Argh

Too many writing projects wanting my attention, plus I was distracted into reading a long and interesting MS (and then arguing about it).

Discipline, I need it.

Still, worked out the 'next action' on Wellspring, which has been sitting on the back-burner for a while. And, re-reading the last chapter, was very much enjoying one Duran, of beautiful voice and butterfly attention level.

Revising Revising

Having read so much advice about the acceptability of multiple querying, I've decided to slowly add to ongoing queries. There are many useful blogs around and I've been following links all over the place and have revised my query letter slightly.

Solid progress on Wellspring after a difficult last chapter. Action scenes are much easier to write than dramah. Ideas for Sleeping Life keep percolating in the background as well, but I want to stick to Wellspring until I hit a solid roadblock.

Forward Momentum

My train trip to and from the city - isolated as I am from the internet - is a very productive time for me. Wellspring, my "magic as a non-transportable commodity" piece, is taking off and I've worked out what I want to happen for the first half of the novel. I also dinked Stained Glass Monsters, making subtle adjustments to the relationship development to emphasise the continuing hurdles.

As usual when I turn my attention to the publishing aspect of being a writer, I'm gripped by impatience and torn between what I consider polite submission behaviour (submitting to one agent at a time) and what is widely advised (submitting to many agents at once). I'm distracting myself by continuing to research the current state of writing and submitting. There's a great deal more quality information out there these days, and some very interesting agent blogs.

So far I've discovered that there's a much slower market for high fantasy than there was back when I last pushed for publication. Which is a pity, since I rarely write anything else, and I suspect there's even less of a market for space naga smut, which is the only non-high fantasy thing I've worked on recently. Many agents who include fantasy in their genres really mean urban fantasy, which I've never been inclined to write even if I planned to jump on a bandwagon which has already almost passed. Nor am I drawn to steampunk, no matter how fabulous I think "Girl Genius" is.

I also discovered an agent blog that listed things required before submitting to an agent and as well as the obvious (complete manuscript and query letter) included a web site. How fortunate that I only recently created one! A web site has always been on the horizon, but it seemed egotistical to create one before I had any books available. But my deadline and the resolution to take publishing seriously conveniently pushed me ahead and I'll be maintaining it whatever the year brings.

The Google Spiders haven't found the site yet, so I don't pop up as a result - ironic given that Google now owns Blogger.

I get a kick typing andreakhost.com. That won't go away in a hurry.