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Archive for the ‘Querying agents’ Category

Progress report

Posted in A writer's life, Australian author, Book cover, cover reveal, Creative passion, Querying agents, tagged , , , , , , , on May 10, 2024| Leave a Comment »

A few things on the boil.

Here is the cover for the robot-themed short story collection that I’ll put out this year. I was going to call it by a different name but that old name did not suit the cover. Matthew suggested Robot Hearts. Last week I drafted two of the stories and the rest I have are already written. What do you think? I’m in a quandary about an editor.

I’ve been reading through Ruby Heart, mostly to refresh my mind about the characters and story so I can write the next book. However, I’m repairing typos as well. Reading slowly out loud takes time, but it’s good at detecting missing words etc. Pity it was proofread too. I’m almost done. Then I need to read Emerald Fire so I can start on Amber Rose. I dug out the cover for inspiration.

I’m very excited to be working on this. I did start a while ago but life just went off in a big kaboom.

Yesterday was meant to be a full on writing day. However, after aqua aerobics I was wasted and starving. So we had lunch at the club as planned. Too many good options to choose from in the pensioner lunch category. And then I flaked. I felt dizzy and sleepy. We put it down to the medication I’m on. No trip to the National Library for me.

In bed, after a nap, I managed about 1000 words on The Lightning Strike on my lap top and had a cool idea where to from there. Yes, I’m seat of the pantsing this one. Eventually I’ll have to plan it, but I like to see where the story, characters and mystery goes. I’m really liking Gene and Lily but have decided to bring in Wolf and Abbie to create some huge sparks.

Today I stumbled across a review on Kobo for Oathbound, the middle book of the Silverlands series. It completely blew me away. It was nice, of course, so nice blown away and not jaw dropping to the ground appalling blown away. Link here.

Amazon put the price of Vorn and the First Comers to free and then changed it back up again. This means that this weekend I will try to get my book store live so anyone can get it free. I’ve also decided to do a hardcover of Vorn and the First Comers, which will be its first time in print.

I’ve two books on submission. And you know it is very disheartening when you know some award winning writers can’t place their books with publishers and or agents. I will try to brazen in out until I give up hope.

That’s it from me until next time.

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The happy spot

Posted in A writer's life, Floor loom, Middle grade fiction, Querying agents, revision, weaving, tagged , , , , on September 9, 2020| Leave a Comment »

After two posts of angst, I can now say I found a happy spot. Yesterday, I started on a new project-a middle grade book and I just felt all warm and happy inside. I was creating something new and it felt good. I wrote near 4000 words. I had written some notes on this idea when in England last year so I could just start writing it.

I did do some work on the Phd, appendices but not serious work. However, it did advertise to me that I really missed writing fiction. I still have revisions and stuff on other projects but I think I can do more than one thing at a time. Revisions on fiction, taking up edits on the exegesis and write something new.

I’m not actively hunting for more agents so that’s one less thing off my mind. I have many outstanding queries that will work themselves out over the next few months.

I started to tie up the loom today. It’s my first time on the floor loom and my back hurt but it’s a start. I’m still having trouble getting the winding of the thread just right so it is easy to thread through the heddles in the right order. But a start.

Today I’ve been going over what I wrote yesterday on:

Grandma Neebs : Through the pantry door.

It’s probably a ‘no no’ to go over the previous draft, instead of keeping on writing but I want to get the point of view right. I’m trying to get close in point of view, and the tone right. I think it’s helping. Also, I tend to rush through the plot because I have a voice in my head saying ‘don’t bore people’ but really I need to make the magic of the siblings work and let Grandma Neebs shine. I’m up to 5000 words now. Big smile!

That’s it for me. I’m in a happy place, focussed and working.

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Looking for passion in all the wrong places

Posted in A writer's life, Querying agents, revision, tagged , , , on September 4, 2020| Leave a Comment »

I was chatting to my son this morning. He’s working remotely at the moment and has been since February. He works in the games industry and was up until midnight working and then played games until 1.30am. My comment was-you’re lucky you are passionate about your work.

And then I thought, why aren’t I feeling passionate at the moment? When I’m passionate about something, I can’t stop doing it.

I’m feeling flat and conflicted and I need to think about where my passion is.

