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Last week I officially started sending out queries for my epic fantasy novel Under the Darkened Moon.  I started by selecting five literary agents and sent them all queries.  I followed their submission guidelines and sent what they requested, whether it was just a query, a query plus a synopsis, or a query plus a synopsis plus sample pages.

A couple days later I got my first official rejection.  It was a rejection based only on a query letter and a synopsis and not the actual story itself, but a rejection none-the-less.  Now I am looking at my set of next five lit agents to send letters to. Read more…

There are just some things I simply don’t believe.  For example, someone with 100,000 followers, but who only follows 1,000 people him/her self, on Twitter chooses to follow me.  Ok, I really would like to think I am that interesting.  Really, I would.  Maybe I am.  But I’ve been to this rodeo enough to know how it is going to play out. Read more…

I was brainstorming some ideas for my short story, “The Yoke”, last night and originally had an idea for a possible sequel. I know, a sequel to a story that is only halfway through its first, rough draft? Not only halfway through its initial stages but also a project that is right now #4 on my list of four projects? How presumptuous!

But that is the way I write. While I have a focus, I tend to jump around.

But as I developed that idea in my head and furthered it today it was apparent that the good ideas I was coming up with did not really fit into that world. So I have decided to open a new project which will be called “Wyvern Lord“. I have a couple pages of notes that I will be expanding and working from as I get this new project underway.

I will be updating the project page over the next couple days.

The past couple days I have been taking a break from working on the actual texts of any of my current story projects. This break has mostly been driven by a lack of inspiration on how to progress on each of these projects. Although “The War Within” is ready for some polishing, I do not want to jump right into it. I want to get some separation from that story before I get into the minutia of editing.

Rather than write for the sake of writing, something that tends to frustrate me, I have stepped back and been catching my breath. However, to stop from getting stale and out of routine I have committed myself to coming up with story prompts for potential future stories. The past three days I have come up with at least four prompts each day and looking at them I was actually well pleased with each of them. The list is quite long and should provide fertile ideas for the next year.

This morning before work I also sketched out the final couple chapters of “Dark Moon” in a bullet point format. That initial sketch to wrap up the story looks good as well. Now it just needs to be translated into the story.

It is good to keep busy as a writer. I don’t like not working at least an hour each day on at least one of my projects. Losing momentum seems like a real possibility any day that goes by where I don’t do something writing-wise.

I started years ago trying to write a novel and worked at it well for several months but then slowly and surely I started to focus on other pursuits and abandoned that project about halfway through it. Maybe if I can find that old novel I should dust it off as well.

I just don’t want to get too many projects on my plate at once.

So I have been sitting down the past couple days and have come up with a bunch of information for my fantasy world. I’ve laid down a lot of important things such as how long the year is, what types of magic exist, the size of the world in question, a back story that sets up why there is the conflict that there is, the pantheon of deities and I even came up with a basic story plot based on all this.

But what started happening actually surprised me a little. I sat down to do some free writing and now, 75 pages and 19,000 words later, I actually have the start of a full blown novel! Not the short story I intended to write!

Bear with me while I grunt in frustration. Ugh! Read more…