Writing for the Love

For a long, long, long time, I've been working on an an epic fantasy novel called Livinity . There are older posts on this blog about my past progress. The unpublished manuscript even won an award in 2011. And yet, it still needed work. The latest round of edits involved splitting my 142K word novel into two books. One of the main reasons for that was the fact that I struggled to draw attention from agents/publishers with that huge word count, especially for a first book. With great, often eye-opening, feedback from my critique group, I worked on deepening characterization, adding tension, and enriching the other world setting--just a few of the things that needed work. I spent a lot of time editing, adding content, editing, adding content all while trying to anticipate where to split the novel in half. Something happened in the midst of all that writing and editing. My word count was climbing faster than I expected. I quickly realized that I might end up with a trilogy. Ye...

UPDATE 12/20/14: Little Angel Helper has been published in the Kindle Store and is no longer available to read on my blog. Click HERE to view it on Amazon. Original blog: I'm happy to report that I've done lots of writing lately. My focus has been deep editing two different novels ( Livinity and Sprinter ). I've gotten about 70,000 words edited (including added scenes) in the first book of Livinity , and anticipate that after about 30,000 more, I'll be ready to start the submission process again. Send, receive rejection, repeat. All while working on the second book. I changed the opening for Sprinter once, and I may do it again, so that novel is hard to calculate word-wise at this point. Every once in a while, I'll write and send out a short story. When I get a rejection (not if), I'll edit the short story and send it out again. Currently, I have about five stories submitted. Over at the Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine , a podcast where one of my s...

Just wanted to give a brief update on my days now that I'm an at-home writer for anyone who might be curious. Mon Edit Livinity Tues Edit Sprinter Weds Edit Livinity Thurs Edit Sprinter Fri Edit Livinity Random writing (ie short stories) A very generic, not comprehensive picture of how I spend each day, but a general idea of what I'm trying to get done. For a while, my focus had been deep editing Livinity , my epic fantasy novel turned trilogy. The process is slow. Many people ask me if I'm finished, and it probably doesn't make sense when I have to explain that I'm not. THE END is certainly written, and has been since 2008. But many years later, I'm redrafting yet again to make this the best book that it can be. Sometimes ideas for Sprinter interrupted my edits (women's inspirational fiction that I had set aside). Then I realized it might be fun to go back and forth between the two. And it is. Spri...

I'm happy to announce that my short story, "The Wheels Must Turn," made it into this year's FWA Collection #4- My Wheels . Praise the Lord! This is the third year in a row that I've gotten a story into the colletion and I'm still excited about it. Publication doesn't really get old. The sci-fi story is about a young narrator coming to grips with the death of her father. On to other topics that have been on my mind. For some reason, I can't seem to write about my writing more than once a month. I'm not sure if it matters or not. I write on my running blog, The Anti-Running Runner , more. I write on my fiction novels and short stories WAY more. Which is probably the reason why. I listen to podcasts a lot (another reason why?), and I was introduced to The Roundtable Podcast from the guys over at The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine . If you are a writer, published or not, I highly recommend adding Roundtable to your iTunes subscriptions (it...

If I do nothing, the most predictable thing will happen. Nothing. I can write in my journals, at my computer, create stories and novels all day long. But only when I send them out into the world will anything happen with them. Otherwise, they are just for me. It makes me happy to write, and maybe that is enough. I don't have to have validation through other people to be satisfied about my writing. However, my goal has always been to write books that other people can read. I've got a start. I have two short stories published in FWA collections. I have my first paid short story publication coming out in March 2013. I have two completed novels, and lots of completed short stories. I realize that I have been letting the rejections come in without sending the stories back out as quickly. It's hitting me how behind I am in the submitting process. I believe it takes hard work to be a published writer. Technically, I am a published wr...

"Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return..." Luke 12: 35-36 So much about the publication process (rather, attempting to get into the publication process) is about waiting. Even while waiting, I want to be persistent. If I simply wait for answers from the agent on my novel (or a literary magazine on a short story) before moving forward with either the same story (sequel, for example) or other stories, I could make myself go crazy. Why haven't they replied to my email? Did they even get the manuscript? How long should I wait before querying to make sure they haven't forgotten me or misplaced my email? Instead of focusing on those thoughts, and they can plague me at times, I am working on other stories. Yes, I work full time and have animals at home to take care of and books to read and plenty of other things to keep me distracted. But writing other pieces and submitting ...

On Tuesday, I technically finished my novel, Sprinter . I still have editing to do over the next eight days for my pitch at the FWA Conference, but I'm very excited to finally have the story done. The editing will involve tightening up sentences, making sure I don't have loose ends that I left unresolved, and grammar checks. The story as it is will not likely change unless, in the future, an editor/agent/publisher who wants the book recommends it. I'd like to think I'm open to an editor's judgment. I have had the vision of the entire novel in my head for about two and a half years now. When it first came to me, I created a broad outline detailing beginning, middle and end. With the novel complete, I am happy with how the story reads. The trick--will an agent agree? About the book...my pitch in a nutshell: A thirty-six year-old woman named Riley lives an angry and embittered existence fourteen years after Darlene Sprinter, her mother, is murdered at the...

Have you ever been convinced that an idea you came up with wasn’t actually yours? In my case, I believe that God provided the idea for a novel that I intend to complete. As I said in my very first blog, I have been writing on the fantasy novel I entitled Livinity for eight years. In the meantime, other story ideas have to come to mind, but beyond writing brief descriptions, I virtually ignored those ideas. I felt that if I didn’t focus on Livinity alone, I wouldn’t be able to accomplish my goal of publication. Although determination and discipline are factors that can aid my goal, there are other factors as well. For example, marketability. While at the FWA conference, I learned that in this difficult economic time, fantasy and other genre novels by new authors are not necessarily in a good position to be published. Not impossible, but also not likely. After the conference, I was encouraged to do something I had planned not to do: work on another story while simultaneously...