Apocalypse is ready for querying, but I’m going to sit on it for a while, until I know what’s happening with Prodigies. If Prodigies gets accepted by either DAW or the remaining agent on my list, it changes the whole dynamic.
I’m thinking positive. My good Germanic role models on my mother’s side of the family would discourage my positive thinking. The Koenig family motto is “Don’t look forward to anything; you might be disappointed.” The problem with this, though, is that all that time I’m not looking forward to a positive outcome doesn’t make the rejection any easier, and in fact, prolongs the misery.
Optimism always makes me worry that I might be hypomanic; as someone with Bipolar 2, this is not an idle worry. But I’m not being kept awake by disparate thoughts linking with each other like boxcars in a railyard, so maybe this is true optimism.
So I wait.
Tag: Apocalypse
Writing in Beaver Dam WI
Another day at Higher Grounds in Beaver Dam having just finished another three hours of writing. I’m at 14 hours out of 30 for Camp NaNo July, and I’m at least getting more words for Gaia’s Hands. I think it’s going to go through another dev edit because it deserves it and it’s now a much different book.
Richard has just gone through a line edit of Apocalypse, which means a couple fixes and it’s ready to go into Query Mode. It’s a very different book than the one that failed in querying. I think I’ve grown a lot from when that was the second (and third) book I’ve written.
One thing I’ve discovered: Nobody’s impressed that I’m a writer. I’m secretly amused by this, because there’s this part of me who dreams of impressing people. In reality, it’s “Oh, you’re a writer? You’re not published yet? Have you tried children’s books?” I have nothing bad to say about children’s books, but unless they involve ancient lore, preternatural bad guys, and the reincarnation of King — Oh, sorry, that’s Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising sequence. Loved that stuff.
I stay optimistic, maybe because I’ve won one short story contest and been a runner-up in another. (I’ve been rejected by three times this many zines and contests, though).
Sunday: Classical music and tea
I’m late today — just warming up for today’s reading/tweaking of Apocalypse. My last thorough pass-through, I hope. I plan to get halfway through the second half of the book; all the way through if my eyes don’t start to bleed (that’s meant figuratively; don’t panic.)
I don’t like the phrase ‘warming up’ on days like this because it’s dangerously hot this weekend in Missouri. Like 100 degrees hot. I haven’t even gone to work at the cafe this weekend because that’s too hot for me to go outside in. (Ok, fine, I could go outside in it but that much heat makes me lazy.)
The drink du jour is Ten Ren No. 913 King’s Oolong/Ginseng tea, a good solid Taiwanese tea a friend of mine gave me. It’s amazingly refreshing hot tea. My frumpy calico cat Girlie-Girl (of the six, the one most attached to me) sits on the couch right behind me, cleaning herself.
Playing on the stereo: Concerto in A Major, Bach. In my life, Sunday mornings lend themselves to leisure and tea/coffee and classical music in a room cluttered with hobbies and cats.
Updates June 28, 2019
I’ve been raising the stakes on the final battle in Apocalypse, and there’s a body count. I could be done with the big revisions by end of Saturday, and then there’s a big read-through for flow, continuity, and things I forgot to tweak.
The book has become quite dark, but that’s to be expected given that it’s the freaking Apocalypse. I’m hoping it’s improved. I’m hoping it turns out really good.
I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to maintain the daily entry but I wrote my first piece of flash fiction yesterday.
Not much else to say — I have five submissions out (including Prodigies) and didn’t get any rejections yesterday.
Talk to you later!
I feel like a murderer.
This edit of Apocalypse is a bit harder than I thought. I need to make our unlikely heroes more unlikely, and by that I mean they need to struggle more. They need to be less successful.
More of them, in other words, need to die.
I don’t like killing characters. Not because of sentiment; I would kill major characters if I didn’t need them for the plot. I’m just bad at writing death.
But my dev editor is very, very correct. This battle is going to have to be stacked against my protagonists and people are going to have to die.
What I’m up to
What I’ve been up to lately:
Yesterday I wasn’t feeling it — at least not feeling like revising Gaia’s Hands or trying to figure out if another old book, Gaia’s Eyes, was worth resurrecting (as a short story, novel, birdcage liner, who knows what.)
