Here is a list of things that you can do each week as we work on our novels (suggestions welcomed).
=-=-=-=-=
Last Week's Goals
Wow. It is sooo difficult to get back into the flow of writing. All I want / need to do is get familiar again with my outline. I still get distracted by other things. Well, here comes another week. Hopefully this week.
My goals for next week:
I still want to at least go over my outline and get familiar with where I left off.
What did I learn this week?
Still nothing.
--William
Goal for this week: edit ch1, ch2, do some prep work towards new novel.
Realized I needed a one page query. Couldn't do it, but it's under 500 words.
Just finished a run through of Panix again. I now need to go through and add some description. Then I'll be ready to send out queries.
DREAMER'S ROSE: Finish up the first revision. Prepare to work on chapter exchange revisions.
Yes!
THE SHAMAN'S CURSE: Let it rest before trying to cut some more.
Easy goal.
THE IGNORED PROPHECY: Catch up on the reveisions and make new ones as the critiques come back. Get ready to make extensive revisions on the beginning.
Got caught up. Now I'm behind again. But that's okay because I started reworking the beginning.
BLOOD WILL TELL: Send out two more queries.
Not yet. But I'm planning to send out a couple this morning.
SEVEN STARS: Let it rest. Keep making notes as things occur to me.
Easy goal.
OTHER:
Update my blog and try to keep it updated twice a week.
Work on that short story start that came to me yesterday.
Yes to both.
Next Week's Goals:
DREAMER'S ROSE:
Work on chapter exchange revisions as they come.
THE SHAMAN'S CURSE:
Let it rest before trying to cut some more.
THE IGNORED PROPHECY:
I've got a chapter exchange going on this one. Catch up on the reveisions and make new ones as the critiques come back. Keep working on the revised beginning. I've got the first five chapters organized the way I want them. Now I just have to go back and make things much scarier for the MC.
BLOOD WILL TELL:
Send out two more queries.
SEVEN STARS:
Let it rest. Keep making notes as things occur to me.
OTHER:
Update my blog and try to keep it updated twice a week.
Send "Mage Storm" out again.
Do some more revisions to "Becoming Lioness".
Work on that new short story some.
=======
DREAMER'S ROSE is ready for a chapter exchange or two if anyone is interested. Fantasy, 91,000 words, about a man who succeeds at everything until he finally succeeds in becoming a god--and finds nothing has prepared him for that or for his failures.
======
@ Tameson: Sorry to hear about your grandmother. I'm not sure which is harder, to lose them unexpectedly or to watch them linger. The only thing I am sure of is it's never easy.
quote:
Meredith-I am almost ready for a chapter exchange on For The Gods (working title). It is about a warrior who attacks the gods and as punishment must protect a pacifist on her journey to obtain a sacred book (about 85k, quest fantasy). How does the chapter exchange thing work? Is it like send a chapter or two every week?
That's about how a chapter exchange works. We each send chapters or whatever fragments we agree upon, critique and return them, then send the next all the way through the book. A chapter exchange can go at whatever pace the participants are comfortable with. It doesn't have to go in perfect tandem. Sometimes one person is able to read faster than the other and that's okay, too. For DREAMER'S ROSE, because there are several very short chapters, I was planning on aiming for roughly ten page segments (roughly 2500 to 3000 words). Sometimes that will be one chapter, sometimes more.
I'd be glad to start an exchange.
Science fiction novel: I’m still not ready to get back to the writing phase of this story. In fact, with each research session I partake in, I come away with something new that convinces me it will make the story better than the previous version. Although...I did recently catch myself blurting out a few ideas into my digital audio recorder about how to enhance a few of my characters.
UPCOMING WEEK
Mainstream novel: I'd like to complete chapters 2 and 3.
Science fiction novel: Business as usual. More reading.
I am also spending time on as many as four different SF short stories...although I'm thinking one of them is going to end up back on the shelf if it continues to tick me off.
@ Meredith: I've read through the first two chapters of Dreamer's Rose. Nothing about it made me want to jam it into the paper shredder but I do want to give it one more quiet-time read before I offer feedback. Once I do that, I will send you the first three scenes of my latest.
S!
S!
ETA: send in word, rtf or if you do google docs, you can share that way and I can put my comments in like red. Whatever your preference is- I don't know how to do the track changes thing where it just has little notes on the side though.
[This message has been edited by TamesonYip (edited May 21, 2010).]
Goals for next week, continued over from last week:
1) Write up article reviews for students
2) Outline more and devise my POA on Mudlarks
3) Revise WotF entry
Sorry to hear about your grandmother.
I did nothing this week, but I have been sick and all my kids are sick, so I am proud just to have survived the week.
Next week's goals: Write everyday and finish at least one chapter.
I finally squeezed a synopsis into about 675 words. It's tough because my Panix novel has an 'active' plot.
quote:
Well, I took the plunge. 9 emailed queries tonight. I've got 24 agents on my query list. 15 to go.
Congratulations!
My advice now is to wait until you hear back from at least some of those agents. That way, if the query letter isn't working, you have a chance to revise it before sending it out to the next batch.
Axe