Again, there’s not much change from last week. I’m still working on When Darkness Falls, trying to get these major revisions finished and out to the second round of beta readers before November, so I can concentrate on something entirely new for NaNoWriMo. I still have a lot of submissions out, that were sent to editors and agents who requested them at RWA national conference in July. There’s an up-to-date list in Submissions Status below… for anyone who’s interested in looking!

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. I’ve changed my take on beta reading; originally I was closing stories to beta reading since they were “done” and ready to go. But the fact is… I’m still open to feedback, and always open to improving them, so I’m going to keep each of them in beta reading until they are actually with an editor or agent. Because face it, they’re never *really* done, are they? LOL!

Manuscript Status:

1. Finished Manuscripts, professional copy editing done:
   1. WISHES IN A BOTTLE, 1st book of Wishes & Dreams 3-book series*
   2. SWANSONG; 1st book of Sons of the Desert 4-book series*
2. Finished Manuscripts, need copy editing:
   1. A GIFT OF JACINTH, 2nd book of Wishes & Dreams
   2. A CAT FOR TROY, 3rd book of Wishes & Dreams
   3. CASTLES IN THE SAND; 2nd book of Sons of the Desert*
3. Finished Manuscripts, major revisions in progress prior to 2nd round of beta reading:
   1. WHEN DARKNESS FALLS*
4. In-Progress Manuscripts:
   1. MICHAEL’S QUEST, 3rd book of Sons of the Desert

Submissions Status:

• Requests from the RWA Speed Pitch Event:
  • 1 Publisher request for the full manuscript (!!!) of Wishes in a Bottle
  • 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: 2)
  • 3 Agent requests for partial of SwanSong (rejections back: 1)
• Outstanding Queries:
  • 1 Agent query, Wishes in a Bottle
  • 1 Agent partials, SwanSong & Castles in the Sand (request for Full of SwanSong!)

Synopsis, Blurb & Pitch:  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: A CAT FOR TROY, 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)

1. WHEN DARKNESS FALLS (current word count: 201,200/250,000) (don’t panic, it’s a trilogy):
   1. Read-through The Palace and get it into beta reading
   2. Characterization expansion on some of the major secondary characters, particularly:
      1. Damien’s Commander, Aleksei (due to the screams of “more!” from my beta readers
      2. Damien’s demon half-sister Kayja (ditto screams)
      3. Maxim, the High Magi
      4. Plus just a little more on some of the Viziers of Sultana’s Court, to kind of punctuate their roles.
      5. Also Gabrielle (Normandy?) and Antonio (Genoa?)
   3. Tackle The Prophecy
   4. Go through beta reader feedback for the more extensive issues/fixes
2. Start on September newsletter
3. Revisions on WIPs as they come in from beta readers
4. Work on my writing Pinterest boards … which, by the way, I am having TOO much fun with!
5. Research Audible/ACX versus Findaway Voices to see about having Truck Stop produced as audiobook
6. Start thinking about NaNo (meal planning/freezer meals)