My Writing Plan: Week of Nov 17
National Novel Writing Month
Well, I’m still writing! Really there’s not much change in the plan for this week: write, write, write, and then write some more. I’m a bit ahead of schedule at almost 30,000 words. The NaNo chart below shows my estimated finish date as November 28th if I keep going at this rate! I love these statistics graphics we can get whenever we update our word count on the NaNo site! The halo over my icon shows that I made a donation… I try to donate something at least twice every November, once when I announce my novel for that year and then once on double donations day. Plus of course buying the t-shirt 🙂
I do have to say that I am seriously pleased with how this story is coming along! When you consider that when I started at midnight on Nov 1st, the only thing I knew about the story was the opening scene with the heroine thinking she’s losing her mind. She didn’t even have a name, and I didn’t know what her story was, I didn’t know who the hero would be, I didn’t have a plot, much less a conflict. Literally, I knew nothing other than the opening scene. But once I started writing, ideas began coming at me. Night before last, I was telling one of my writing buddies (I have two very wonderful writing buddies, and I got to meet both of them for the first time at RWA National Conference back in July!) that I still didn’t know the conflict…. and I’d no sooner gotten the words out of my mouth than suddenly the potential for a conflict just showed up in my head, I mean, right out of nowhere!! I spent all day yesterday writing the first scene of the conflict, for 2516 words! Totally pleased 🙂
Audiobook of Truck Stop
The audiobook is coming along great. We’re up to Chapter 5… more than 25% of the book, finished, mastered and approved by me as ready to go. Jay Dyess at ACX is my narrator; he’s really on a roll, and doing a wonderful job!
Wishes & Dreams Paranormal Romance series
I’m still waiting to hear from the cover artist who did this artwork of Jacinth last year. I’m really really hoping hard that I do hear from her, but if I don’t by Dec 1st, I’ll start looking for another cover artist an/dor talking to Dar Albert who did the cover for Truck Stop, which I’m very pleased with. Since this is a series, first I want to get together a background for the book covers that will be used across all three (four?) books. Once we’ve got that, then focus on the specific cover for the first book, Wishes in a Bottle.
Once NaNo is over and we’re into December, I’ll pull out Wishes in a Bottle and comb through it one last time, polishing anything that needs it. It’s already been revised x gazillions, through beta reading, more revisions, and then through proofreading & copy editing, so really it’s good to go, but .. never hurts to make one last pass. Once I have the finalized cover design, I’ll move ahead with getting banners made and a book trailer, and get it released.
As a reminder, if you’re interested in being a beta reader, I’ve got my process outlined on my Beta Reading Team webpage, along with synopses of the manuscripts currently available for beta reading.
The Manuscripts
Manuscript Status:
- Finished Manuscripts, professional copy editing done:
- WISHES IN A BOTTLE, 1st book of Wishes & Dreams 3-book series*
- SWANSONG; 1st book of Sons of the Desert 4-book series*
- Finished Manuscripts, need copy editing:
- A GIFT OF JACINTH, 2nd book of Wishes & Dreams
- CASTLES IN THE SAND; 2nd book of Sons of the Desert*
- Finished Manuscripts, major revisions in progress prior to 2nd round of beta reading:
- WHEN DARKNESS FALLS (201,775 words, as follows:)
- Book 1: The Palace (61,150)
- Book 2: The Dark Lord (90,500)
- Book 3: The Prophecy (39,400)
- A CAT FOR TROY, 3rd book of Wishes & Dreams
- WHEN DARKNESS FALLS (201,775 words, as follows:)
- In-Progress Manuscripts:
- MICHAEL’S QUEST, 3rd book of Sons of the Desert
- SHADOW CAT, 4th book of Wishes & Dreams
Submissions
Submissions Plan: I do still have a few submissions out there, but I don’t see anything changing my mind at this point, really. Okay, except an offer from Berkley. LOL. I could really go for an offer from Berkley. Who, by the way, has never heard of me 😛
Submissions Status:
- Requests from the RWA Speed Pitch Event:
- 1 Publisher request for the full manuscript (!!!) of Wishes in a Bottle (rejection)
- 1 Publisher request for partial of SwanSong
- 1 Publisher request for partial of Wishes in a Bottle (rejection rec’d… but said nice things!)
- 1 Agent request for summaries of both series as well as When Darkness Falls (rejection rec’d for 1)
- 1 Agent request for partials of both (!!!) SwanSong and When Darkness Falls
- 1 Agent request for the full manuscript (!!!) of SwanSong (rejection rec’d… this was expected)
- 4 Agent requests for partial of When Darkness Falls (rejections back: 3)
- 3 Agent requests for partial of SwanSong (rejections back: 1)
- Outstanding Queries:
- 1 Agent query, Wishes in a Bottle
Synopsis, Blurb & Pitch:Â All finished manuscripts have these, except as noted below:
- Blurb/1-paragraph summation for query letter (Needed: A CAT FOR TROY)
- 2-page synopsis (Needed: WHEN DARKNESS FALLS)
- 5-10 page synopsis (Needed: A CAT FOR TROY)
- 1-sentence pitch for agent submissions who require this
- 280-character pitch for Twitter pitch events
THE WRITING PLAN
(not in any particular order except as indicated)
- WRITE!
- Log in feedback from beta readers as it comes in and copy to Scrivener file… then return to #1 above.
- See #1 above.