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Jan. 4th, 2010 12:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseA quick skim through the last year's writing progress.
The Good:
I finished the draft of Bird of Dusk I mean to start editing next month. If I manage to cut this by as much as I hope to, this is lengthwise a viable commercial project; it's been out to some agencies, but not for 5 years or so, which is more than long enough for an "I sent this before, but I rewrote. Please look again?" type query.
I made serious progress, if not always in the order or direction planned, on the Serpent Prince, Soldier of the Road, and The Dragon Queens (Aka my sole Heteronormative traditional high fantasy trilogy). To the point where I can see the ending of Serpent Prince from here. And Serpent at least is, or can be, a viable length combined with an attempt to make it sufficiently standalone to be a worthwhile project (Books two and three don't stand alone; you could start with Soldier, but not end with it, and probably won't be able to start with Queens.)
I got a new idea, currently dubbed Merlin's Dive, with enough writing and progress thereon to consider it a solid entry in the random book ideas.
I similarly added words to a number of other projects.
I sent out three separate short stories at least a couple of times each to viable markets, and, while rejected, got occasional good comments.
One of the above got a rewrite request I intend to review and fix between the end of Serpent Prince and the start of Bird of Dusk edits.
The Less Good:
I sent out Raising the Storm to 4 possible agents, with rejections.
Then I stopped. Not because of the rejections, which are par for the course, or laziness, but due to serious thinking.
Raising the Storm is roughly 180k words. And it can't be cut in half in any reasonable way that i can see (If a future agent or editor can see a way, and has a really good suggestion, we'll see, but I tried it before and it failed.)
These days, every major agent who's expressed an opinion on the subject has said it would about take a miracle to buy a 180k book. Most have said flat out it's a form rejection whatever the query looks like. That anything over 140k isn't a viable first sale. Period. And anything over 120k is a REALLY Big stretch. (Ergo also my desire to manage to cut 15-20k from Bird of Dusk.)
This is mostly frustrating because I *Still* believe in the project. It's as complex and layered as I could manage at the writing, especially considering how it developed over years, and as far as I can tell, it earned its word count the hard way, word by word.
But it means I have to get an agent to look at Bird or Serpent or both before I can even think of pulling this one out. Which makes all the work on it kind of feel like wasted time.
The even less good:
I wrote no new short stories and didn't finish any old short ideas.
I wrote a lot less than I ought to have, even if serious editing and rewriting count. if they don't I wrote far far far too little. For the first part of the year, this was exceedingly understandable, as I was going mad on pottery. And stretches of the other 2/3 of the year were full of great shiny progress. Briefly. Not enough to justify how low the actual count is.
And that's why i don't feel like I got as far as I should have.
But also, I haven't been practicing mandolin as I ought for much of this whole year. Which implies something about what I should be doing right now. Writing or playing, but productively.
The Good:
I finished the draft of Bird of Dusk I mean to start editing next month. If I manage to cut this by as much as I hope to, this is lengthwise a viable commercial project; it's been out to some agencies, but not for 5 years or so, which is more than long enough for an "I sent this before, but I rewrote. Please look again?" type query.
I made serious progress, if not always in the order or direction planned, on the Serpent Prince, Soldier of the Road, and The Dragon Queens (Aka my sole Heteronormative traditional high fantasy trilogy). To the point where I can see the ending of Serpent Prince from here. And Serpent at least is, or can be, a viable length combined with an attempt to make it sufficiently standalone to be a worthwhile project (Books two and three don't stand alone; you could start with Soldier, but not end with it, and probably won't be able to start with Queens.)
I got a new idea, currently dubbed Merlin's Dive, with enough writing and progress thereon to consider it a solid entry in the random book ideas.
I similarly added words to a number of other projects.
I sent out three separate short stories at least a couple of times each to viable markets, and, while rejected, got occasional good comments.
One of the above got a rewrite request I intend to review and fix between the end of Serpent Prince and the start of Bird of Dusk edits.
The Less Good:
I sent out Raising the Storm to 4 possible agents, with rejections.
Then I stopped. Not because of the rejections, which are par for the course, or laziness, but due to serious thinking.
Raising the Storm is roughly 180k words. And it can't be cut in half in any reasonable way that i can see (If a future agent or editor can see a way, and has a really good suggestion, we'll see, but I tried it before and it failed.)
These days, every major agent who's expressed an opinion on the subject has said it would about take a miracle to buy a 180k book. Most have said flat out it's a form rejection whatever the query looks like. That anything over 140k isn't a viable first sale. Period. And anything over 120k is a REALLY Big stretch. (Ergo also my desire to manage to cut 15-20k from Bird of Dusk.)
This is mostly frustrating because I *Still* believe in the project. It's as complex and layered as I could manage at the writing, especially considering how it developed over years, and as far as I can tell, it earned its word count the hard way, word by word.
But it means I have to get an agent to look at Bird or Serpent or both before I can even think of pulling this one out. Which makes all the work on it kind of feel like wasted time.
The even less good:
I wrote no new short stories and didn't finish any old short ideas.
I wrote a lot less than I ought to have, even if serious editing and rewriting count. if they don't I wrote far far far too little. For the first part of the year, this was exceedingly understandable, as I was going mad on pottery. And stretches of the other 2/3 of the year were full of great shiny progress. Briefly. Not enough to justify how low the actual count is.
And that's why i don't feel like I got as far as I should have.
But also, I haven't been practicing mandolin as I ought for much of this whole year. Which implies something about what I should be doing right now. Writing or playing, but productively.