I’ve been querying agents and that’s a passion killer for sure. The hope entailed in querying agents is not a passion killer. It can excite and motivate. However, it does take time and focus. Being a possible ADHD person, I get a little hyper focused. Lol. Maybe my passion is all hyper focus and I’m deluded.

I’ve put a damper on querying new agents at this time. The ones I have queried will wind up by December and then if it’s all a bit zero, I’ll think of my next steps for the Phd novel in the new year. I’m going to write down a strategy. It’s not a good time to try to sell something different! This was said to me by someone in the know and I think this is the spark to my downward spiral. I appreciate the bluntness and then I have to deal with the fallout. Even though I tell myself. It’s just this one book. You have others drafted and good ideas for new ones. Don’t sweat it.

But I do sweat it.

I don’t know how people can write and then try to sell their work. I mean it takes so much time, energy and focus that I can barely do anything else. That’s why agents are good (if you can get one) because they sell your books, in theory. But this is only part of my issue.

I’m in PhD land and I will get back to the next draft of the exegesis next week and that will last until December. I think I will find my passion there again once I warm up because I’m closer to the end!

I have a weaving project that I have yet to attack with gusto, a garden project that we will start working on again on the weekend and a few novels in need of revision and lots of ideas bubbling away. Distracting maybe? Actually having manuscripts to revise are a mixed bag of guilt and a kind of treasure. Guilty because you haven’t looked at them in years. Fear because you know how much work you need to get them to a publishable level and a bit of smug because you have WIP that you can whip out and sell or publish if you want. But the weight of guilt and workload do put a dampener on writing a new project. NaNoWriMo is coming up and I’m like I could start a new project! And my dizzy brain trucks out these unfinished ones and points. See those? Finish these you lazy cow!

Yesterday, I did work on a revision for a couple of stints (I’m nearly a third of the way through this SF Romance), and did a bit on the weaving project (dressing the loom is the physically difficult part) and bought things for the garden project (that I’m hoping other people will do the work), but I’m still feeling flat but not quite a lizard drinking flat.

You think I would be happy I achieved something right? No! Because it’s not good enough! I’m never good enough. I can always do better or more. Don’t you love that internal voice, the purveyor of doom, the blame-o-meter?

Is it just Covid-19, the state of the world (being into post-apocalyptic fiction the current world news is fuelling my imagination in a bad way) or just a personal down?

I told myself yesterday that at least I wasn’t on the couch watching the screen all day but really that’s not much of a pat on the back.

I love being passionate, being in the moment and zinging along with what I’m doing. It’s like a drug! A high.

But really writing is all about hard work. I love first drafts, revisions are okay if the ideas are still coming and third drafts are hard work but so important and part of the crafting. I think this is a stage where I always start getting new ideas and being frustrated. I start devising ways to work on multiple projects and I know this doesn’t work. To work on the second draft of the exegesis I had to do only that. No writing anything else. I had to let it fill up my mind so all I was doing was thinking about that. And because I haven’t finished the damn Phd yet, I can’t really start a new project. Hah! That’s definitely a problem for me.

Maybe I need one of those ‘what am I grateful? for moments. I’m in good health (except the knees!), my family are in good health, Canberra where I live has no active Covid-19 cases, we can go out (within reason and socially distance) and our incomes are pretty secure. We’ve just put a deposit on an EV car that should be here in 6 months. I should be disco dancing in the shower! I’m grateful for all of that but no dancing today.

I’m a confessed passion junkie! Or as my friend Alisa said to me last year-you know you’ve got ADHD right? And the light went on, but that passion junkie aspect is so much a part of me and I miss being deep into something. Even if it was just like five minutes ago when I stopped.

The thing is I’m looking for passion somewhere external but it’s in me. Circumstances conspire to dampen my passion and I need to realise it will be there when I want it, that I haven’t lost it–it’s on a short break. And it’s normal to be floaty between projects or periods of frenetic activity. It’s a natural balancing act that lets my passion ferment so I have some for the next thing, the next shiny thing, that I focus on.

I need to stop searching for my passion because it’s in me. There are plenty of things I am passionate about and that’s probably my issue. Too many things. Too many exciting things and only one lifetime.

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