Thursday, March 1, 2018

Continuing to Hope

I'm obviously not that great at remembering to post anything, but I have great news! I spoke with a dear friend who took that accountability thing to a new level. She is AMAZING! I started getting up with her (though she lives very far from me) at 5:30 in the morning. We spend time reading the Bible and working on writing stuff. I was convinced it would be a terrible idea. I've never worked well in the morning, but I've gotten a ton of editing done so far! When I posted at the new year, I was probably a third of the way through the edits and stuck. I am now just several chapters away from having this edit finished!!!! (I'm stuck a bit again, but I feel confident now rather than defeated.)

I'm hoping that I will have this book out to Beta Readers sometime this month! Which means I need to start the daunting task of looking for Agents to submit it to. I have a few ideas, but I have to do research or something. It's a bit daunting.

Once I have this book to Beta Readers, I'm going to start the first edit of the scifi chapter book and get that ready for my Crit Group. I'm still planning to work on the edits to my YA novel after that, but I might take a break from editing for a little while first. I've started writing the YA scifi, but haven't made a ton of progress (about a chapter). I'm still feeling around for her voice, I think.

So, overall a pretty good two months since last time. I'm excited about being able to post that I've finally finished (for the fourth time) this MG story! Until next time, Alissa :)

Sunday, January 7, 2018

New Year, New...Something

It's honestly been so long since I've posted here that I almost don't remember how. I last posted a little over a year ago, but in reality it's been almost two whole years since I've posted regularly. I have an innate desire to apologize, but I'm not sorry. Taking that time off was important. Unfortunately, my time off didn't give me an over-abundance of time to work on my writing. Or, more accurately, I didn't use my time off as well as I'd hoped in that area.

That's not entirely accurate. I'm being too hard on myself. I don't remember where I was when I signed off, but I have finished my upper Middle Grade novel and I'm on my third edit of it. (Edits are HARD!) Once I'm finished with this edit, I'll send it to a plethora of beta readers then research agents! So, yay! That's a thing I've done.

I've also written the first draft of a younger Middle Grade novel--more chapter book size--and have plans to edit that as soon as the other one is finished. That will go through a first round of my critique group, and we'll see what it needs from there. So, yay! I did that too!

I have started three other novels, all Young Adult, and have them in various stages of partial first draft. Very partial. One is a SciFi, one a Fantasy, and one...something else (fiction? contemporary? It defies classification--which is not good for marketing...). I have written on each of the projects since I last posted, so yay! Another thing I've done!

So, here's the thing. I'm not a planner. At all. Goals kind of stress me out. But, I need some accountability. So I'm going to state the things I'd like to get done, and post updates here about what I accomplish. That's kind of a boring blog, so I won't go spreading it around anywhere, but just writing here will hopefully give me the accountability I need.

I want to finish the edits to three of my novels this year--the three that are complete.

I want to finish writing the first draft to three novels this year--the previously mentioned partials.

I want to find an agent. (I acknowledge that this step is not entirely in my control, but I will pursue this course steadfastly once I have a novel ready.)

I want to read a bunch of books off of my TBR list. My Goodreads goal is 52 books, but my actual goal is to clear at least the top shelf of my TBR bookshelf. I'll always pick up the exciting new book and I'll always read the well loved old books again, but I need to make progress on these books that have been sitting here for way too long. They include writing advice books, non-fiction books, inspirational books, and fiction books for all ages. I want to read a variety.

I think that's it. Well, I want to clean off my desk. That should be a thing that happens. Really, there are a whole ton of things I want to do that are non-writing-related like exercise more and clean/organize the house and such. I'll leave those goals for now, but they might show up on here with me chatting about them--amorphous as they are.

That's enough for now. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks for keeping me accountable to working toward these things. :)