Writing Update 2019 Q4

Novels

Feathers Sharp as Knives – I finished my sixth draft! I’m sending my seventh draft to beta readers on January 1st and I’m stoked. The final word counter is 118k–over 30k higher than my first draft. That was a lot of work!

Short Stories

Tiger – On submission–kind of. Not at the moment because the magazines I want to submit to are currently closed, but once they open I’ll send it off. I have a goal to get 100 rejections by the end of 2020. (Total, not in the year.) I’m at 30 currently, and you know what? It’s actually kind of fun to get rejections now because each one puts me closer to my goal. Hey, you gotta do what you can to make rejection hurt less. But with the goal, I figure I’ve got to have at least one acceptance in there.

Volcano – Same as Tiger–kind of on submission. Just waiting for those magazines to open back up.

Lake – I sent it off to a few readers and it’s kind of a hot mess. Will require almost an entire rewrite, which I’ll do in January. But they all liked the story, so at least I know it’s worth pursuing. There was a period in which I wasn’t sure if it was good or terrible. Ah, the writing life. Nothing like crippling self-doubt to start your day.

Monsters – Still in the development phase, but now that I’m done with FSaK’s beta draft, I can actually sit down and figure out the plot. I did figure out what kind of monsters there are, so yay for progress.

I took most of December off to focus on Christmas, which was really nice. I’m feeling a little rusty, but I’m ready to dive back in now that the new year is (almost) here. And new decade. Good grief–where did the teens go?