Musings

 One of the funny parts of writing is how it has this very. long. internship. It's self led, unpaid, and largely low stakes, but make no bones about it, the unpaid lead up to a writing career is an odd time of self policing, tone watching, hopeful posting, and an evolution both of writing style and in the style one presents of themselves. 

It's been a long time for me since I blogged regularly. Mostly, the problem with blogging is that the advice is to not overshare. 

Which is pretty hard. How do I not talk about my WIP which is literally carving itself from my flesh? That's not entirely an overstatement, by the way. When I draft a novel, I have to drive myself to bring the words to life. It's an act of will, lost sleep, and pure stubbornness to be the person to see this thing into reality. 

But then don't talk about it because it might be embarrassing if you query too early and it crashes and burns--or so the advice goes.

Which means I can put up a projects page that will read "Secret Project A, status: Classified. Secret Project B, status: Classified (but very not at the same stage of Secret Project A. Secret Project C, Status: YOU GUESSED IT: CLASSIFIED!"

But is that any better than "A Really Great Novel, status: Querying agent 151, rejections: 100, pending: 51"?

I don't have a good answer for this because I'm given both sides of the coin: share more and share nothing. Obviously, the answer is somewhere in the middle.

Last year I started querying a novel I had put A LOT of work into. A Lot. More than usual. Probably three times as much as usual because I've been worried that I don't put in enough work before querying. Let's just say sometimes it's more than just the amount of work one puts into a book. I have never received such fast, sharp Nos. They came in hours and days rather than weeks and months. Clearly, I hit a nerve, just not the one I'd hoped. 

I stopped querying that piece because 2020 went pear-shaped in an awful hurry. 

I wrote a proposal (thanks, no thanks. Your writing is great, but this isn't quite what I want)

I wrote another book (why not? make it the most ridiculous thing to exist)

Then I entered a pitch contest (why am I such a sucker for pitch contests???) (oh, right, it's because I have five novels, complete and revised that I still love even if I haven't found the right outlet for them). 

I revised a whole novel (a big revision, too). 

I saw an opportunity to do something fun so I wrote a short (classification: Cute as hell (yes, that is an inside joke)). 

And now I stand at the edge of revising my ridiculous novel. I probably love it too much in it's broken rough draft form, but I also love it too much to let it stay broken and hiding in the dark of my hard drive. 

The New Blog is the Old Blog!

 That's right, I'm back at it. I have no idea if this is going to last as a blog location, but it seems like a good time to catch people up on the last year. 

Notable events in one of the worst years ever:

1) I got older. It happens every year, and will happen until I die.

2) I wrote another book. You might think this was a given, but in the pandemic realm, NOTHING is to be taken for granted.

3) As per normal, I'm stupid in love with this new novel, but no, it hasn't hit the querying stages (much revision is needed). 

4) My day job has gone a little bit off the rails in that I have had to show up and pretend like we weren't in the midst of a pandemic all year. (I need a really real vacation)

5) I wrote a short story, my first in forever, and it is adorable. I'm going to start sending it out real soon, so look for the ups and downs of short story markets.

6) I have absolutely fallen off of the Insecure Writer's Support Group. It's not that I'm not insecure, it just isn't working for me anymore. My insecurities haven't gone away, but they have boiled down to the understanding that they don't really matter. It doesn't matter because I have finally hit my stride with my voice, and that's not going to change, no matter how insecure I am. It's a little freeing, but also a bit terrifying because I know there are plenty of people who don't like my style. But I can see that isn't changing. 

7) I delisted my books from the zon because they never went through anything like sensitivity readers, and until I can spend the money and time to really make sure they aren't doing harm or perpetuating harmful stereotypes, off they go to sit in the trunk. On the plus side, this means I'll have more time for then stories I really want to tell, and boy there's some stuff coming!!

8) There's honestly too much to sum up in one post. 

I'm hoping good things are coming.