The Void

Another shot sent out into the void... but it helps to focus me.

Okay, I've finished one of the three novels I wanted to finish this year. I'm slamming through a second one, but it's an academic exercise. Even once finished, I won't be excited by it.

What to do for a third project, before Wrimo? I'm not sure.

But I remain optimistic. I'm going to try to sell a project I haven't finished. Lots of publishers recomend this. They'd love to have more input on how you build your manuscript. They want a hand in the pot. Write the first three chapters, and have to, sir, have to!

That'll put me up to four different items out to different places. That... ought to hold me. Perhaps forever.

Salability

Every writer knows the feeling of having a manuscript out to a publisher. That nerve-wracking feeling that you're on trial. That somebody has your brain open, somewhere, and is reading it.

Take that to the power of three.

That's right, I've brought three different, very varied, exceptionally niche-worthy manuscripts to the point 0f being polished enough to send out... and they're all out.

To say I'm on pins and needles is an understatement. I'm writhing in torment and agony.

What kind of novels? An epic science fiction action novel, at roughly 250,000 words.

A not-so-epic fantasy novel.

A tragically urban pop culture/horror/gothic novel. (that one should blow your mind)

These three have everything in common, and nothing. They're united in feel, in a uniqueness of perspective. They have nothing in common in setting or even in timeline.

My pride is dwarfed only by my fear.

Nonfiction

I just bit off the biggest bite yet. I started writing something that was neither fiction, nor entirely fun. Something without parallel in my writing career.

Something new.

Something awesome.

I started writing a book that wasn't fiction. A book that wasn't fantasy, or science fiction. A book that draws out truth and wisdom and tries to show it to the whole world.

This may require a pseudonym...

This is scary. Writing fiction means making up your own rules. Don't like the ending? Write a new one. Writing nonfiction means having to figure out the way it is, and telling it that way.

Scary.

Later, an update on just how many manuscripts I've written and am currently trying to get published....

Back in Black

Nearly a year after my last post, and I pop to life. Hello AGAIN, world.

Anticlimatic.

My blog fell by the wayside while I was off having a life and dealing with other things. But it's always helped me to say out loud (or type) the things that matter; and rereading my own blog post, I remembered some of my own plots and plans and diabolical agendas.

Anyway, an update:

I've finished another novel, and I'm sending it out to a publisher soon. Yay.

I participated in another Nanowrimo, and I genre-jumped. HARD.

I became technical lead on a huge project that required time and commitment.

I brought home two adorable kitty-cats.

Sweet, eh?

Here's my plan; 2009 is the year I'll finish at least two writing projects. Possibly three. These writing projects will be sent out to different publishers. I.e., I want very badly for something I've written to be published. I'll settle for a tiny piece of the pie. I'll settle for a few hundred copies sold. But I'd like to know that what I'm doing isn't entirely crap.

Subtext; I suspect what I'm doing is crap, even though those who have read it say it isn't. I suspect most writers think this of their own work. I find it difficult to acknowledge my own strong points, and easy to find my errors and weaknesses.

Well, later this week I'll post about my most recent projects, and the impacts of sociology on my writing.