survive that is to set aside an uninterruptible time where you can focus solely on your writing.

Snowflake Method, Where?
Which one is the Snowflake Method?!

Although I keep hearing about some wondrous snowflake method that helps with planning out novels, it doesn’t seem there are any extensive articles on its use in practice. If anyone can find one, I’d love to see it. The best thing I’ve seen is Scrivener for organisation, but it almost has too many bells and whistles which distracts from the actual act of writing. Lately I’ve just been using and abusing Google Docs and when I create a new area or character or touch on history, I simply make a new document in a themed folder and place as much information in there as I can. I suppose in retrospect I’ve written considerably more this week then I can recall, especially across blog posts, tweets, emails and planning.

Also I think this week I will get my final three reviews on Circle of Vengeance and if they go well I will publish it as an eBook. What is the worst that happens? It fails and no one notices it? Fair enough. Such is life! I will post when that becomes available on the various eBook stores. I will make it free to get myself out there!

Anyway as for the end of my blog post today, I must get back to it!