All Work & No Play Makes Jen a Successful Writer...Eventually...

Funny thing about writers: for all our creativity, we are (generally speaking) an INSANELY self-doubting bunch, always focusing on what we HAVEN'T done, or HAVEN'T accomplished and seldom focusing on all the great things we HAVE achieved. I'm as guilty of this as any writer (more so, in fact) and so I decided to do a post to recognize all the effort I've put into my writing this year.  Are these accomplishments?  HELL YES, even if half the stuff doesn't involve an actual publication!  I think this list will give non-writers some idea of how just much work goes into being a writer, and will hopefully prompt my writer friends to jot down their own activities and give themselves a little fist bump for their awesomeness.  So, here goes:

Novels:
I recently started beating myself up for not writing any new novels this year.  Then I realized I've edited a total of SIX novels since January 1st.  

• Seiokana (fantasy, 85K, 2nd novel in the BREAKSHIELD series): Soup to nuts smoothing edit, plus about three rounds of major and minor edits with my publisher. Published 20 August 2015.
• Reaper (fantasy, 115K, 3rd novel in the BREAKSHIELD series): 'hard' edit to condense, correct and clarify text plus second smoothing edit. Delivered to publisher, to be released in Spring/Summer 2016. 
• Bimiangus (light horror/weird, 53K, stand alone novel): Soup to nuts smoothing edit, plus about three rounds of major and minor edits with my publisher. I'm especially proud of this one since I stepped outside my normal sci-fi and fantasy comfort zone to write it. To be released October 2015.
• Serengeti (sci-fi, 85K, stand alone novel): 'hard' edit to smooth, address beta reader comments, expand on some areas, clarify others and add in a few bonus scenes, plus second smoothing edit. Currently querying.
• SimSim (sci-fi, 95K, stand alone novel): MAJOR tear down and rebuild based on R&R from agent, plus follow-on smoothing edit. Currently querying.
• Eddy the Yeti and the Pirates of Blitzkrieg Blizzard Bay (MG fantasy adventure, 53K, stand alone novel): Soup to nuts editing based on beta reader comments. I have NEVER written MG before (this book came about as the result of a dare from my friend and fellow writer, Kate Shaw) and it was much harder than I anticipated. But it's silly, ridiculous and fun, and I can't wait to write another book with these characters. Currently querying

Do the math on all that and you'll see I've edited, rewritten (and in some cases re-edited and re-re-written) 486K worth of wonderful words since 1 January  2015--and remember, I work full time so this is all work done in the evening and on weekends.  So. Not too shabby, eh?  Honestly, it's an enormous amount of work, especially the R&R for SimSim which (sadly) has gone unanswered since resubmitting to the requesting agent. Unfortunately, them's the breaks. My writer friends will understand it--the publishing business is a cruel mistress, after all.

Oh, and if anyone is interested, I've sent out 50+ queries between SimSim (which I've primarily been querying), Serengeti and Eddy, so add queries and synopses to that writing total.  I HATE QUERIES AND SYNOPSES! Most of the responses so far have been polite rejections or the dreaded 'no response', but to-date I've gotten four full requests and two partials on SimSim and a full and a partial on Serengeti. There's something there, I've just gotta find the right agent to recognize it. :)

Short Stories:
Short stories are how we authors get our 'little wins' while waiting for that big novel break. They typically don't pay much but it's amazing how one little short story sale can fuel an author's creative drive for months on end. 

Sales: 

• Monkeyshines (a Crowhammer Chronicles story) to Niteblade Magazine
  

Submitted:

• Mr. Kandassian's Mystical Menagerie (a Crowhammer Chronicles story)

• Tubalation (a Crowhammer Chronicles story)

• Foggsbottom Flyer
• The Key to a Clockwork Heart

New Stories Written:

• Tubalation (a Crowhammer Chronicles story)

• The Fox and the Djinn (based on characters from the BREAKSHIELD series, exclusive content for TZPP Books website to be released in October 2015)

I actually wish I'd gotten the chance to write more short stories this year and hope to pry a few loose from my brain before the end of the year.  I've also got an idea for a novella that's been kicking around inside my skull for a while so maybe I'll get that done before Christmas.  And if I'm very, very fortunate, one or two of those stories in the 'submitted' section will move up to the 'sales' section.

Other/Miscellaneous:
I haven't posted to my own blog as much as I should (I'M SO SORRY, YOU POOR NEGLECTED BLOG!) but I did complete two special, guest posts for my publisher that you can find here and here.  Normally I wouldn't mention blog posts since they're kind of par for the course, but these two were a bit more...creative than usual, so I thought they were worth noting.

So, that's it at a macro level, along with marketing for my two books (Breakshield and Seiokana, of course). Not a huge list, but I'll tell you this little list has consumed an absolute TON of my time. I recently submitted SimSim and Serengeti to Hodderscape as part of their open submissions period so maybe that will garner same late year interest. In the meantime, I'll keep querying, and keep hoping there's an agent out there that loves my stories as much as I do.