So I entered a couple short story contests and a flash essay contest. I always feel more optimistic when I have things in the pipeline, whether they be queries or submissions. I still don’t know about DAW. I keep hoping.
I got the dev edit back for Apocalypse, and my work is cut out for me there. But it’s so promising now, and I want to get it in the hands of an agent. I’ll be proofing that starting today after I give platelets (or instead of platelets if my hemoglobin is low).
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I have a problem with this blog right now. I keep getting visits from some Eastern European porn site blog. The one time I thought I’d isolated it, it was from Ukraine. The sad thing is, I get random hits now from other Eastern European countries like Moldova and Asian countries like Azerbaijan (sp?). I’m afraid these addresses aren’t real and are being spoofed by the porn vendor. Sigh, time for that marketing plan. (Although I’m likely to wait till I have product.)
Excited about Editing
I really want to get done with my work today (readings for online class, taking the Introduction to National Incident Management System course and exam, driving to Kansas City, visiting an intern). I REALLY want to get done with my work today.
I’m very excited about where Gaia’s Hands is going.
I knew there was something wrong with it before, but I didn’t know what. But after editing Apocalypse and understanding that it got into the plot too quickly, I realized that Gaia’s Hands needed buildup in the early chapters as well, but in its case, the beginning meandered and the plot appeared out of nowhere.
So I’m excited about the editing. I’m excited about seeing what is possible for the book now that I have a handle on editing. There’s going to be a bit of editing.
But I’m looking forward to editing.
My routine is anything but.
Back from the conference, and back to my routine —
No. I have to go to Kansas City for intern visits on Wednesday and Thursday. Hope to find some time to hole up and write some more and —
OMG! I forgot to tell you! I figured out how to fix up what was wrong with Gaia’s Hands!
Interestingly, it was the same thing wrong with Apocalypse — not enough of a ramp-up. This time, however, there was too little going on at the beginning — a lull — rather than a too short ramp-up and there’s the battle. So there’s a long-overdue revision.
Richard and I laid out the revision of the first part of the book (other parts need revising but not whole chapter rewrites) and the challenge of course will be time, energy, and patience.
Wish me luck.
Rewriting another novel
I finished my rewrite of Apocalypse, and currently I don’t have enough distance from it to look at it objectively anymore, which is why it will go back to dev edit shortly.
So where does that leave me relative to writing? I can either start a new book, figure out what to do with the idea for Gods’ Seeds (I’m struggling with that — there’s so much I want to do that it could be two books, my usual problem) or I could look over the post dev edit on Gaia’s Hands and see if I can feel better about it.
I’ve decided to work on Gaia’s Hands. If (when?) I get Apocalypse published, Gaia’s Hands would be a prequel. As such, I’d like to get it polished while I have the time to and before I come up with any other bright ideas. Whose Hearts are Mountains, which still needs a developmental edit, would be the next novel after that.
Yes, I have a plan. All I need is for the stars to align so that I can actually get something published. If you pray, put in a good word for me.
Every which way
I’m sitting on my couch, before the day’s meetings and errands and editing (and no gardening as we’re on a flood warning with rain expected. My mind is going every which way:
- So much to do these next couple days — meet students, prep for conference, plant stuff, write, prep for conference …
- I am in a holding pattern for Making Things Happen. I don’t want to requery Prodigies until my dev editor has another shot at it (in June), I don’t know if I want to requery (this is now a word) Voyageurs at all (don’t know if it’s viable), can’t get re-written Apocalypse to the dev editor till June … when I send queries out, I get out of my funk because of this concept of possibility. I’m not really looking at any possibilities right now except for one big long shot.
- I think I’m going to be rejected by TSA precheck. I don’t know why, unless it was those anti-war protests I participated in during the Gulf War or the guy I dated, equally long ago, whose father was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. Or the fact that I’m a Quaker, or that I have a metal bar in my left leg that guarantees I’ll be patted down like a terrorist. The website says “Eligibility Determined” but does not give me a code number.
- I’m pretty sure my last query out is going to be rejected. As I said, I shot big with that one.
- I’m not feeling good about my writing lately. I hear this happens.
- It’s just feeling like an unlucky day. My mood needs to be kicked in the butt, I’m sure, but not sure how to do that. The problem with feeling down is that feelings are so vivid that they take on the weight of truth.
Words Like Me 